'Twas Three Days Before Christmas. . .

Time to take down the Hanukkah decorations . . . .and get out the glue gun to secure the bolts (candle holders) onto the paint stirrer that is the newest addition to our menorah collection.

The stockings finally got hung up on the bannister today; the tree was decorated last weekend after standing in the living room for a week with only four ornaments on it.  Tomorrow I may get around to hanging a wreath, which is the sum total of my outdoor decorations.  All those who put up light displays that can be seen from the International Space Station are just putting money into PSE&G's pockets.  And in our neighborhood, it is always those who have the ugliest combinations of lights who put them up the earliest and leave them up the longest.

I have seen enough sappy made-for-the-Hallmark-channel Christmas movies to last me for the remainder of my life and they have served to eradicate what little Christmas spirit I was able to muster.  I'm not usually overjoyed by the holidays, but this year's holiday malaise is worse than usual due to Retail America starting to put up Christmas displays before  Halloween had arrived.  Thank you, Target et al.

The kids are excited about being off from school until January 2, 2013, particularly no Chinese language school until January 6, 2013 though no let up in the homework from Wang LaoShi.  She's a wonderful teacher, but the amount of homework given on the last day before break puts her up there in the stratosphere range as far as buzzkills go.   At regular school, each of their classes each held holiday parties and made gingerbread (read: graham crackers masquerading as gingerbread) houses.  Both kids are relatively clueless as to the events in Newtown, Connecticut.

Fortunately most of the holiday shopping was done on-line, so I have not had to set foot in a shopping mall since sometime in early November.  All the stuff is waiting in bags in the family room waiting for divine inspiration or time finally running out before I get out the wrapping paper, tape and scissors.

Meanwhile back in every day life, both of Micah's BAHAs are out of commission.  One has a nasty case of feedback, the other died while Micah was at school.  Micah and I went back to Audiology at JFK Hospital in Edison, where Micah was first evaluated and fitted with the BAHAs, but if we sent the BAHA back to Cochlear via Audiology the repair cost would be over $800.  So it's been sent off to Centennial, Colorado and the cost will be around $400 per BAHA.

The experience was a lesson as to how spoiled we were while Micah was at Summit Speech School.  When one of the BAHAs needed repair several years ago, the school's pediatric audiologist sent it off and it came back within a week good as new. No muss, no fuss and very little in the way of effort on my part.  Just how I like it.  As Forrest Gump said so eloquently, "One less thing."

And instead of helping with ordering a newer model BAHA, the audiologist at JFK, who is the same one who saw Micah in 2007 to 2009, was all over the options map:  should we have Micah seen by an ENT surgeon who would implant the titanium post so Micah would not need to wear the softband, or since air conduction is always better than bone conduction so maybe since over the ear hearing aids are so small and lightweight some sort of loop could be made to fit over Micah's ear cartilage if Micah's ENT would allow for placement in the canals of an ear mold?  or we could just get the new BAHA3 and continue on as we have been doing.  Personally, I think a nice hit of Ritalin on a regular basis would help her achieve some focus and lessen the stream of consciousness-type chatter that drives me nuts.

I'm in favor of continuing on with the softband.  The BAHAis anchored with a safety tether to the band in case it falls off. -with the over-the-ear hearing aids, if one fell off, it would be near impossible to find it due to it's small size.  No surgery (for now), and if there would be any surgery, I am not going to some new specialist at the recommendation of the audiologist, I am going to Micah's current ENT surgeon, period. 

School Picture Day

School picture day:  No one goes to school happy.  I vetted Thea's outfit with her last night, so the only thing she's annoyed about is that the top is a little longer ("It's almost a dress!") and she has gym today.  Micah didn't like his shirt, a long sleeve button-down but he was mom-handled into it.  Then he rebelled and said that his BAHA was too noisy, and trying out every possible twirl of the volume wheel did not improve things, so he was just being ornery.

It took much studying to figure out which package to buy - and between all the add-ons: different backgrounds, retouching, borders, CD or email delivery, it was annoying.  I chose the $13.00 package with standard grey background for each. 

Thea told me that her picture will also be used in the third grade yearbook.  I told her that "back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and I was in school, yearbooks didn't start until 7th grade."  To which she responded, "Mommy, you weren't alive when dinosaurs were on the Earth."  I think she missed the message, but by that time we were at the door to Wicoff, so it was time for a quick kiss for each.

End of Summer

Just what one wants to do on a Saturday morning is drive to northern NJ for a doctor's appointment (basically any activity other than 'sleeping in' would be the wrong answer), but Micah's appointment to have his ears checked had been moved from the 26th to the 24th and then from the 24th to the 20th.  His ENT was willing to let him go for six months after his April appointment, but I wanted the debris cleaned out of his canals before school started. And I also wanted to talk with the doctor about getting a new BAHA 3.  The unit sits a little closer to his head and supposedly has improved sound quality.

