4th Anniversary for her "ears"

This February 13th we will be celebrating Mollie's 4th year of having her "ears".  This was Mollie preparing for the Murfreesboro Xmas parade 2011 as a baton twirler.

January 2012

Hello All -

Wanted to add a new post as it seems I have been sharing Mollie's blog a little bit more these days. I feel so good that I have been able to be of help to other Mom's in regards to having a child who is deaf and been implanted. There is so much that has happened in the last 6 1/2 years with this little girl and well with all of us really.

Now that I have had some time to reflect about the past few years, I feel I have a different perspective...

We are now at the second 1/2 of our 2nd round of Kindergarten and wow has this little girl grown up. As you can see by her big girl looks and her missing tooth. She is well into her 6th year of life. I feel as if all the hard work of the past is really starting to show up this past year. First, we have a great Kindergarten teacher at Siegel Elementary, Ms. Newman. Secondly, the school has provided for a Red Cats system and an FM system for Mollie. These items provide surround sound for Mollie as well as for the children in her class. Oh, I forgot to mention - she is in a typical general ed. class. The FM system clips into her new ears - Cochlear Nucleus 5's and allows her to use the computer and to hear all over the building better vs. just the classroom. For example in music, library, gym, etc. she can hear so much more. Finally, she has a great speech teacher (Tracy Harris) and a deaf educator (Debbie Lock) who work with her almost everyday to make sure she is getting all that she needs.

So with all this, Mollie scored top in her class as well as in the 96% percentile for the state AIMS test - which is comparing her to her peers. How about that!!! All this thanks goes to her, Mama Lere folks, her special speech therapist and well me too.

What I have discovered now that she is in Kindergarten and away from me all day now, is that I am not so involved in her learning or her day anymore. My arm does not reach all the way to school once she walks out the door. So, in a sense, I am redefining myself and my role as well as she is.

I told another Mom the other day this fact. Since Mollie has done so well, and the fact that she wears her hair over her ears (so that you do not see her external devices)and she speaks so well, I am no longer in a position of having to explain her handicap anymore. Of course I still fret about her on the playground and damaging her devices or losing one. But the fact is ... she is so attached to them, she has really become one with them and responsible for them. We even let her keep her charging system in her room now, she brings them down and puts them together in the morning and puts them on herself.

We are still struggling with the social aspect - she still has not made a good friend, friendship at school in which we can swap playdates etc. We do have a friend in the neighborhood who we have only seen a couple of times. But she has not yet developed a friendship here in Murfreesboro in which she just cannot bear to be without. It seems to me that Madison (our oldest) had a very best friend at the age of 6. So for this I am sad, but not for lack of trying on our part.

This past Fall we enrolled Mollie in Cindy's Cinderellas an after school program with baton, dance etc. She did very well, it was just Mommy who wasn't very happy with the set up of the organization. So we will keep working on it. I am thinking about the swim team for her, as she loves the water so. Her brother Nate has started basketball, but due to the twin aspect we decided not to put her in with him because they each need there own sense of identity.

So, that is my post for now. Thanks for reading and I will post more at a later date.

How time has flown...

Was just reminded by my Dad that this blog was out there. I have so much to share and so many pictures to add. Alot of what I share now is on Facebook for those who might want to follow us and our progress. You can friend me at Khristi Bowman or All About The 'Boro'.

Since this last entry we now have a new residence in Murfreesboro, TN and Mollie is attending Kindergarten. We have mainstreamed her with a little modifications to help her manage her day. But she is right in the swing of things and is very smart, crafty and funny about her "ears".

Just this week her teacher shared with me that Mollie was not responding to her in class one day. She asked another child sitting next to Mollie to see why she might not be responding. He stated, "oh she doesn't have her ears on". He touched her and told her the teacher was talking to her. She promptly put her ears on. When the teacher asked her why she wasn't wearing her implants, Mollie stated, "Lucas was talking too much and annoying me so I took them off". Well I found this funny because she never stops talking. Thankfully her teacher found this quite funny since she sits at the table full of "talkers". Now I have to say we all should be able to have the ability to turn our "ears" off when we need to.

Anyways, just a funny to share for now. Will share more as the year goes on. He

January 2010 - My Bucket List - Reading in the toy bucket!

Okay, now I am totally disappointed in myself. I have let so much time go by and so much has happened in our crazy but fun lives. Life with 3 children, life with twins, turning 40 (Yikes),Madie turning 10 (double YIKES!!) and 3 different schools for 3 different personalities...need I say more!

I was online ordering some new components for Mollie's implants this a.m. and ran across a great blog of a Mom in Alabama who has two young children with implants. She has done such a great job of blogging, photographing and documenting her children's experiences with their implants. Having one child who is deaf is a lot of work, having two children, well I just send prayers out to her!

I have lots of pictures, stored on the computer (what is with this new technology)from the past year of 2009 and by golly I am going to download and document for Mollie's sake and my new years resolution.

So stay tuned folks. I do have to go get ready for church now...its 6:00 a.m. and have a full day of church stuff on board. See, I told you life is crazy around here.

