Happy Memorial Day

I hope everyone is having a great Memorial Day weekend. It has been a quiet weekend around here and we are very thankful. We needed to just have a quiet weekend. Tomorrow we will head down to Fort Snelling for their Memorial Day service. Annika's older brother is in the Navy SeaCadet program and they help out with this service. It is a great service and we take the chance to stop by Allen's dad gravesite while down there.

Annika is adjusting to not being in school anymore. She is enjoying the weather now that it has warmed up but she does miss going to school. She is such a social kid that staying home with all of us can get a little boring for her. We are going to have to try to set up some "play dates" for her as she misses playing with kids her age.

I have added a video that we made of her before we left for California. Enjoy and have a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend!

Twin's Game

Oh, what a short night last night. We went to the Minnesota Twins game last night with Northern Voices, the oral deaf school she attended. She had a blast hanging out with her friends at the game and of course Mom enjoyed catching up with all the Moms and teachers that came. And then Allen and Daniel were disappointed because we lost the game 10-1, which of course I lost track of. But at the end of it all everyone had a great time. My recommendation for the next time is not to let her fill up on pop and cotton candy though. We got home at 11:30 last night and she was crazy and a jabber box up until about 11 or 11:15 in the car!! We have about a 1.5-2 hour drive home. She was creating her own songs, playing "Simon Says", and just talking a mile a minute. She wore Mom out in about 1/2 an hour!!!

We will see how today goes for her because this has been a major emotional rollercoaster for her. She has realized that school is done and that has made her a little sad. Yesterday she received her "graduation" present from her daycare-they only have kids up to school age so she will have to switch come the Fall and I think is starting to understand the end is coming and since it isn't her personality to really be down or sad when this all happens she just becomes more edgy and will cry more often over little things.

I think we have figured out the glasses now and some day when she is home we are going to try to lose the rubber bands. I have found that if I place her bow of the glasses on the outside of the ear hook they tend to hold everything in place. The rubber bands are working now but once school starts we will have to change the ear hooks daily so this puts a lot of stress on the bands so they have been breaking every couple of days.

We had her meeting with the new Kindergarten staff on Tuesday and this went very well. We just have some final work to be done on her IEP before the end of the year and figure out where she is going to do her ESY and we are done for the year!! Annika came to the meeting to met everyone but then was able to head off to the playground with her older brother so she could have fun while all the adults had a conversation about her. This was not a meeting that she would have wanted to sit through or one that I would have wanted her to be at. Not that anything bad was said just a lot of information about her that she doesn't need to hear at this time.

School is winding down around here and the weather is finally starting to look like we might see some Spring weather before the Summer season starts. Finally!!! If you live in Minnesota you know exactly what I am saying.

Gotta run it is time to awaken the "princess" which should be fun because she told me last night that she would "wake up" at daycare. That means we don't want to "wake up" at home but we need to get dressed for the day and get the implants on.

Annika gets glasses

Well, on our return home we found a message from the eye doctor that Annika's glasses were in so we ran over last night to pick them up after school/work. Annika loves her glasses because they are pink!! That being said she is not liking her glasses because we are still working out the bugs of keeping her implants and her glasses behind her ear comfortably. We have been trying to use rubber bands to hold the ear hook to the bows of the glasses but then on one side especially the bottom of the huggie will stick out and cause issues. She has broken 2 or 3 rubber bands already by pulling her BTE's off from the glasses. So our new challenge is coming up with something to help hold everything all in place but can be changed from school to home as she wears the I connect at school with her FM system and the standard ear hook at home.

Tonight we went to the end of the year party at preschool. This was celebrated by having a Vehichle night. You name it it was there and she had a blast moving from place to place. Tomorrow is her official last day of preschool so she is a little sad but excited because that means she moves to the elementary school and Kindergarten. I can't believe that we are there already!!! It just seems like yesterday when she was born and we went through it all and yet I feel like I have lived a lifetime since then.

Time for us to put our princess to bed. Good night all.

We are home!!!!