Micah also announced last weekend that he wants a new name, and he decided that this new name will be 'Alex'.  Fortunately he's still answering to Micah most of the time.

Last weekend we went to Maryland to see Oma.  We went to the Amish/Mennonite market, the cemetery to put flowers on my father's grave (his birthday was August 15) and to Watkins Regional Park.  Unfortunately the rain kept the little train from running (a favorite of Micah's), but the carousel was still operating and they played miniature golf.

Sunday we went to the German Gourmet in Falls Church for salami, dilled cucumber salad, brotchen, etc. and then went to visit Christine, Jeff, Elise and Emma.  Micah already has asked to go back to visit Oma so we can go back to visit the cousins again.

This week was the last week of Friends Camp, but the songs are living on, and on, and on - so now we have a repertoire of  two years worth of PFC songs to draw from, and Taio Cruz's Rokstar has found its way into the car's CD player and the Dynamite song has replaced Taylor Swift as the current favorite.

Micah's Hearing, in his own words

I've been a little bit slack on writing about Micah and his hearing, mostly because not much has been going on.  His next appointment with his ENT surgeon is April 15, and he'll also be seeing the audiologist as well.  He's wearing one BAHA to school, and a lot of the time when he's home he isn't using it.

Yesterday at the Lunar New Year party, our friend Amy went with Micah downstairs to the basement playroom.  Amy is Lucas's mom, the one other boy in the flock of girls.  I was still making trips out to the car to bring  things in, and I'm hobbling thanks to smashing my right fourth toe into the rolling duffel bag while unloading the car Wednesday night at my mother's.

Amy told me that one of the girls asked what was the thing on his headband (his BAHA).  He answered her that when he was born, his ears "weren't wide enough" so he went to the hospital and had surgeries so that he could hear better, but "sometimes I still say 'What?' a lot so I wear this to help me hear."

I am so proud of him, I could not have explained it that well if I were four years old.

TBTB (Too busy to blog)

Too busy or so I think. It's just been more of the usual stuff on weekends, birthday parties for the kids' friends, ice skating lessons, the end of soccer, a few weeks were I worked all five days instead of having Mondays and Fridays off, and so on and on with the mundane details of everyday life.

Micah had both of his parent-teacher conferences and is a normal four-year old in terms of his speech and hearing, so this has us feeling confident enough to allow him to try the Mandarin-immersion charter school's kindergarten in the Fall.  He's still wearing one BAHA on school days, but on weekends at home, the BAHA is off more than it's on and it doesn't seem to make that much of a difference.  The post about his latest evaluation by the audiologist and Dr. Choe beat this one onto the blog

Thea's soccer and Girl Scouts have finished up for now; Brownies will start back up in January 2011.  Her only extra-curricular right now is the Mandarin language school on Sunday afternoons.

Our Christmas tree is up, we picked it up at a local farm.  The guy helping us was good at picking a nice full tree (I told him I have a lot of ornaments and we used to be able to have a 10+ foot tree at the old house.)  Decorating took until about 2 am after we got it in the stand, and it's a nice hodgepodge of about 80% of the ornaments that I've collected or been given.  We (read: I) decorate on the inside, I'm not into outdoor lights.  Why make PSE&G's holiday merry and bright?  Our neighborhood is a mix of Griswolds and Grinches, so there is no shame in not putting lights up.

Meanwhile the kids are looking forward to Winter Break and going to Maryland to see Oma.  I'm looking forward to a few days where I don't need to pack lunch boxes and make dinner - or look at a garage full of boxes.

Boys at the Beach

I wish I had pictures or video of tonight, but it actually was sort of nice just to be in the moment.  Micah and I were the advance troops heading to the beach house to get set up for everyone.  Thanks to horrible traffic, we made it to the real estate office at 4:50 pm (it closes at 5 pm) to pick up the keys.

We just had gotten the car unloaded when Shannon and Willi came over.  Willi is about three months older and several inches taller than Micah, but four years old is four year old, and boys are boys.  They were in competition over toys, racing through the house, playing outside and actually helped me make up a couple of the beds - and then they rolled and bounced all over it.  Fortunately the boys seemed to enjoy each others company and I actually got to enjoy being around another grown-up after four or more hours of "Are we there yet?" from my traveling companion.  (Note to self:  Next time put the Thule on the CRV, it holds up to 35 lbs - I think he'd still fit.....)  The balloons they give to children when leaving Grotto's were a nice incentive for Micah (they only give them to kids who eat well....another fabulous moment of emotional blackmail.)

After dinner, we went to the boardwalk for frozen custard.  Thanks to parking karma and a residential parking permit, we got a spot one block from Kohr's.

After we were back from the boardwalk, Micah and I went to the grocery store, with every other vacationer trying to get a jump on laying in supplies for their week at the beach.  I think we've got most of the basics covered - at least we won't starve for the next couple of days.

Steve just called, the rear guard is arriving in the next few seconds.  Yeah!  Family week at the beach starts now.  Boy passed out on the sofa, he was holding out to see his Daddy, Thea and Oma, but sleep finally won.

