Heyyyooooo!!! It's been a long time since I've hit the keyboard. Happy 2016!!!! I can't say I was terribly sad to see 2015 disappear, what a year it happened to be! There were some highlights, there were some moments of eeEEeeekk, and there was most definitely some times where I felt like a deer in the headlights... coo-koo-coo-koo. Or like a coo-koo clock? I dunno where I was going with that, but I think I'm anti-backspace today. Muhahaha, bare with me. Loose cannon ;)
So we have this little girl at our house, her name is Baylee :) She has a lot to say and this much I am *usually* thankful for :) I know with certainty, she is her big (by a minute) sisters biggest asset. Talk, talk, talk and talk some more. She is independent, thoughtful, feisty and fierce. If I were to ball park how many 'words' she has, I would guess upwards of 200?? I don't know. This fully hearing business is out of my league. However, when our speech team shows up at home... nothing. Nada. She acts like a mute. I'm starting to wonder if they think we are in denial about how much she can hear. Literally, the girl can't hardly be coaxed to say a word. She follows their commands (they let her play along with the activities they have planned for Aubs) and she listens to directions well. Meh, its a good opportunity that life has presented me with to practice not caring what people might think, but focus on what I KNOW to be true. She's a smart girl, talkative too :)
Aubree is about to celebrate her one year hearing birthday. Wahoo, I remember wondering if she was ever going to get those blasted implants. I kept thinking, Ok God, what do you want me to do here... you need to speak it to me slow and clear because clearly I'm not catching on. I'm still not sure if I've learned what I needed to from that situation. Aubree is worth it, I mean really, she is. But she is a hard little girl. She was HARD then, with the passing of that one screening that mislead us to think she could hear, to noticing that she could NOT, the diagnosis, ANSD, inability to implant, She has the best little smile, cheese for miles. But dangit, she is HARD. Two years old is not getting any easier. I think its fair to say that a lot of it is me. I need to do some work on me. Aubree is very temperamental, and she uses her CI's to her fullest. She is smart enough to know that they are important, she asks to have them put on. But she is also smart enough to know that if she wants to send my heart down to my ankles, she can just start taking apart her "precious merchandise".
Kinda funny.. not funny. Fed-Ex has had two different vehicles drop me off CochlearAmerica products in the first 10 minutes of sitting down and writing this blog. Ha!
Aubree is very tough on her cochlear implants, which is probably typical of two year olds. She is really doing great things. She is speaking in 2,3 and 4 word sentences. She repeats (when feeling compliant) and she speak spontaneously. She uses great intonation when she talks -- knows how to sound excited, how to whisper, how to scorn :) :) I'm not sure where she learned how to lay down the law.... ok, that was a lie. I'm definitely the disciplinarian, spending all this time with the kiddos. Aubree loves her daddy (well, they all do.. but Aubree is especially fond of him). She can hear him open the door and he usually says (if you know him, you can probably imagine this better) "HeeellLLooOOOO". She hears him guys, no matter where she is at in the house. She hears him. Its really beautiful when I reflect on that small detail of daily life. I didn't know if we would get here, but we did and I'm grateful to the MOON and BACK! ANSD wrecked me for the vast majority of 2015. Aubree was diagnosed with auditory neuropathy, and I spend oodles and caboodles of time researching to try to figure out what I needed to do to best help my daughters. What did I find out?? Pretty much... good luck. Results vary. CI's might be amazing. CI's might be unnecessary. She might need to learn a different way of life than what was familiar for my other deaf children. These discoveries did not sit well with me. To this day, I'm not 100% positive that the auditory neuropathy isn't affecting her in some ways. All I can say with certainty is, she speaks, and she hears. It was sooo slow going. I'd never cried in front of my audiologist before. I usually save the tears for my bed late at night. On occasion I let them flow when I sit before my laptop and let myself feel it all out - like today :). I just remember, trying to keep it all together. I remember feeling jerked around by my emotions with my head swaying side to side like I was in a boxing match trying to avoid the jabs. I just started bawling. I asked her if Aubree was going to be okay, and if she really thought the CI's could help her. She gave me a sense of calm and hope that day, that I needed so badly. So I forged on, with her confidence that Aubree would be a great candidate for CI. It sure looks like she was right. Her sweet little face and her perfect little voice makes it all worth it. I have to chuckle, are you familiar with Lil' John?? If you are not, thats probably a good thing. He is a rapper... but Matt likes to say that Aubree is our 'lil' John'. Her favorite words are "okayy, and yeah". If she starts saying WHAT?? I guess maybe Matt is on to something :)
Miles got to visit the audiologist yesterday as well. His ears have changed slightly, and his hearing aids were turned up just a tad. He is really proud to go to the "ear doctor". He was a little sad on the trip home that he didn't get to see our usual audiologist, which actually made my heart happy. Not because we didn't get to see her, but because our 4 year old is fond of this woman who has very much been a part of our lives since before he was even born! Miles is theeeeee sweetest little man. Oh my aching stars, he says the sweetest things. We went to a wedding in October for Matt's cousin. We have a picture of her in our house and Miles likes to bring the picture over to me and say "mom, remember when we got to dance with the beautiful princess??" He tells me everyday without prompting that he loves me. He makes sure that I know that I'm beautiful, and he has a style of his own. He likes to pick his own clothes, because he knows what makes himself handsome. When he gets big, he wants to be a "super awesome Daddy" just like his own daddy. Yep, that Milesy sure is a charmer.
