Spring Sports

We're a busy sports family these days. Christian has Tai Kwon Do on Mondays and Wednesdays. Soccer on Fridays, Lacrosse on Saturdays and Swim Lessons on Sundays. The back of my car looks like a locker room and I feel like I'm constantly washing and rinsing water bottles.

In addition to learning the ins and outs of each of his sports, Christian is also learning how to advocate for himself and manage his hearing access. He's now independently changing his program, placing himself in a better position to see coaches and asking team mates to say it louder or speak again. I'm so proud of him.

I can't believe just a few years ago I thought he wouldn't be able to play on a typical team. Look at him now.

Getting ready for practice

Orange Belt Testing

Orange belt graduation!

He loves Tai Kwon Do!

Moved Up.

Every time my phone rings with a Baltimore area code, I race to pick it up hoping that it's Hopkins rescheduling Christian's surgery date to an earlier slot. I've been doing this for weeks, and I have had lots of disappointment with telemarketers.

Until today.

This afternoon we got the call.

Christian's surgery is now scheduled for April 20th. Which is will be exactly 4 years and 1 day from his first CI surgery.

His pre-op is this Monday. He'll only miss 2 or 3 days of school tops since it's over a weekend. I'm pulling out the button down shirts for post-surgery, stocking up on popsicles, and heading to Target for some new Beyblades and Legos for my brave boy.

By the Numbers.

34-Days until Christian's 2nd Cochlear Implant Surgery.

10.5-Lily's new shoe size. My hopes of her fitting into a perfect sample size Louboutin are fading fast.

13-Christian's new shoe size. Further validates my hunch that he is going to be quite the jock.

9.5-MY HUGE SHOE SIZE in Tory Burch's new wedges. Really. I guess if anything on my body has to be fat, I'd rather it be my feet!

5-Number of bottles of wine consumed this week with friends (all time low...it's Wednesday too!)

3-Number of days until my roomie and her husband come to visit (also known as the reinforcements).

1,000-Number of times my kids have asked me to go to Mexico since our best friends are traveling there for break. Sorry guys. Next year.

Spring Break.

Christian has been on Spring Break this week, and Lily's is next week (Hooray for next year when they will FINALLY be on the same schedule). We've been doing a whole LOT of NOTHING. We've focused on sibling time. The kids have had lunch together everyday which honestly is my favorite time with them. Their little conversations together are my treasures. THEY love having what we call weekend peanut butter (Christian's school is nut-free so he never gets it at school) sandwiches. Christian TUCKED Lily in her bed for naps, and then followed it up by sitting at the kitchen table and doing Legos with me.

Lots of puzzles were put together, shows watched, and hours in the kids camp at my gym followed by smoothies in the afternoon. Since Christian is in school full-time and our afternoons are spent at the martial arts center, ballet studio and soccer field they really don't get much time together. I am so thankful for this past week. Sure, a week in Cabo would've been great. But staying local and just enjoying my kids being together was pretty darn good too.

They LOVE frozen yogurt...Christian always choses Coconut and Lily tries something new every time. 

Spring Break Naps. Such a hard worker, he SO deserves this time.

Reality Check

We took one more step closer to the next chapter in our CI Journey today with a quick phone call from our implant center with our 3 activation dates. Activation will happen about 4 weeks after the surgery  in a series of 3 appointments. The good news is that if our surgery remains on May 7th (we're still hoping for a sooner date), the first two activations will be when he is still in school. 

This is all starting to feel more and more real. I can't even begin to describe the sense of relief that we are taking this step for Christian. I know, it sounds so weird to feel relief before this surgery, but I do. Plain and simple, I just want to give him the best chance possible. And I firmly believe that this will.

Lucky Number 7

2nd CI surgery scheduled for May 7th. Same surgeon. Same hospital. Same kid. Same fears, but a bit more excitement this time around.

Bringing Peace.

Is there anything sweeter than seeing the eyes of a Mom light up when her deaf baby repeats a Ling Sound?

I had an opportunity to spend some time at our school's Parent Infant Program last week chatting with parents, playing with some adorable babies and toddlers, and showing off my little dude. Christian and his buddy Nora (who also has a hearing loss) came in half way through to play with the kiddos. Parents asked him questions, and teared up as he explained all about lacrosse, Monster Trucks and his sister. My heart was full of love and joy knowing Christian was bringing some peace to parents whose hearts are full of uncertainty. I

Lemonade Stands and Nerf Guns.

It's 80 degrees at 4pm and all of the kids are out. The 2nd and 3rd grade boys set up a lemonade stand on the corner yesterday complete with a money box, signage, and even portable speakers for their iPod. The bigger kids, in middle and high school were playing basketball and lacrosse. Christian and Lily are the "littles" on the street, yet they always find a place. Christian manned the lemonade stand with his neighborhood big brothers and Lily proceeded to drive her little car up and down as my neighbors and I sat on the porch with some Sauvignon Blanc.

Lily cruising with one of big kids...

I love watching Christian just being able to be FIT right in. Watching him run and play and interact in games with ALL the appropriate social language (including HEY, DUDE!) makes my heart swell with joy. I love that both of my kids have such great big-kid friends that they can look up to and learn from. I love knowing that there's nothing holding back.  That's the miracle of the Cochlear Implant.

Wanted: Peace and Quiet

Did you know that we are by far the loudest house in all of our neighborhood between 6:30 and 7:30pm each and every day? It's when my kids are in the bath. Between my deaf boy screaming every word he speaks since his CI is off, and my hearing girl trying to talk over him...well, it's just crazy. I'm typing this as I hear the words "PEE" and "SILLY" being screamed by my son and daughter. I'm hiding in the kitchen drinking Petite Syrah. For the moment.

