Homecoming week

Okay, our week of craziness is about to begin!! It is Homecoming Week for our school. Since Annika's oldest brother is a senior on the D/C football team, our week is going to be a little crazy. Today we have the JV game against our rival town and our kids are looking for a little revenge since the varsity lost to them last Friday. It was such a bad game that Annika finally gave up cheering and went to sleep. Everyone is yelling all around her and she is curled up in my lap snoozing away. And I didn't take off her implants either! Anyway, then after the game today it is off to Homecoming Coronation. Tomorrow may be our lull in the week but that is yet to be seen. Wednesday is church night for us and we also have to start to fry up 10 lbs of hamburger as it is our turn to feed the D/C football team on Thursday evening. So yes, Thursday evening we will feed the whole D/C football team a spaghetti dinner. This is a tradition for our football team that all the families take turns hosting a spaghetti dinner (or helping out with it) the day before the varsity game. And then of course Friday is the big homecoming game. Before the game we will feast on a pork chop dinner.

And then to start this week off, we went to the annual CI picnic in the Twin Cities yesterday. Only Allen, Annika and I went as the boys now want to do their "own" thing. But I always enjoy this day because it is for anyone who has been implanted at the U of MN so you get the chance to visit with adults and other families. Annika has a blast because there is always a playground close by so she spends most of the time hanging out on the playground. You can hardly get her to come back to the shelter to even eat something. It was a little cold to start the picnic but it turned out to be fairly nice by the end. Had a great time catching up with some of the families around the state. Also there was a guy there who was going in today to get his implant. It is always great to talk to those who are heading into surgery in the near future. Also met a young man who battled menigitis only last November and he now has implants. Still struggling and going to therapy for many things and not that I want to see others struggle but it is great to know that we are not alone in our situation and we can encourage each other on the way.

I think what is so fun is seeing how great the kids are really doing with their implants. I still think that if someone would have told me back when we started this journey that it was going to be this good I would have been more relaxed. But of course the issue is would I have believed them?

School is going great for Annika. She is having a blast. I got the opportunity to go along on her field trip on Friday to the apple orchard. The kids were so excited to be there and the all got to pick their own apple right off the tree. It is fun seeing how she interacts with all the kids and how they work with her. She has lots of friends and they all watch out for her, well as much as 5 and 6 year old kids do. I also received an email from her child study coordinator that she stopped by school one day last week. She peeked in on how Annika was doing at school and she said she was having a great time and was listening and interacting with all the kids. I know that what I did and the battles that I fought were worth it but it is good to hear from the school district that they are now seeing that what I did was "right" for my child. No regrets.

Gotta run finish getting ready for work. To top off all the craziness of the week it is my late week so I have to work from 8-4:30 p.m. every day this week. It is going to make supper very difficult for us to work out. Thankfully 2 of the nights are planned already as we have the dinners on Thursday and Friday. The other 3 days are going to be whatever we can throw together very quickly.

Busy Weekend

What a busy weekend we had at our house. It started out on not such a good note as the D/C football team lost their game on Friday night. It was not really so much of a surprise as the team we played was one of the best teams in the state but when we were ahead 8-6 at half time you get your hopes up. Annika was not that thrilled with the game and the whole first week of school got to her. She kept asking to go home the whole 2nd half of the game.

Saturday we were busy preparing for Marcus's surprise 18th birthday party we had that evening. Annika was so excited that she had to keep a secret!! And we pulled it off and he had no clue what was going on so it was great. We had a hayride and bonfire at a friend's home for his party. Annika had a blast because her cousins came over for the party so she had a blast playing with them.

Sunday we were off to the Twins game. The tickets weren't so great as we were in the cheap seats but I think everyone had fun. Annika took advantage of the time to take a nap. She still must have been feeling the effects of the busy week. She slept through about the last 3 innings. Mom and Dad switched off with holding her so both of us had numb legs when it was all over but I was glad she got the chance to rest.

Yesterday was her first full day of Kindergarten and she had a great time. She was very excited to go back to school and daycare again. She had fun telling me all about her day in the van on the way home. I was very pleased on how much she was able to tell me about her day.

Annika's first day of school and daycare

Well, the first day is over and she had a great time. I got emails from two of her teachers and spoke to another one and everyone said she was very happy and glad to be at school. Not a big surprise for me but it was good to hear that it all went well. It went so well that she crashed when she got home last night about 5:30 and slept for at least a couple of hours. She did wake up to eat a little something and watch a little TV with me. She went back to bed around 10 p.m. without any problem (she is not usually awake this late but when she woke up from her late nap it was close to her bedtime so we bent the rules a little).

That is all the good news. Now for the not so good news. She went to daycare after school and was having a great time. She fell outside on the playground and both of her implants came off. They placed the left one back on and it worked just fine. The right one was put back on but continued to flash red. They changed the battery and also the headpiece nothing helped. So they called me at work to see what else could be done. The only other thing I thought of possibly was to try changing to a different program on her processor so they tried that and still nothing. I was hoping that there was a little connection that they didn't see and all would be well once we got her home but that wasn't the case either. She was very tired by the time I got to try to troubleshoot everything but we were not able to get the Harmony processor to work at all but the good news in this all is that she was able to hear with the BWP (back up processor). The only thing that concerns me is that when I was trying to hook everything back up she would cry and say that her implant site hurt. When I asked her why it hurt she said she hit it when she fell. When we talked to daycare they said she fell in the sand as she was trying to get to something else (not that I don't believe them; they did a great job trying to get things corrected for her and felt so bad that this happened on the first day of school). But there is wood around the sand (I think) so maybe she did hit her head on there. I don't know; it will be interesting on what she has to say this morning once I get her up.

I did call AB because everything was closed for the day here and spoke to an audiologist there. She believes that because the BWP did work that we are dealing with the external processor and we should be okay. But she did recommend that I call her implant center tomorrow and of course we will need to call her audiologist to possibly order another processor and have that programmed. This means another trip to the Twin Cities and I am not looking forward to this but such is life.

Tonight we have our big football game against GSL so I will try to put an update in here tomorrow morning.

Kindergartener tomorrow

Well, this is it. As of tomorrow, Annika will be an official Kindergartener. We have to go in tomorrow and meet with her teacher, sign all the paperwork, and drop off her supplies. She is so excited that we are having problems getting her to go to sleep tonight. I am not sure how I feel about it all because I not only have the Kindergartener but my oldest son is a senior. I think this will be a very emotional week for me. She starts her new school and a new daycare. She is excited about it all. I know that this is a very good step for her but I still now that my little girl is growing up.