Triplet Princes and a Princess

Triplet Princes and a Princess

Our journey to hearing with Cormac while living our life with triplet boys and a baby girl.







Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Evaluations

Cormac and Ciaran had their evaluations last week by the Psychologist which is part of the IEP process.  The purpose is to "assess cognitive, social and emotional and adaptive functioning"

The report on each of them was three pages long and very interesting.  Both of the reports were very similar. 

Below is a bit of what he said about Cormac.  Not the sentence in italics.  Could this make me any happier?  All the years of hard work have paid off...
He was easily engaged in and took great interest in testing items.  He was very curious and verbal throughout.  He talked a lot about his brothers, his school, and his family with great excitement.  He impressed me as a happy, inquisitive youngster who really enjoys his school and home experiences. Cormac is a happy child who verbalized a lot during evaluation. Cormac demonstrates equally well-developed itellectual ability on both verbal tasks which involve use of language and on non -verbal tasks which involove non-verbal spatial and sequential congitive ability.


Below is a bit of what he said about Ciaran.
Ciaran "was curious about many of the test items as we worked together. Ciaran greatly enjoyed the evaluation process and frequently wanted to interact with and talk with the examiner.  He impressed me as a very happy youngster who is interested in exploring his home and school environment. Ciaran demonstrates higher level  of intellectual ability on verbal tasks which involove the use of language than he does on non-verbal tasks which involve non verbal visual spatial and sequential cognitive ability.  It is important to note that his non verbal abilities are still in the High Average Range.

So both of my children with hearing loss are testing in the 96% for VERBAL IQ.  That means only 4% of children their age (HEARING CHILDREN) would score higher than them.  I am pretty thrilled with these results.

Cormac's results kind of go along with what his TOD for over 3 years said about him.  She felt he was a verbal learned but just happened to be deaf.  So, his brain adjusted to be a visual learner during the year he couldn't hear.  When we gave him the ability to hear he was suddenly a verbal and visual learner.  Most people are one or the other.

They have another evauation on Friday. One down, two to go!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Ten on Tuesday

1.  This weekend was an awesome family filled fall weekend. On Saturday the boys' BFF from Cedar Grove  and her family came to visit.  We did the farm/pumpkin picking/hayride thing and it was so much fun.  That evening Frank and I went out with some cousins for some coctails and to see a relatives band.  Sunday we went bike riding and hiking on the beach nature trail.  We didn't even realize we had been gone for 3 hours.  It was a perfect day with Frank and the kids.

2.  Monday didnt go as well.  Colin was sent home from school with a fever. Calleigh is also sick.  By the end of the night all 4 were not feeling well and running slight fevers.  We will be heading to pediatrnician tomorrow if they can see us all.

3.  Parent teacher conferences were a big success.  Their teacher said all the boys are doing great and she has no concerns about them at all.  I did have to explain why they each have their own color and city.  Ciaran is really advocating for himself when he misses things in class.  This makes me so proud.  Cormac appears to "not really miss anything".  Smile.

4.  We are working on getting rid of training wheels on the bikes.  Well, we are discussing it.  I am thinking this weekend we will take off the wheels and see how it goes.

5.  Soccer continues.  Ciaran seems to really be taking to soccer.  Colin and Cormac enjoy it but not like Ciaran.

6.  Calleigh has started talking so much lately.  It's like all of a sudden she is blossoming.  She said "please", "thank you".  Any word that starts with /m/ she can't say without saying mmmmmmmm first.  It's adorable.  She continues to make huge strides in all areas.  She is still quite wobbly when she walks but is getting better.  She now calls Ciaran "Ciar Ciar".

7.  IEP's are still in the works.  Both had their evaluations by the psychologist and we are waiting for the rest of the evaluations.  It takes forever. 

8.  A grandparent of one of the boys' classmates has a cochlear implant...what are the odds of that??  I spoke with her and she said she does really well and has had it for 11 years.

9.  I love how even though the boys are in the same class they come home and tell such different stories about their day.  They don't sit together (there are three tables: red angels, blue angels and green angels) so they each tell me about everything their friends at their table talk about.

10.  I need a professional organizer.  Just saying.....

Monday, October 24, 2011

Kindergarten Pictures :)

You never know what you will get when you aren't there when pictures are taken.  I was thrilled when these came home today.  I just love the school uniforms.  Makes them look like little men!




Thursday, October 20, 2011

THe Cost of a Child


I received this last year at the boys' Pre K 4 graduation. Kept meaning to blog it but kept forgetting. Came across it during the move. It is very true.

