Good-bye Annie

We just found out that Kevin's beloved audiologist is leaving for another job. Tomorrow will be Kevin's last mapping appt. with her. I am soooo sad about this! I have felt this enormous safety net under Kevin for the past 2.5 years because of his awesome team of surgeon, audi, and speech teacher. I am just a little shaken about how this will affect Kevin and how long it will take to regain the trust of a new audiologist. I guess I will have to start the interviewing process of a new audi now. At least we have 6 months until his next mapping. Good-bye Annie... you will be missed deeply! Good luck with your new endeavor!

Kevin continues to do awesome with both his hearing and talking. He is in a mixed age class (3 -5 year olds) in both his mainstream and auditory-oral preschools. It is crazy how well he is doing! My little jokester has also settled down and pays attention really well. He talks about everything he is learning and sings new songs all of the time. It is really fun to see how much he is blossoming!

Have I mentioned that Kevin is a fish? He swims so well that is blows my mind! He is only 3.5 years old and he is already taking side-breath strokes. Wouldn't it be ironic if my deaf child chooses a sport where he isn't supposed to wear his CI? Of course, I used the Aloksak bag and it works great, but still it would be ironic. I can't wait for the new Cochlear processor to test exactly how waterproof it is! :)

I also want to mention something that happened to us the other night. This was a first for me and it made me kind of sad. We were at a fun pizza place having dinner and happened to sit at a table next to 4 deaf adults. As soon as Kevin walked in, they made awful faces and started signing really fast to each other showing their disapproval of his CIs. Now, I don't know sign, so I don't know exactly what they were saying, but I can read facial and body language and they were not pleased in the slightest and not afraid to show it. They went on about his CI for about a 1/2 hour. I thought how sad that we totally ruined their dinner. I also realized that one day Kevin wouldn't be oblivious to this kind of hatred and I wonder how he will handle it. This was really the first time that I have encountered this first-hand. I wish I could have had a conversation with this about this, but I don't know sign language... I guess that is their point. Interesting dilemma...