Well, we got home from California about 11 pm on Tuesday evening. All I can say is that it was a whilwind trip!!! Annika loved the plane ride. Of course for some reason that I can't understand she was disappointed because the plane didn't crash into the cars. Oh yes, I can tell she has big brothers who have to be teaching her something. I will try to give a quick overview of our trip but it will probably end up fairly long.

We arrived there late Sunday afternoon and it was just beautiful there. Flowers in bloom and the sun shining-believe me with the spring we have had in Minnesota that is a welcome relief. Anyway, after we settled into the hotel it was off to find somewhere to eat. We found a Chuckie Cheese and since Annika hasn't been to one and we had time to burn we headed in. She loved being in the show room and watching the characters and of course the games and rides were a huge hit. She had a blast but was looking forward to going swimming back at the hotel so we cut our time a little short there. Well, I didn't think that it would cool off so fast while we were in the restaurant and of course I thought we would get away without heading to the pool but no she insisted so we swam for about 5 minutes and she was shivering so we called it quits. It had been a long day so we headed to bed after a splash in a warm bathtub.

The next day we were off to Advanced Bionics and to participate in trials there. It was so great there to met the people who work with her implants and design the next up and coming products. I talked to several different engineers and gave our thoughts on all the new protypes they have but more importantly I was able to see how much they care about what we think and how much they put pride in their work since they make a product for children and specifically Annika. It is hard to explain until you experience this. We had a tour of the plant and we learned out the implants are made from the beginning to end. Annika tried to put all the pieces of the internal device together just like a puzzle. Dave, our tour guide, fell in love with her so she got her own ride via his arms across the whole plant. She was given one of the Clarion Cougars, who has gone everywhere since she recieved it and just was treated like the princess she believes she is.

At this time our previous director at NV arrrived and we were off to Magic Mountain-Six Flags. She had a blast on the rides and even got Etta and myself on rides with her-including the mini roller coaster!!! We spent a couple hours there which was just perfect in my eyes but Annika was not so thrilled that it was time to go home. The people who ran the rides got a real education on what is possible for a child who is deaf. One person told us that Annika was her "hero". They just enjoyed her because she just loves life and it just becomes contagious.

We went out for supper after Six Flags and Annika did not stop talking the whole time. At one point Etta looked at me and said "she doesn't stop talking does she?" And really the only time she is quiet is when she is sleeping or is upset about something (even then we usually have noise just not words). After this whole action packed day I was so ready to get back to the motel and get some rest. The ocean wasn't an option this day because it was overcast and about 60 degrees out so too cold to head out there.

On Tuesday morning we woke up to a nice day and sunshine so we decided we were going to head out to the beach before our flight left early afternoon. So we headed over to Ventura harbor. Annika loved the drive over as we watched the mountains go by and drove by orange groves and so many other things to look at that we don't see in Minnesota. I wish I would have had the time to stop and take pictures of it all because I would have come home with such a vocabulary book in just that one drive!!!

Well, the ocean wasn't as great of a time as we planned it to be. At first we were enjoying the view and playing in the sand. Well, I let her get too close to the surf (I didn't think it was too close but it was) and as I was trying to put the camera away a wave came up and knocked her flat on her back. Of course we were fully dressed and had the implants on. No I didn't put any protection around them because I didn't plan on her getting wet as it was still pretty cool by the ocean. The good news is that after spending a night in the dry and store they are just fine but we had some anxious moments as we left California. I now had a child who was cold, couldn't hear and wanted to get back to the car now!! I had to carry her, the shoes, and my bag across the dunes to get back to the car. I was worn out by the time we got back to the car and I still had to dry her off, get her changed and take care of the wet implants. It was time to go home!!!

The plane ride home was very uneventful but Annika was sad to leave California. She wanted to stay with Fisher in California but also missed Daddy so we shed a few tears as we were taking off from Burbank.

I will post pictures from the trip soon and also Annika has something new to show everyone so will do that later today. Now I have to go get her ready to head off to daycare.