The humidity here is making wonder how the BAHA will do.  I remember the hearing aid dehumidifier, for a change.

Micah's Audiogram

His right ear is doing great (finally)!  Dr. Choe asked if we had time for Micah to be tested after the appointment today, sure?  Like I'd say, "No,we have a pressing social agenda that just will not accomodate 15 minutes in the sound booth."

20 decibels (dB) across the board.

The ear can get wet (this was the most thrilling part for Micah).

He only has to wear one BAHA on the left side.

Next appointment in four weeks.

And I spoke with the surgical coordinator to finalize the March 23rd date for the left ear's atresia repair, so it's all good, very, very good.

Roast chicken and tree decorating to celebrate!


Meanwhile, my mother's second chemo is coming up in less than two weeks, and my aunt is hospitalized at UNC Medical Center, so anyone offering up good thoughts being used for Micah and his hearing/ear, please redirect that positive energy their way.

Yeah!

Micah's BAHA came back from its spa trip to Cochlear American in Colorado via FedEx today, and the company actually sent home instead of to school, where it would sit for the weekend waiting for Micah to return on Monday.  Got to find the disc to remount it in the band, and then we'll see if the feedback issue has been fixed.  (The pediatric audiologist said that she took Micah's BAHAs apart and they were pristine; it gives one pause to contemplate what an un-pristine BAHA could be like.  Ick.)

Thea's Mewtwo Pokemon card came in the mail today, so for three seconds, until her brother starts to try to aggravate her and her father reminded her to hand up her jacket, she is/was happy

Now Micah is decorating me with Mardi Gras beads and I am waiting to get dinner on the table now that everyone is back from the park in Plainsboro.  Now if my charts would just write themselves. . . . it could be a truly great start to the weekend.

Addendum:  Cochlear sent the BAHA back, but not the battery or safety line.  Considering the number of trips I've made to JFK's Audiology Department to pick up these little lanyards, it's a bite in the shorts that I'd be missing through no fault of our own.  (I have clear elastic beading cord and crimps to repair them myself; that light bulb went off after the third trip to Edison.)   So one point to Cochlear for getting it back, and one for fixing whatever the problem was, and minus one point for not giving us back the battery and safety cord.

Tick-Tock

Here we are, just about ten days out from surgery. The pre-op physical is done, faxed. The appointment for blood work is tomorrow. And Micah is coughing. Probably his version of whatever was plaguing Thea's ear earlier this week (which has responded well to Motrin and tincture of time.)

The week is over, but the weekend is looking just about as busy. Tomorrow Micah and I go to Quest, Steve and Thea are going to an open house for prospective parents at YingHua. Then the three of them are going to visit Steve's mother.

Sunday we're having a playdate for Thea's friend Lucas and his siblings, Poppy and Jasper so we have to do a little bit of preparatio for that. We're doing a birthday party theme since Lucas has a birthday this month - Thea's eager to make the all-important party bags.

Then it all starts all over again on Monday, except that one of the doctors will be on vacation. Fortunately the week will be broken up by having Wednesday off to take Micah to see his surgeon for pre-op, the next generation. I've also talked to the Child Life Specialist at Englewood Hospital to see if we can go on a short tour, even though it's not tour day (Tuesdays).

And today while we were driving home at the end of the day, I was trying to tell Micah that we're going to see a doctor who will give him ear holes just like Thea, Mommy and Daddy to help him hear better. He told me that he didn't want to see the doctor, he just wants his Helps-You-Hear (our name for his BAHAs). Great. Throw a great heap of parental guilt squarely onto my head.

In the Aisle at the Grocery Store. . .

. . .I wrote about going to the grocery store, but forgot about the most interesting part. As we were cruising the soup/canned goods aisle, Thea hanging off the front of the cart, Micah in the kid seat, groceries piling up, a lady comes over to us and says, "He has the same thing I have!" and pulls back the hair behind her ear to show us her BAHA on an implanted post. Yikes, attack of the BAHA lady! She is clearly thrilled to meet another person with BAHAs, Micah who is usually incredibly sociable, doesn't quite know what to make of this lady, who is now joined by her husband and two kids. Her microtia is not quite as severe as Micah's, and she said she had auditory canal surgery (though was still using her BAHAs and I couln't really see her canals clearly. It made her day, but the kids were just as happy to move on to the next aisle.

We had a funny exchange about who made her aids . When I asked if she had Cochlear BAHAs, she said, no. They were made in Sweden (where Cochlear's HQ is.) It was one of those you had to be there moments, straight out of "Who's on First?"

Some days I think I might actually prefer those who make stupid comments or stare better than those who come up to you oozing enthusiasm and energy. At least on those days when I don't get to hit the Dunkin Donuts before I hit the grocery store.

Sunday

Today was our last full day as a threesome. No specific goals, just hanging out.

