Beyond any expectations!

Kevin had his latest mappings yesterday and today. We still split the mappings in 2 day, one for each ear. It is so much less stressful on everyone and we seem to get better sound booth results when Kevin isn't at his wits end from sitting and testing for 3+ hours. This was his first mapping in which was 6 months from his last one. Before that, they were every 3 months. I'm very excited that neither of his maps changed very much. That means that his hearing is stabilizing and he shouldn't have very many fluctuations in the future. His audiogram was fantastic! He is hearing bascially 10-20db across the board with one frequency at 25db. Our audi warned us that they usually don't like CI kids to hear at 10db with his low frequency because it means that all sounds might be too loud for him. For instance, the hum of a computer might sound the same as someone talking. Kevin has never seemed to have a problem with this, but she turned his map 'down' to account for this. After changing his map, he still tested at 10db. I guess he just is really in tune with these sounds! The funny thing is that he tested to 10db on both sides!

Now for the really exciting news! Because Kevin is a pretty mature child and has great language skills, she decided to test his listening skills in the booth where she gives him random sentences and he needs to repeat them. She said that they usually don't think about giving this test until a child is at least 4. Kevin isn't even 3 yet. Kevin is very helpful with all testing, so she thought she would give it a try. I forget the name of this test, but the audi reads a random sentence while covering her mouth so Kevin can't lip read and Kevin needs to repeat the sentence back. With his right ear, he did this with 92% accuracy and his left ear had 98% accuracy!!! Wow!!!! What this signifies is that Kevin's auditory memory skills are incredible and that he is really listening, hearing, and confidently accepting what he thinks he hears. These sentences were completely out of context and used a pretty high vocabulary. The test used words that we don't use everyday like 'dishcloth', 'soaking', etc. Needless to say, I am pretty ecstatic right now at how well Kevin is doing. How can 2 years make such a difference in our lives? If anyone is reading this that is just starting their CI journey, please keep your faith. Your child will be fine and in a few years, I bet you won't be able to keep your kid quiet either!!!

Changing the rules?

I think we are doomed... Kevin is already starting to manipulate things to go his way through conversation at the tender age of 2 years and 10 months. This is how our conversation at dinner went tonight...
Kevin: Trying to get down from the chair without eating anything... after about 40 minutes at the table. A normal night for us.
Mom: 'Kevin, you know how it goes. You can't get down until you eat a bite of chicken. That's the rule.
Kevin: 'No, I get down now. That's my rule.
Mom and Dad: trying hard not to laugh and admiring that our deaf son is telling us his own rules.
He continued to banter back and forth with Dad... ultimately we won. It was really a funny conversation, though! Maybe he'll be a lawyer...