Landri - 4 months of hearing!

Landri has been chatting up a storm!  I feel like we are finally starting to get in a groove with speech as we finally have a fab team in place!  Landri has 3 speech sessions a week between what she is offered thru the state and private speech services that we obtained via teletherapy (webcam sessions) and driving to the Quad Cities.  She says "hi" all the time now with purpose...very clearly!  She says "mom"...it's funny...it is rarely a "mama' just a clear, short "mom".  She has a lot of intonation in her voice which makes me happy!!  She makes several sounds for animals and vehicles. Receptively she is understanding more each day!  We are pumping language into her as much as we can and have committed to doing more singing and music play.  Boy...it is so wonderful to have her progressing, but seriously it is HARD work!  It is a HUGE commitment and overwhelming at times.  Of course, you never feel like you are doing enough therapy hours or tracking her progress well enough.  Every CI parent reading....take a second and give yourself a bit pat on the back!  I read on another blog recently that during the next 4 or 5 critical language years you have to let go of the fact that your house may be messier, you may not be at every social gathering with friends, your family may gain a few pounds from eating out so much.....but your deaf child will listen and speak!!!  We have started to condition Landri for her next soundbooth test. She holds a ring up to her ear and then when she hears the sound we have her put it on the peg.  It is seriously super cute to watch her hold that little ring next to her ear smiling and waiting for sound.  We also play music and dance then turn it off and "Listen...I don't hear anything...where did the sound go?".  :-)  Of course it is to Justin Bieber because Halle has Bieber Fever (tears in her eyes when we finally got thru to Ticketmaster for concert tix),  but that just makes our therapy unique to our fam. :-)  Landri hears just about everything I am sure of it! We met with her surgeon last week about completing her right ear....long story...stay tuned. Tentative surgery date to complete that ear is April 23rd. What a journey!  Here are some long over due pics!  As those of you that know me you won't be surprised...I was having a problem getting my pics to rotate so I was limited to those already right side up!  :-)  Will figure it out and get more pictures posted soon!