Yesterday we went to the office for the morning, where not much of anything was happening - warm weather and blue sky tends to keep people occupied. So I worked on my lab letters, clearing out my in-box and getting things organized. The children were occupied by Earla, and the DVD player and Leapster that we brought along.

We invited Earla out to lunch - I'd promised Thea that we'd go to Tiger Noodles. It was nice to have another person along since Micah is not one to sit still and stay in his chair for long. We offered her a ride to Diamond Nation in Flemington where her daughter was playing in a softball tournament. Love that GPS, it got us home via the back roads (once on Route 31 through the Flemington Circle, one of Satan's best creations being quite enough.) I put up the rectangular pool and the kids went in for awhile - which turned to more of a refereeing job for me. Until I yanked Micah out when his lips turned purplish blue. Thea, who has a thicker layer of protective padding, stayed in, paddling back and forth wedged in her swimming ring for another 40 minutes.

After dinner we went for a walk (me) and bike ride (the kids) which made me realize we have got to get Thea a bigger bike. I got her bike in 2007 shortly before we went to China; it was all of $20 at a consignment shop where I was buying the Stand-n-Stroll double stroller that we took along when we picked up Micah. It fits Micah now, though he can be just as happy tooling along on his tricycle.

The ride/walk landed us at the neighborhood park, where Thea showed me she can now hang upside down without holding on - great, don't do it in front of your brother, if he does it, he'll fall on his head.

Home for ice cream, baths, bedtime reading and sleep. Micah and I read "Llama, Llama, Red Pajama" and "Bathtime for Biscuit."

Micah, who has been asleep by 8:30 pm for the last few nights, was up at 6:30 am today. Love the early bedtime, hate the consequences.

After breakfast, we headed for ShopRite. My intention was to dump the dynamic duo in Scrunchy's Playhouse so I could zip through the shopping list, their intention was to stick to me like ticks.

Then we headed to Panera (Thea's request), which turned out to be a brilliant idea because of the plaza with the fountain (which isn't really a fountain). It's a series of about eight to ten paired water spouts coming out of the cement at varying intervals and varying heights.

Thea's played in it almost every summer, but Micah's managed to miss out until today. It took him exactly thirty seconds before he was soaked from head to toe and just squealing with utter delight at this amazing thing. Thea managed to run through it, play in it, stomp on the spouts, barely getting a drop on her.

I sat on a bench, taking pictures, enjoying the sunshine and the joy of my children. Until a dripping Micah, who is in a tighty-whitey and shorts and has been doing remarkably well with the whole potty-training thing, comes up to me and says "Mommy, I have to pee, NOW." Great, it's not like I can just bop back into Panera with a child who is making puddles of one sort or another.

Fortunately it's a hot day, no one was nearby and the puddle dried quickly.

Once Thea had had enough, we headed for the car and were just about to cross the parking lot when Thea sounded the potty alarm. Fortunately she's got better control and knew the way back to the restroom at Panera. I threw Micah in to a Michael's cart and rolled him to the door at Panera's closest to the restroom.

His clothes were cold, so a stripped him down, and while we were waiting for Thea, he sounds another alarm for the bathroom. Oh joy, naked boy, pile of wet clothes, shopping cart, purse.

We went in. And after settling his little butt on the toilet and checking on Thea, he promptly jumps off, locks the stall and says "I need PRIVACY, Mommy." Crap, crap, crap. He's naked, in public and is telling me that he needs his privacy.

And since he was in the water, his BAHAs are in my purse, not on his head. Damn, damn, damn. The only way he's going to hear me is if I'm banging out 70 decibels, which is almost as good as broadcasting to the entire restaurant.

Finally we got out of the bathroom, back to the shopping cart (great camoflage) and out to the parking lot and Micah into a pull-up and on the way home. Micah was asleep before we were even out of the parking lot.

On the way home we called Thea's friend Emily's to see if a backyard pool date was in the cards for the afternoon. Fortunately they were looking to get out of the house, even if it was just to come over to our inflatable pool and swampy backyard. Emily is the the perfect friend because she comes with a little brother who is about six months younger than Micah. Micah spent the first part of the playdate comatose on my chair, and then he had no interest in the pool.

The other three stayed out until they were thoroughly chilled, and then the playdate moved inside. Micah and Nate mostly wanted to follow their older siblings around, and the girls just wanted to play without the interference of little brothers. The kids had dinner and more playing. Then after their friends went home, Thea wanted to swim some more, and Micah decided that he wanted to join her.

They did really well - even though both wanted the swim ring, with the help of the microwave timer set for five minutes each time, they managed to share.

Micah stayed out until his teeth were chattering and the lips were blue, so he came in to get tossed in the tub. Thea stayed out for another 30 minutes paddling around with the swim ring until it was her turn for the tub.

Good timing, a thunderstorm was brewing and really started kicking up - enough to knock out the DishTV (bye, bye True Blood and Entourage).

