Well, here is the lost hearing aid story. Sofie had her first speech therapy session at the beginning of December. We left the clinic and went to Menards to buy some Christmas lights and then came home and had some lunch. Sofie was playing with her toys in the kitchen so I logged onto the computer to catch up on some emails. Pretty soon, Sofie came up to me and was trying to get a necklace around her neck. She had tried to do this the other day and had pulled out one of her hearing aids. When she got close enough to me, I noticed that one of her hearing aids was gone. We immediately started searching. I put the dog in her kennel just in case she got a hold of it. I looked everywhere and Miss Farty Pants was no help. I finally asked her several times where her hearing aid was. She bent down and pointed to underneath the kitchen cabinet. I didn't panic at all, no big deal, until I reached under the cabinet and there was a gap between the baseboard and the cabinet. It was just big enough to fit a hearing aid :( I panicked!!!!!!! Sofie was insistent that she shoved her hearing aid up underneath the cabinet. She even showed me how she did it. Jim came home from work and we drilled a hole in the bottom of the cabinet. He was able to reach into the little space and feel around the whole cavity. NO HEARING AID......at all. I totally panicked now. She has only had them for 2 weeks and one hearing aid is around $2500!!!! I look at Sofie and ask her where it is. She shrugs her shoulders and walks away!!!!!!!!!!!! Clearly, the significance of this is lost on a toddler. I start retracing our steps throughout the day. On a whim, Jim calls Menards and sure enough someone turned in her hearing aid. Thank you so much kind soul whoever you are :) Sofie now wears straps that go around each aid and attach to her shirt. She can't lose them......hopefully! She still insists to this day that her hearing aid was under the kitchen cabinet??????????????????
Speech therapy is going fairly well. It is a long, slow process where accomplishments are measured in very tiny steps. Both of her Speech Pathologists talk to each other on the phone and make sure that they are on the same page. I am very appreciative of that. One works for the school district and the other for the ENT office so it wouldn't necessarily be like that normally. Everyone keeps telling me that Sofie will catch up and she will be fine. I know she is an amazing kid who has overcome so much already. She meets all of life's challenges head on with no fear at all. I think the only other people who get it is Jim and our Audiologist. Sofie has a huge mountain to overcome. I am not saying she won't, I am just saying it is huge. She has all the articulation problems that a cleft kiddo has, but, she has also had auditory deprivation for almost 3 years. She not only has to learn how to speak and how to form words and sounds, she also has to learn to listen. She has no idea what sound a kitten makes or a dog or a car. She has probably never truly heard these sounds and therefore cannot associate these sounds with a particular object. Our Deaf and Hard of Hearing teacher is wonderful. She gives me all kinds of hints and assistance on how to help Sofie. I truly don't know what I would do without her. She just gets all the problems that Sofie faces and has wonderful ideas on how to help her overcome them. All of her therapists are also very adaptable. They have all decided that instead of just teaching Sofie how to say certain words and sounds, they would help her learn words that she would use in everyday life first and then worry about the traditional teaching pattern that you would normally follow later. They are a wonderful group of people and they have all been very helpful and have guided us at a time where we feel like we have no idea what we are doing. I would be lost without them :)
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