Halloween, etc.

This is Thea, International Super Spy with her friend Emily, Super Girl as they were about to start trick-or-treating. This year Thea stayed out much longer and even had to come home to empty her small treat bag. Micah went out in the stroller, but seemed enjoy being part of the fun. He wore his cousin Willi's pumpkin sweatshirt and pumpkin socks. We got a lot of kids - and got rid of about eight or nine bags of candy in the process. By nine o'clock, things had wound down and we closed up shop and pulled in all the decorations and candles. Thea pretty much ignored her candy; she's not quite at that age where every piece must be sorted - I could offer her a Kinder Schokolade bar for the whole bowl and she'd probably trade.


Micah, without even leaving the house, scored big on Halloween by receiving a nap quilt from Eleanor, who gave a similar one to Thea three years ago and who made the quilt for Thea's bed (and the pillow cases, and a doll's quilt and pillow from the same fabric, and a nap quilt, too.) It is perfect because Micah's teacher has been working on using animals to make sounds and his Baby Signs class taught the signs for horse, cow, pig, etc. So I can probably start passing on some of the pink or pastel baby blankets we've recycled from Thea so Micah won't be scarred for life. . . .

We're still in the seemingly endless wait for Micah's hearing aid. I did get a call from the audiologist at JFK - after we had gotten a message that it was now ok to set up an appointment. She said that she didn't know if the hearing aid would arrive in time - and she wanted to check on what type of band: pastel blue or navy with sailboats. WHO GIVES A FIG ABOUT WHAT COLOR BAND? If Micah had a vote, he'd probably pick something in the fuschia with rhinestones category, but since he doesn't I went with the navy.

Then I spoke with the audiologist at Summit Speech School, who seems to have much more experience with bone-conduction hearing aids than the audiologist at JFK. It seems that all soft bands have just one hearing aid, not two, but if Micah were eventually to have a bone-anchored hearing aid then it could be bilateral. Bone-anchoring is not on our agenda until the issue of whether or not surgery is possible to construct ear canal and ear drums is settled. And she said that Cochlear, the company in Colorado who makes this type of hearing aid could definitely get the hearing aid to JFK in time for our appointment on November 7th. And the next time we're up in Summit for Parent-Infant Group, she could take a look at it to check it out.

On Halloween, Micah and I went to Larchmont Imaging for his renal ultrasound. Because the ears and kidneys evolve at about the same time in utero, the ENT recommended getting this done. From watching the screen, I know that Micah has two kidneys, and they seem to have the basic anatomy that is supposed to be there. The technician also checked his bladder as well, which was full - so we had to hang around until he emptied it so it could be rechecked in its post-void state. Fortunately the bladder cooperated pretty quickly. One more thing checked off the list, now onto getting his bloodwork done and getting him to the ophthalmologist (another of the ENT's recommendations.)

Today Micah is 20 months old, four more months until the big 2.0.