Blogoversary

What a horrible addition to the ever-evolving English language. July 1st marks the day that I've been blogging for two years, starting a few days before we left for China to meet Micah. It started as pure avoidance of the chore of packing up three suitcase and two carry-ons for four people.

Once upon a time, in the Land Before Blogs, I tried to write a letter to Thea once a month on or around the 13th of each month, and I did fairly well for about two years. It's stashed someone on one of the computers, along with all the emails that I sent from our first trip to China. Between 2004 and 2007, along came blogs, and here we are.

It was an uneventful, eventful day. Micah went back to school, survived his transition to Miss Margie's classroom - and his BAHA is back from its vacation/spa treatment in Colorado. The audiologist at school went to put it back on his band, but we'd taken out the mounting piece (they're expensive, and if he tugged off the BAHA it could go flying, never to be seen again.)

Only one call so far, I'm on call again - with the one provider out on family leave and one on vacation, the grace period that usually comes after a weekend on call is not in the cards.

After dinner the kids and I went to fill up my car's gas tank, and while we were waiting at the gas station, we saw a double rainbow. We could actually see the arc going up into the clouds and then down again. It was pretty cool - but unfortunately if I would have tried to photograph it, the rainbow would have appeared behind all the powerlines that run along Route 1. Once the car was happy, we went into town to Thomas Sweets for ice cream - and along the way there were people out for walks who were pausing to look at the rainbow.

Thea had chocolate ice cream, so Micah had what she had, until it went onto the ground. Thea nearly died (she was promised any that Micah didn't eat and he quickly lost interest). They ran around the grounds of an old school building is next to the ice cream parlor, which provided the opportunity for them to be snacked on by mosquitoes - both had at least two or three welts, so it was Benadryl and hydrocortisone cream all around after their showers. Somehow the bugs don't seem to like old, grumpy B+ blood, so I was unscathed.

I'm on a new medication for pain, new as in new to the market - and one I wouldn't have chosen mostly because I had to endure months of him hyping the as-yet-unreleased medication without really being able to say when it would actually be on the market. It helped without knocking me out, the knee still hurt a bit, but I was moving better and in a better mood because of it.

Happy Birthday, dear Blog, you're probably better and cheaper than a therapist.

First Day of Summer

The equinox arrived at sometime after 1 am today. It's also my birthday, at least for all of the 50 minutes of June 21, 1960 that I was around for. It has been a day or more than a few days of feeling my age, thanks to my right knee. It has been giving me enough unrelenting grief that I am ready to call the orthopedist, who thanks to the Synvisc injections his PA put in my knees over the course of ten weeks, I have not had to cross paths him (or the PA) in the past three years. He or whatever colleague had damn well better have some non-invasive tricks up his sleeve. The way it's been hurting has me I am worried about having words like arthroscopic surgery and MRIs being used in reference to me. Three years ago I was 'the perfect candidate' for knee replacement surgery and I politely told him, "no", which may have come out as " bite me, no way."


Meanwhile we went to see Thomas the Tank Engine at the Strasburg Railroad yesterday, along with hordes of other parents and children. This is our third Thomas adventure - the last one was just before we went to China to bring Micah home. This time the weather was not on our side. There was a downpour right after we got off the Thomas ride that sent us right into the trackside cafe for lunch. And during this downpour with no inside toilets in the little restaurant, the Little Man announces he has to use the potty. Port-O-Potties. So Steve had to hustle him outside, getting drenched in the process. Everything got wet, but the pull-up remained dry.




The biggest fun seemed to be the Cranky Cars, the little hand-cranked carts that kids could power around a track. I remember them from KiddieLand Amusement Park in Langley Park, Maryland. Because the rain shower had cleared out much of the crowds, they could take a spin around the track, run out and back around and be going on another ride within five minutes. In 2007 Thea had to wait almost 30 minutes for one run around the track.



Meanwhile, Micah is down to one BAHA. His new one has been sent back to the manufacturer, Cochlear in Colorado, for a new battery hatch door. Thankfully, the pediatric audiologist at Micah's school took care of all the logistics. I hope that sending it back to the US mothership does not mean that Cochlear/Colorodo does not have to send it back to Cochlear in Sweden for something as trivial as a little plastic door. Note to Cochlear: Micah's surgery is August 25th and we may not need two BAHAs after that. Move it and get it back to him. Having two took some getting used to, for me, but now that he's back to one, he looks like a rhinoceros and all of his photos from Thomas look like they are from pre-January 2009. School has a loaner BAHA, but it's only for school.

Can't Wait for the Week to End

It's only Wednesday, but I'm done. Last week, all five days were fine - I got my AM charts done before or during lunch, and a good number of the PM session finished before leaving, life was good. The kids got picked up, were happy in the office. This week not so much. It feels like going scuba-diving in a port-a-potty.