Kendra is doing a great job in kindergarten. She is still working on tying her shoes, she is getting better everyday at recognizing her site words and an artist she most definitely is. She is very detail oriented and takes a lot of pride in neatness. Kendra has come such a long way in the past few years. She has been having some issues with a bump on her head where her CI goes. It gets puffy to the point where her CI has a hard time staying connected. I'm really praying this issue resolves itself without any more medical intervention and becomes a non-issue. The same thing happened about a year ago, and it resolved itself after a CT scan showed no concerns.
Noah is a brilliant, wise cracking, sister pestering, mature minded, little 8 year old. He loves to read, absolutely loves it. If he gets bored, he will pick up a book. It's great. But I also envision him not being entirely popular with his class this week :). His teacher usually writes on the board that they are supposed to read 20 minutes. Noah, with his inquisitive young mind raised his hand to ask why that was not part of their homework :) Oh, such a sweet little soul. The teacher said she wanted to change the reading goal from 20 to 25 minutes and had forgotten to write it up there! Good thing she had Noah there. However if you were a fellow 3rd grader, you may not see this being such a popular move. :)
Matt and I are always trying to work on ourselves. We try to invest in our marriage, take care of our bodies, nurture and love our children, discipline and handle them just the same. We've committed to one another that we will always be a "work in progress". Sometimes we miss each other in the shuffle of life. Between rotating workouts, airplane and horsey rides with the children. preparing meals, cleaning up our home and work.. we just plain out don't get the opportunity to take care of each other in a way that seems or feels fair. What I've found to be the most helpful, is doing our best to maintain a solid bedtime. Any time after bedtime should be for us. To have those conversations and discuss our highs and lows of the day. We don't always get to make this happen, but it's a goal that I would recommend to all my married peeps. Make each other a priority. Send a text, write a little note. Get out on date nights every once in a while!! It's important!! Well, it's important for me.
I over heard Miles giving Baylee and Aubree some really great information today. I mentioned before that two year olds can be a handful? Yeah. Well my two year olds are more than two handfuls. Exhausting, honestly, just frazzle my dazzle, pull out my hair, exhausting. Probably not what people want to hear from me, but I'm being real. These kids can be... A lot. So anyways, Aubs and Bay were having a little fist fight (not really, but it makes the story better ;)) and Miles comes in the middle and breaks it up. They have matching toy cell phones, but apparently they both wanted the same one! Of course... So Aubs whacks Bay a good one on the head and Bay retaliates by pinching her arm with all her might. Miles comes right in the middle of the chaos and I'm trying to scrub the hand washing soap out of the rug that one of my little love bugs has completely dumped. Since Miles seemed to have it under control and no blood was yet to be shed, I did the natural thing any mom would do (right?? please, tell me I'm right??), I let Miles handles it. He says a little something like this "GIRLS! You guys are Steffens. Do Steffens behave like that? No, N-O, NO! If you can't learn to get along your going to grow up and be sad girls. Do you know what happens to sad girls? They be mean to other peoples. That is very bad behavior. We do not be mean to other peoples. When you get bigger, if your mean to other peoples, they will be mean to you and everyone will just be sad. Ya got it???" So for real, I couldn't have said that any better myself. Not to mention both girls whined "okay..." to Miles and they continued playing in their fort. Ahhh... what am I going to do without my Milesy next year??? Instead of focusing on that, I think I will just try to stay present in the moment and enjoy all that is RIGHT NOW :)
I'm exhausted in a number of different ways, you may have gotten that vibe... But I'm most grateful for the opportunity to be honest and humble and say hey, this is really quite hard, and I am struggling. Being a mom in general is hard work, being a working parent is hard work, working is hard work. We've all got something, right? We've all got something. I pray that your "something" doesn't overshadow all of the beauty in those little moments. I pray that the speckles of hope are evident and the splashes of joy are more than recognizable. Sometimes those little pieces of the puzzle are the hardest to put together. Don't give up, all the pieces are there. When we feel "rough around the edges", we've filled in the easy part of the puzzle. The edges. We have to try harder to see the bright side, the inside of the puzzle.
Blessings to you all, my friends :) Thanks for reading!
