Hearing Test w/the BAHA, etc.

Today was going to be a good day; I actually wasn't dreading having to spend 90 minutes in group while Micah was doing his thing at Summit School. Then we spent time in traffic, driving in what Steve said would be 'flurries' and what I would term big, fat, fluffy flakes that were coming down at an amazing rate. The landscape went from just wet in Princeton to something out of a Currier & Ives print up in New Providence. First snow of the season so it completely stymied most of the drivers on I-287 and I-78, making the trek up to Union County that much more pleasant. I chugged most of my coffee en route, which was a bit of a mistake and miscalculation on my part: when the roads are iffy and one is not familier with the choke points, don't opt for the extra large cup at Dunkin Donuts.

Micah is teething, still - more teeth than I care to think about. If I were him, I'd be chugging a Percocet smoothie or two, but he's having to get by on infant Motrin or Tylenol. There are at least five or six bottom teeth emerging, and yesterday when I got a finger in to rub his gums while trying to get a visual, I swear there is an upper molar or two also coming in. He's a little whinier, a little clingier, but still being a trooper through it all.

His trooperishness flagged when I handed him over to the therapist before trotting out to the mommies group. He was ticked, and one starts crying, the whole group usually chimes in. Which makes me feel like crap just walking out of the room.

Then while cleaning my mental sock drawer in group, I realized that instead of accomplishing all the wonderful things I put on the list for today, I would be driving from New Providence to Edison because Micah had another round of audiological testing at JFK Medical Center. And my folder of all information pertinent to Micah, Summit School, JFK, etc. - including directions - was at home.

There were only two other children there this morning, Cormac (bilateral cochlear implants) and Connor (hearing aids) - and the discussion this morning was centered on plans for Thanksgiving and that most families all have their quirky, dysfunctional aspects. Personally, I'd have rather been painting the fingerprint turkey and coloring the acorn (a study in brown Crayola) with Micah. They also brought snow in to the classroom in buckets so the children got to scoop it and mush it.

Micah slept on the way to Edison, which I got to via I-78 and the Garden State, rather than the windy back roads way that http://www.randmcnally.com/ spewed out. He did pretty well on his testing - with a little adjustment of the volume on his BAHA, which was sent between 1 and 2 to closer to the 2, his hearing came in at the 30 dB range. And we have to go back in two weeks for a retest to duplicate the results to make sure they are accurate. Then if all goes well, the next follow-up at JFK will be in three to four months.

Next week, I'm bagging Parent-Infant Group because there is going to be book reading that evening at Summit School by two hearing impaired authors : Josh Swiller, whose book The Unheard I just read about three weeks ago, and Michael Chorost who wrote Rebuilt about his experience getting cochlear implants as an adult. I heard Josh Swiller's interview on NPR, thanks to Janet, bought the book and read it in about two days (a minor miracle given that most of my reading is accomplished while blow-drying my hair or in the middle of the night if I wake up and can't get back to sleep). The Unheard is one of the best books I've read this year so I want Micah to have this as a part of his future library, once he's done with Dr. Seuss and Curious George.

Yesterday Thea and I went out to lunch, Tiger Noodles, again and then did our grocery shopping and shopping shopping. The project for the past few days has been get ready to do holiday cards. I bought photo cards at the bargain price of eight for $1 at Target, labels and stationery, so now we just needed a picture to put in the cards. Thea was lured into putting on a dress, tights and patent leather shoes; Micah got thrown into a little button down shirt, vest and corduroy pants. I'm glad we didn't take them to The Picture People or whatever, getting one shot of both of them looking decent (smiling would be bonus), Thea not yanking her dress up showing off her pink underwear with the hearts and glow in the dark skulls, and Micah not stuffing two fingers into his mouth while putting a headlock on his rhinoceros would have taken intervention from a higher power.

Then Thea decided that she wanted to put the address labels that we had purchased that afternoon on the envelopes (all 144 of them) so that meant going to the manufacturer's web page and finding the template and printing them. Something I had planned to do in the peace and solitude that comes after both are asleep, but was not to be. She did not tire of this task, but thought she was the most fabulous az-IST-ent (her pronounciation) in the world, standing at my elbow, handing me labels, wearing only the aforementioned pink underwear with red hearts and glow in the dark skulls for that warm, fuzzy love, death and fluorescence look (purchased from Gymboree, not some baby biker shop.)

All I wanted to do was get the cards ready for the eight or nine relatives who live overseas so I could finally, for the first year ever, get them on their way well in advance of Christmas. So Thea's determination to do the whole lot turned a fifteen minute task into a two hour long project. Then she wanted to sign all the cards - which was negotiated down to the nine overseas cards, which she diligently attacked with her blue magic marker, printing a giant T H E A on most of them.