Yesterday we got home and when I went to get Micah out of the car, he had his left BAHA in his hand, the battery hatch cover was no longer attached to the BAHA and the battery was no where to be found. Perfect, just perfect. One BAHA costs about $4,000, and would probably need to be sent to Colorado to be fixed. He got hollered at but good; he's been trying to twiddle with the volume dials for months, which we're quick to put a stop to, but overall no real harm done with a little moving around of the dials. This, on the other hand, was serious. Fortunately the hatch could be reset in its tracks and wasn't permanently damaged, for now at least.

Before/during/after the BAHA incident, I was on call, and it's ever so much fun to be home alone with kids AND at the mercy of the answering service. This was thanks to Steve's bridge buddies changing the game from Wednesday to Tuesday.

So after getting the kids put to bed, I had more than a dozen chart notes to write, labs and radiology reports to go through and the rest of my in-box to peruse.

The first part of next week promises to be no better because the other NP in the office is out until Thursday.

My BAHA Rant

Micah's bone-conduction hearing aids are relatively simple devices. There is a rolling dial that adjusts the volume (amount of vibration conducted into his skull), a very tiny switch that adjusts to accomodate for a noisier background or to accomodate an FM system, but usually the tiny switch should be left on "1" . If it gets switched to the "E" setting for use with an FM system and no FM is connected to the BAHA, you feel no vibrations transmitted when you speak.

None of this is rocket science. I cannot program a VCR, but I can manage two BAHAs.

So today Micah gets off the bus with his hearing aids in the ZipLoc bag because it's raining and the bus driver and aide understand that the BAHAs do not get wet. Period. This is good.

But Micah loves his BAHAs - he now will shriek that he wants "helps you hear" put on immediately when he gets inside or into the car if the BAHAs are off. He is absolutely insistent, and this is also good. So today I transferred him from the school bus into my car, the minute that I buckled in, he wanted his BAHAs on. So I pulled out the ZipLoc bag and dialed the volume up from "O" to "2" and felt no vibration from one of the BAHAs when I was talking to Micah. Steve said that one of the batteries was a little iffy that morning, in the middle of the green zone, so I just assumed that it was time to replace it when we got back home. One was better than none, and it would just need to be taken off when we got out of the car to go get Thea from school because it was still raining.

There have been a few times when he's come home from school with one or the other BAHAs tiny switch on "E" which means that he's not getting anything from that BAHA; I've written several notes to remind staff that the switches should also be rechecked after naps when the volume is being dialed up. Not rocket science.

Today's snafu is difficult to pinpoint who is at fault since the bus staff could've taken it off or the school staff, but the whole idea that no one seems to be checking the tiny switch starting to annoy me. Why make a small child work that much harder to hear when all it takes is a little diligence to check out the equipment?

Cochlear Implant Encounter

Friday when we were at Family Fun Night at Summit School, dropping our tickets into the bags for the gift basket raffles, a lady stopped me and started asking about Micah's BAHAs. She said she was a teacher of the deaf from New York, and from her speech it seemed as if she had hearing loss of some sort herself.

The hallway, crowded with people, and already narrowed by the tables set up to hold the gift baskets, was not the best place to have a conversation. She was curious as to how the BAHAs are held on his head (the big mesh hairband with the two little disks held by the mesh and the BAHAs snapped onto them somehow eluding her.)

I tried explaining that he was too young to have the titanium posts that some BAHA users have to attach their devices directly onto their mastoid bone, and I tried to convey that we don't know what lies beneath in terms of being able to have atresia repair. With all the background noise, it was hard, I was struggling to keep my eyes on the kids, speak clearly and maintain eye contact with my listener - but it just really wasn't working. It was the longest fifteen to twenty minutes of my life in terms of frustration.

And then this woman says, "Wait a minute," reaches into her purse and pulls out an over-the-ear cochlear implant hearing aid, pops it on, attached the magnet and the conversation continued.

There were too many witnesses there, otherwise I would have cheerfully strangled her. Why doesn't she wear it all the time?

My frame of reference is stories about kids who want to sleep with their implants on, stories of parents who used some sort of seal-a-meal device to waterproof the implant so that the kid can wear it in the water held in place by a swim cap so they can hear, the idea being that the wearer is happier hearing versus not.

Thanks to a cold/sore throat, a yelling marathon over a blue lollipop with Thea and this conversation, my voice sounds like I'm going through gender reassigment surgery.

Satan Invented Velcro. . . .A BAHA Tragicomedy

Yesterday was Superbowl Sunday, a day that pretty much passes unnoticed in my life. Other than the grocery aisles and checkouts were packed with more people than usual stocking up on quickly consumable carbohydrates and carbonated high fructose corn syrup laden beverages. If it were the Ravens playing, I'd be a little more interested, but then again just barely.

After I returned grocery shopping and unpacking, Steve got ready to go into work for a few hours. Thea and I had decided to assemble the easel/chalkboard that has been sitting in the foyer for more than a couple weeks. Micah was napping. Since Thea and I work well together we had more than 75% of the easel assembled by the time Steve woke Micah up and deposited him in his high chair (too many pieces still lying around, waiting to be screwed into the frame.)