A few years ago the government calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle income family. Talk about a shocker. That doesnt even touch college tutition. That figure leads to wild fantasies about all the money we could have saved if not for the birth of our child. But $160,140 isn't so bad if you break it down. It tranlates to $8896.66 a year or $741.38 a month, or $171.08 a week. That is a mere $24.44 a day! Just over a dollar an hour. Still, you might think the best financial advisor might say don't have children if you want to be rich. It is just the opposite.
What do you get for $160,140?
Naming rights. First, middle and last.
Glimpses of God every day. Giggles unser the covers every night.
More love than your heart cold hold. Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.
Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds and warm cookies.
A hand to hold usually covered with jelly.
A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites, builiding sandcastles and skipping down the sidewalk inthe pouring rain.
Someone to laugh yourself sill with-no matter what the boss said or how you stocks performed that day.
For $160,140 you never have to grow up.
You get to finger paint, carve pumpkins, play hide and seek, catch lightening bugs and never stop believeing in Santa.
You have an excuse to keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh, watching Sunday morning cartoons, and wishin on stars.
You get to fram rainbows, hearts and flowers under refridgerator magnets and collect spray painted noodle wreathc for Christmas, hand prints set in clay for Mother's Day and card with backward letter for Father's Day.
You get to be a hero for retreiving a Frisbee off the garage roof, removing a splinter, filling the wading pool and coaching a baseball team that never winds but gets treated to ice cream regardless.
You get a front row seat to history to witness the first step, the first word, first bra, first date and first time behind the wheel.
You got to be immortal. you get another branch added to your family tree and if you lucky, a long list of limbs called grandchildren.
You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, and communications that no college can match.
In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there with God, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.
You have all the power to heal a boo-boo-, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever and love them without limits SO one day they will, like you, love without counting cost.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Wordless Wednesday

Here is why I don't have many words to write...I am too busy enjoying an amazing fall!!!









Monday, October 17, 2011

Stuff

I feel like I have neglecting my blog lately.  The final move took way more time and energy and boxes and trips up north than we anticipated.  I feel like every time we thought we were done we found something else.  We are officially out of the house and it is totally empty.  I have lots to say and more to share.  Now, I just have to organize our "stuff" here.  It's one box at a time.

We are still working on IEP's for Ciaran and Colin.  We had our elegibility meeting and they started evaluations today just like they said they would.  I am more concerned about Ciaran at this point. He is still not on the FM system and his teacher told me he raises his hand alot to ask her to repeat herself before he will do his work.  This makes me happy because he is advocating for himself but of course I don't want him struggling.  His classroom has a soundfield system but I want him on the personal FM.  I think he will do much better.  Hopefully, it will all be resolved in the next month.  I am so happy I have the FM system for Cormac.

We attended the Walk 4 Hearing in NJ.  I was there as a volunteer for Advanced Bionics.  I got to meet some great people.  I got to see some people I haven't seen in a while.  I have to say I just love going to these events.  So many great people.  So many people who are friends for life who share a common bond.  I just love it.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Still moving

Even though we have already moved we never finished moving all of our belongings out of our old house.  The official date is October 15th.  Of course, I kept thinking we really didn't have much left to do.  I have no idea why I thought we didn't have much left to do.  Maybe denial??  Anyway, we have been scrambling all week to try and finish.  I have been so out of touch with people and have been begging for babysitters.  We don't want to bring the boys back to the house and confuse them.  They are loving living at the beach and have adjusted well.  I don't want them to go back and see the old house and get upset.

If you don't hear from me by Friday send in the rescue team to search for me.  I will be buried under a pile....We have PURGED so much.  It feels really good to get rid of so much stuff.  We were in our house for almost 8 years to the day.  Eight years and four kids later we have accumulated massives amounts of stuff.  We are promising to never aquire so much stuff again.  Any annual purge will take place and we will not have so much.  The clothes donations alone is astromomical.  I am not exaggerating when I say we have at LEAST 20 bags of clothing being picked up by the veterans.  It might be more and already donated lots before this week.

We have a guy coming to haul away all the garbage and stuff we no longer use.  We could have filled a dumpster.  For those that know what our garage looked like....IT IS EMPTY!!!  Can you imagine it's actually empty?  I don't think we have seen the back 10 feet of it since we moved in!  Now we just have to organize the new house.  The strange part is we were already living here 4 days a week in the summer so the boys bedroom was already set up.  We just repainted it.  Calleigh already had her own room here but we redid it to look like her old room.  Our biggest project will be getting the basement set up as the family room.  It will take some time but we will do it.

I NEVER WANT TO MOVE AGAIN.....but I know we will...

Sunday, October 2, 2011

NYC Walk 4 Hearing

What a success today was for the Hearing Loss Association of America!!  I was so excited to be there with my family.  The NYC walk alone raised close $150,000 and the final total is not in yet.  I love connecting with others who have walked in our shoes with a child with cochlear implants or hearing aids.  I also love meeting those who are new to this journey and are still navigating their way through. 
To look around and see so many people with hearing aids and cochlear implants is amazing to me.  From babies to seniors.  Cormac is pretty used to seeing others with implants but to Ciaran his hearing aids are still pretty new.  He was amazed to see so many other children with hearing aids and loved it.  He decided his ear molds are not nearly colorful enough (he has clear molds).  He decided he wants swirly green ear molds next time.  I think it's awesome he wants to show them off.

Seeing some of our Advanced Bionics family is always a pleasure.  I always learn something new each time I see someone from Advanced Bionics. I am so happy i am a mentor for them.  I look forward to connecting with some of the moms I met today. 

I am looking forward to the NJ walk in two weeks!