I need some peace and quiet. We've had contractors here for weeks on end to work on the basement. Today it was the flooring folks, one of which eerily reminded me of this guy.  I just want my peaceful house back. 

My brain is even loud. It's constantly yelling at me with all we have going on, with our impending CI surgery sometime in May (YES, MAY) at the forefront. I've fired off countless emails and have our team at Christian's school advocating for an earlier surgery so we can activate him as soon as possible. Our surgeon knows the urgency, but we just can't make room in a surgical schedule that doesn't exist. I want this surgery done like yesterday so we can maximize Christian's time at his school with rehab. Is it bad that I'm hoping that just like our first surgery we get bumped up do to another patient missing their appointment? 

I'm thankful that I married the strong yet silent type. I relish in his quiet demeanor. Times like these I just like to sit and hold his hand and enjoy our silence. 

Until a kid calls us, which they always always do.

Carpool Love.

After leaping into the car and buckling up:

"Bean, I got you something VERY special because I worked so hard in testing today (he's going through his bi-annual speech and language testing at school). Do you want to know what I got?

"Yes, Christian, YES!"

So I'm expecting him to pull out yet another Frankenstein tattoo, yo-yo or random goodie from the prize box at school. Instead...


"Beanie, you know how you LOVE American Girl? Well, I got you this AWESOME American Girl book. It's for you. I know you will love it. I worked really hard for it".

"I DO! OH THANK YOU CHRISTIAN"

Heart. Melted.

Change.

If I've learned anything over these past 5 years of being a Mom, it's that even if I want to be fully in control, I can't. Just when you think you have your baby's routine down pat, a growth spurt happens. Sleeping through the night becomes a challenge again. One day they decide they love squash, so you go ahead and buy 15 pounds of it at Whole Foods, spend all night pureeing it and the next day they spit it out. And you are stuck with a freezer full of squash. The vats of butternut squash soup that my family ate for weeks on end WAS one of those annoying teaching moments even if I just wanted to be annoyed about it. The infamous squash incident that my girlfriends still make fun of me about was just one of those little moments that I learned to just go with the flow.

So here I am going with the flow. We've decided to give Christian another Cochlear Implant. Going bilateral is a big change for him. It's a big change of our family. We're excited, nervous, and anxious. We're worried that our little dude who SO loves music may lose a bit of that with two CIs. He's still so little, and the surgery I know WILL be scary to him. If you asked me in November if I thought we would be at this point, I would've said no. Things change. I've just got to go with the flow.

Comic Relief

Snapped with my iPhone. Is there anything cuter than a chunky 3 year old in her ballet gear hobbling around the house in her Mommy's Cole Haan booties?

Oh Lily, I love you for so many reasons, but especially how you bring so much joy and laughter to this family. We really need it right now.

Here We Go Again

If I didn't have to go into my client's office this morning, I totally would be putting a heavy splash of Bailey's in my coffee.

So, we're exploring implanting Christian's left ear. We've been watching that ear carefully, and while his audiogram has only changed a bit, his speech perception in that ear has. To put it in perspective, Christian is at 96% in his CI ear, and only in the high 20s in his hearing aid ear. He's doing great as a bimodal kid, but we always are working on maximizing the use of both of his ears. We know he works hard to listen with his CI, and even harder with hearing aid.

And so here we go again. Our school is going to work with Hopkins in a collaboratively and we're just keeping an open mind.

My Funny Valentine's

Lily's 1st Valentine's Party...You Melt My Heart S'Mores kits, complete with heart shaped marshmallows.

Flowers from Daddy in the morning.

She's such a big kid now.

Broke in my new skates in the morning and feeling the love.

My honey made a perfect date night at home for us. Great wine, delicious take-out, and lots of laughs

Lily worked so hard on this.

My big boy trying so hard to spell.

"It's me, shooting a bow and arrow, into a target".

Wow. It really is true that when it rains, it pours. Or in our case, when your lower level of your house floods and results in massive construction, kids are bound to get sick and life will be in turmoil. 

We are in full-on construction mode. The bottom level of our house was really our living area. Our office, playroom, guest room, living room and laundry room are all down there and they have all been ripped down to the framing of the rooms. Furniture that wasn't damaged in the flood has been emptied and moved and all of my out of season clothes (yes, even my 20+ Lilly Pulitzer dresses that mean the world to me!) have been moved up into Christian's closet. I think the worst of it is that the kids really don't have a place to go and they miss their TV time and the toys. They are crammed into their respective rooms. My room has turned into the TV room.

I think the worst part of it is that there is just STUFF everywhere. If you ask my Mom, she would be the first to tell you I may not be the best housekeeper, but I AM organized. I hate that our dining room table has become the clearing house for art projects we are trying to save, my printer, and random office things. I feel like I am just drowning in all of our possessions. Our house is so dusty, and I'm worrying about my poor asthmatic little girl.

Oh, I did I mention that Lily has a virus which left her to puke all over yesterday? 

Things aren't all doom and gloom I guess. We pretty much do get a 50% remodel of our house. We finally are going to be able to purge old toys and just stuff. AND, even with all this going on, my Mom, Brother and Sister-in-Law are coming to visit for the weekend. It's going to be crazy, but there is NOTHING better than family to perk you up when you need it. 

Are these the days that people say to cherish because they go by so fast? I don't think they are going by fast enough :)