Once our masterpiece was finished, I said that they could use the chalkboard side while I got dinner started. I am not dumb enough to leave a two year old and tempera paints under the supervision of a five year old. After drawing for a bit, they got bored and went into the costume box and got out the tiger masks. Micah whipped off his BAHAs' band and put it on the ottoman, I retrieved it long enough to turn the dials down to "0", but left it there and went back to chopping up the ingredients for chili.

Micah in the mask that started the whole thing off.

Steve returned for dinner and to watch the game and asked where the BAHAs were. On the ottoman. No BAHAs.

So the dining room table was checked since Micah has removed his band and put it there next to the dehumidifier containers. No BAHAs.

Meanwhile Thea is going about her dinner, completely unaffected by all of this.

I am getting fairly wound up because a) the BAHAs, now that there are two are worth about $8K, b) it was a year ago, but Micah has flushed a non-flushable object down the powder room toilet, and c) the laundry closet door is open and the washer was open (to stop the cycle and allow the whites to soak a bit since someone in the house who is not me decided to change the dial on the machine from cold/cold to warm/warm after depositing his fairly new, very dark jeans in with the load thus rendering all the whites in the load a pathetic shade of grey and necessitating a second wash to attempt to get the whites back to something closer to their original color), Micah's bunny bear got washed this week, and he loves watching the first few rounds of the agitator suck the bear down in the water.

The saving grace is that, unlike most times, Micah has not really been in the kitchen or the laundry closet, both he and Thea have been playing around the easel or in the middle of the living room.

Everything is checked: toy box, diaper bags, backpacks, toy bins, under furniture, in the cushions , the recycling bins, the garbage can, upstairs, and on and on and on.

Thea is still unfazed. "But what about my dessert?" Yes, it's all about you. I am ready to dump her strawberries and whip cream over her head.

How am I going to explain this to the audiologist? It's like the damn thing was beamed out of the house and onto an alien spacecraft.

The Super Bowel is on, no one is really watching.

Finally, after almost two hours of searching, it's time to get the children ready for bed, off to sleep and the search resumes.

The upside is that Thea's craft box got cleaned up and organized, the toy bins got cleaned up, a few things were found along the way and put in their proper places, but still no BAHAs.

I started dusting just to give myself a few minutes to think. I did the end table and the bookcase under the stairs. No brilliant ideas.

I get a chair and check on top of the TV armoire, never mind that I put Thea on my shouldes to look and then made Steve get on a chair to look again. Then I pulled the games and puzzles off the shelf above the TV and all the puzzles, the Leapster, and other junk from around the TV and start dusting. Swiffer rocks it as far as collecting large quantities of dust. While I'm putting stuff back and reorganizing a little bit, Steve comes over and points at my feet, where the Leapster is. My glasses are off at the moment, so it just looks like a black backpack strap. With a mesh BAHA band and two BAHAs attached.

Exactly WHAT happened will probably remain a mystery. What I do know is that Thea's Backyardigans Leapster cartridge was on the computer table, and I asked her to put it away. And I found it again in another location and asked her to put it away. Then when I checked and zipped the Leapster backpack, the cartridges were there, but no Leapsters. (She claimed they were in Steve's car.) On one of the first searches of the TV armoire, I found one of the Leapsters behind the TV, and put it in the back, but if the BAHAs were dangling from the Velcro, I failed to notice because I didn't pull the backpack out, I just stuffed the Leapster in while it was still in the armoire. When I pulled it out to dust, I just pulled and dumped stuff on the floor without scrutinizing it, I was looking for a mesh band with two little rectangular black boxes on it, not all of the above attached to a small backpack's Velcro strap.

BAHAs missing: 6:30 pm, BAHAs found: 12:30 am. Years off my life: 3-6.

Then, once order is restored, I'm packing up various cables and wires for Thea's Fisher-Price camera to stuff the container back behind the TV where it has languished for a couple of years. There are a few other cables for the Leapster so I dropped them all into the F-P camera's container. And just after I do this an eerie, deep voice emerges from the container reciting the alphabet. I kid you not.

I pull out everything from the container and it's a keychain burp/joke thing-y that Steve got as a gag gift at Christmas. The button pushed was supposed to be the voice of someone burping the ABCs. So not funny, and how it got into the camera container I haven't a clue. I should've taken a hammer to it.

Where are superheroes when you need them most?

BAHA-HA - double the hearing aids, double the fun

This morning when I was half-dressed and my hair was half-dried and we were trying to get on the road to the kids' schools, the call came. . . . the Speech and Audiology department phoned to say that Micah's second BAHA had arrived.

And with an appointment slot available at 3pm, my day went from:

- drop Thea at school at 9 am
- drive 40 miles or so to Summit School for group 10 am until noon
- drive 35 miles back towards home to be at OHES for the OT evaluaton at 1 pm

To all of the above, plus finding a route from OHES to Edison (another 30 miles, give or take) in a state that has no decent East-West roads and then driving 30 miles down Route 1 back home . All on a grey, cold, miserable, grungy, rainy day.