Have a great day everyone!!!

California here we come

We are leaving today to fly out to California. Annika is so excited, she has never flown before and that is all she has talked about for the past weeks!!

We are flying out there to participate in trials and testing at Advanced Bionics, her implant company. I am excited to get the chance to see the plant and just to be to California as I have never been there either.

We are going to be out there such a short time so not sure how much sightseeing we will be able to do but my one goal is to get her out to see the ocean. Last night we were packing her suitcase and we had to try on swimsuits (as you know in Minnesota it has been way too cold to think of wearing them yet) to see which one would fit her and then she kept saying, "are we going swimming? I go swimming in California?" Unfortunately I was doing this too close to bedtime so when it was time to get ready for bed she refused to put on her pajamas because she was going to go swimming!!!

Last night she was so excited we had to call Etta Fisher, the previous director at Northern Voices, because she lives in California and we are going to see her. She just had to talk to someone or she was going to drive me crazy!!!

Well, I won't have a computer while we are out there so I will post another blog when I come back and let you in on all the stories and hopefully will have some pictures and the like to add.

Happy Mother's Day to everyone!!

Annika's Story

We decided that we should start at the beginning for you to understand where we have been and how far we have come.

Our daughter was born into a family of 3 older boys (they were 8, 9 and 11 at that time). She was going to be the princess no matter what. Annika then came down with bacterial meningitis at the age of 2 1/2 months old. I can't even begin to explain how our whole life changed at this time. But I can tell you that God has been so good to us through it all.

As we prepared to leave the hospital, her neurologist sat down with us and explained all the things she might not be able to do. She may have lost her hearing so she won't talk, she may have cognitive delays, she may not be able to walk, she may not get back the full use of her hands and the list goes on. Her neurologist ended that heartwrenching conversation with the statement that he was just telling us the worst scenario and the best part of his job is when kids come back year after year and prove him wrong. To this day, Annika has proved him wrong with everything that he told us.

She was diagnosed, about 3 months later, with a moderate-severe hearing loss and we started with hearing aids. Now this child has known exactly what she wants from the beginning. We started to work with her and teach her sign language and also use speech to communicate with her. For about 1 1/2 years we used sign with her. She understood everything we would sign to her but she absolutely refused to use sign herself. She would just try to speak. Around the same time we learned that Annika's hearing loss was progressing due to ossification which is common with kids that have meningitis. So we then started the journey of cochlear implants.

At the age of 2, Annika received her bilateral cochlear implants. I remember watching her a couple of days after the surgery pressing her head against the radio in our living room because she couldn't hear the music but could tell it was on because of the equalizer lights that were on the radio. My heart just broke for her but it also told me that we did the right thing. This child wants to hear, she wants to talk, she wants to listen to music, she wants to dance!!

Annika has also been diagnosed with a form of cerebral palsy which causes her leg muscles (her hands and arms are no longer an issue) to be overly spastic and makes it difficult for her to move her legs and balance. But about the time that we had decided that she would never walk indepdently and had purchased her very own walker, she decided to surprise us all and walk right out of it. I wish I would have recorded her walking into school the first day because her face was undescribable and her teachers were amazed. This child has truly taught us that "if there is a will, there is a way."

Annika attended Northern Voices, an oral school for the deaf for about 3 years and has made great progress. This past fall (2007) she transitioned back into our home district and became fully mainstreamed in the local preschool classroom. Mom, of course, was so nervous about the bigger class size and how she would do. And just about a week after school started, we asked Annika what she liked about her new school. She didn't miss a beat to respond, "I like all my new friends!" She loved the big classroom, she had lots of kids to play with. The kids have just accepted her for who she is and are very helpful in areas that she needs help with.

As this school year is coming to an end, we are working with and looking forward to her new transition into the Kindergarten classroom and the "bigger" elementary school. Annika is very excited about moving to a new school and loves the idea that she is going to school where her brothers went to.

I think that is enough for now. I will post more hopefully tomorrow.

Love Mom