1st Anniversary with my new "ears"

Friday, February 13th - we celebrated Mollie's 1st anniversary with her new "ears" at Mollie's school with Mimi in tow. We made sugar heart cookies and Mollie's class got to decorate with frosting and sprinkles. They also got to make Valentine Heart Door hangers for their Valentine's. But it was such a busy day that they headed off to parade around school to share Valentines. Mollie really loved saying Valentine and has learned the color red, she does not know the word for heart but she did really have fun making Valentines for her friends.

A few pictures were taken but they are on Mimi's camera so hopefully we can teach Mimi how to download them and put them out there so we can have a few for the blog.

The other pictures were taken at Aunty Debbie and Gary's house when we had a spurt of warm weather. Debbie saved a big box which the kids had fun cutting out and making a dog house for Charet. Poor Charet wanted nothing to do with it but the kids had fun and they played with a new friend Lauren who shares the same birthday as Mollie, Nate, Aunty Debbie and now Lauren - all May 25th! Ciao for now.

Almost A Year with My New Ears

Hello - well here we are - almost at our 1 year anniversary of Mollie's implant with her new ears. So much has happened and so much I have not documented and have intended to... but life with 3 children is full and busy.

Mollie will celebrate 1 year of hearing perfectly with her implants on February 13th. After last year's Valentines Day, I was never quite sure I would be happy about the holiday again. It was pretty tough putting Mollie through the surgery. But here we are a year later and she is quite possibly the "Poster Child" for a perfect bilateral cochlear implants surgery. Mollie has had great help the latter part of 2008 and beginning of 2009. She still attends the Mama Lere school. Her new therapist is Emily Byram - who was her Toddler Group teacher. Angela who was her first therapist had her baby and decided to be a "stay at home Mom". Her new teacher for preschool is Kelli and she has several other folks involved in her day, Katie, Jennifer and Alicia. All these teachers are wonderful and we are so blessed to see how much Mollie has achieved in such a short year.

Mollie has made new friends and kept some old ones too. In her class she has Isabella, Marketha, Henry, Najah, Hallie and Hunter. In her share with class she has Jeriah, Joshua, Claire and two new children I have not quite gotten to know yet. So she has quite a large preschool group. This year is very different for me because I am not in the classroom for circle time anymore or any of the day for that matter. She is a big girl now and spends 5 days a week at school. I take her to school but she now rides a bus home. Her busdriver is Ms. Betty and Mr. James and they adore her and she adores them and loves the bus. So really so much of her day occurs without me, which has been a change. I find myself spending more time with Nate this year as he only goes to school 3 days a week and we also attend speech for him one day a week for which I am involved with.

I will attach some pictures of Mollie and her friends as well as some of the celebrations they had throughout the end of last year. One big event that was so funny was their annual Christmas show. Mollie and her classmates were Santa's Reindeer and sang the cutest song, "Reindeer, Reindeer shake your fuzzy tail". I don't think I will ever in my life time forget that sweet sound of her voice and how funny -"fuzzy" came out. I had her sing it on our answering machine for the holidays because it was too cute. We would all drive around in the van and make Mollie sing and just laugh and laugh with her.

She has achieved so much in the last year. She now can say sentences that have up to 5 words in them, as our pediatrician proudly counted the other day. Might I add that she is especially good at tormenting her brother and telling him that "No Nate, timeout" if she does not like something he has done. The other thing I found funny is that she has learned to come tattle on her brother and sister. It starts off with, "Mommy, Madie - jibber, jibber, jibber, shiny back. Shiny stands for her bling bling or rather her rings that perhaps Madie decided to take away from her. She is also good at saying "help Mommy", "shoes on", "boots on", "what"...etc. Let's just put it this way, we never in our life thought we would tell our deaf child to "be quiet" for a moment. She likes to take your face in both her hands and turn your head to her face so that she knows you are paying attention to her. I also have to add that she can read lips very well, so now poor Bobby and I cannot spell out words (because Madie can spell) and we cannot mouth words across the room...because Mollie can read lips. So really, see no evil, speak no evil and hear no evil is a motto in our house.

The other great bit of news is that Mollie has graduated to wearing her full ears on her head without babyworn devices or cables. This is so great as she has learned to put on her own ears when they fall off and she is soooo good at telling us when they - "are not working" as she tells us with quite a bit of drama. She does not like to be without her ears.

The only tough times we seem to have are going to the playground and having to take off her ears, or when we go to Pump It Up to play. We have not tried the movie theatre either as we are afraid the loudness of the movies would hurt her ears. We are noticing now that outside of her school environment it is challenging to establish friendships as Nate and Madie are able to. It is still a different world for Mollie and we will have many challenges along the way.

Madie the big sister is in 3rd grade this year and doing well. She reads at a 5th grade level and is now practicing multiplication and using the computer for PowerPoint projects!!! Amazing to me as I did not learn to use the Power Point until college. My how technology moves our society along.

I have updated to hopefully help some parents who use this blog as a tool to understand the progress that Mollie has made with her ears.

Thanks for being a part of our journey.