Despite this, I was high-fiving myself. Months of nagging, pushing papers along, more nagging, making phone calls and we're finally at the finish line. For 15 seconds in my own mind, I was a Rock Star. Then, back to my multiple neurosis already in progress.

And throughout all of this Micah survived on just a 30 minute nap, a snack while at school and lunch after the hearing aid fitting, and he managed to even have some fun at the OT evaluation. This kid is so adaptable, he just rolls with whatever comes his way.

He was so excited to go to his school today, he was singing about it in the car. It was so adorable - right up until he said, "Play with 'Laina?" Ouch. Not possible, sport. His best pal turned three in mid-December and has left group for preschool. Doesn't pay to fall for an older chick, sometimes.

At the hearing aid fitting, he was properly excited to have two BAHAs on - I don't know how much more sound it brings to him, and it may take some time to figure out one side is vibrating more so that means the sound is coming from that side, but in the sound booth he was able to hear the audiologist telling him to point to his nose at 15 decibels, which is great. The staff at JFK, particularly his audiologist, love him and he flirts with them shamelessly.

When we got home the mailbox held another bonus, the second set of blocks for the BAHAs had arrived from Forwerd, so I can rig up Micah's baseball hat again (for only one BAHA); I pinched the block from the hat to put on his elastic band. Unfortunately, I had put a message on the order asking for two thin blocks instead of the one thick, one thin in the starter pack which was ignored. But if that's the worst thing that happened today, it's not a disaster. I just hate it when a provider of a service fails to listen to me, especially when I'm paying good money for that service.

We were back in the car one last time because there was a message from The Optical Shoppe that my new glasses were in. Tomorrow the shop is only open until 5:30 pm and I'm working, so it was today or wait until Friday.

Now we're home, I'm trying to upload a picture of the double BAHA, but Blogger or Kodak is thwarting me, so dinner first, photo later.

After dinner addendum: Success, finally with the photo - though even with cropping and enhancing it is still tough to really see the two BAHAs. During dinner I just realized that this two-year old is sporting $8K worth of miniature electronics on his head. Yikes. That gives me a bit of pause considering the Crash Test Dummy wannabee lifestyle this boy lives.

Wednesday

Today Micah and I are going to Summit School for group, and then on the way home we are stopping at Orchard Hill Elementary School so the Occupational Therapist can do her part of the Child Study Team evaluation schtick. This should be interesting, because he's usually asleep during the drive home, and he's not the speediest as waking up and being congenial.

Still no word on the second BAHA. I called to check on it yesterday and the audiologist said they had gotten a shipment in but she still hadn't had time to go through it. I was hoping for a message on the answering machine when I got home from work, not today. If it has come in, I'd love to be able to get it ASAP, but I don't know how that will fit with going to Summit, back to home to stop by the school, and then over to Edison. Got to check that out on randmcnally.com.

Tuesday was not a good day, Micah was upset for the last part of the drive to the babysitter's, wanting to go to "Mommy's offisssssss" - he's still in a snit that Thea went to work with me on NYE. He wants to go to "Micah school" - and the concept of tomorrow just doesn't figure into his mindset.

Coming up on the 16th, the Child Study Team is going to present its assessment to us. . . . .

Call Me Mrs. A. . .

Anyone who knows me, knows that when I married, I didn't change my name. This was driven by various factors: laziness and wanting to keep my father's last name being the top two reasons.

It's been a fabulous way to spot telephone solicitors, who call up asking for Mrs. A. and I sweetly tell them that there is no such person at this address. Buh-bye, click.

So Saturday when the mail brought a letter from the State of New Jersey addressed to Mr. and Mrs. A., my initial reaction would have been annoyance - a double dose because whoever had addressed it hadn't even bother to use Steve's first name, which is just shear sloppiness.

But it was the letter stating that Micah's second BAHA was approved, and we could go ahead and call JFK's audiology appointment to set up an appointment.

Two things:
A) for that kind of news, you could address me by any name you like; and

B) I know that the "call to set up your appointment" is patently untrue unless the audiology department has received its paperwork from the State, so it's not worth getting too excited about. And it trickles back to audiology via the hospital's business office instead of via the direct route. Last year when this same letter arrived, I promptly got on the phone to make an appointment and was rapidly shot down because there was nothing in Micah's chart yet. Call back later.

So this morning at 8:30, I was on the phone, talking with the audiologist, and lo and behold, the paperwork had also been received on that end, and things are moving forward with ordering the BAHA. A Christmas/Hanukah miracle, no less, since we might be able to go to Edison to pick it up on New Year's Eve.

And another miracle, my mother called to say that our Christmas cards, ordered Friday night from Kodak had arrived at her house- one full day before we're due to get there.

Now if all that pesky holiday shopping stuff would just take care of itself, I'd be in the clear.