Emma Updates

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June 2004 Archived Emma Updates

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Tuesday, 6/29/2004-

We have decided to start posting the webstats report we get showing all the various nations we are getting hits from. It is pretty cool that you can publish a website from comfort of your own home that is open to the rest of the world. You can see the webstats here.

Monday, 6/28/2004-We have had a new first. And this one was very unexpected! Emma is now "talking" in her sleep. We hear her over the baby monitor and it is very apparent that she talks a lot in her sleep. Her brother does the same but this is something we would have never expected for a child with a hearing loss. Emma continues to repeat many of the sounds she hears (when awake and not in her sleep). Tonight her and Landon were watercolor painting at the kitchen table and Landon called out "Mom!" Emma immediately immitated the same vowel sound "aahhhmm". Amy can ask Emma "where is it, where did it go?" and Emma will put her hands in the air as if to say "I don't know." We rarely have to repeat ourselves and we have officially lost track of her receptive vocabulary (as it seems to be growing daily). Expressive is still a little slow (it always lags receptive speech) but she pretty much understands many of the things we say to her on a regular volume and on the first try. We can say "Emma come here" or "go take it to daddy" or "let's go" and she will immediately respond appropriately. She has these little rubber worms, lizards, and snakes (yeah, I know---tomboy) and she chases Landon around the house with the snake saying "SSS! SSS! SSS!" It is amazing that less than six months ago, she would repeat NOTHING! The first sound we heard her repeat since diagnosis was on January 5, 2004 when she said "up, up, up" in response to blowing bubbles. At times, it seems like she is progressing slowly. But looking back to just six short months ago, she has come so far!!! Amy continues to work with her everyday and Emma seems to be loving therapy more and more (she likes to show-off!). Landon and Emma have grown increasingly close and he no longer sees her as a baby. They play all day together and laugh and chase each other around the house. They are truly the best of friends. Emma is still "mother hen." Just tonight she picked up her brother's plate and carried it over to the sink. She then helped Amy load the dishwasher. She continuously takes care of her big brother. They are growing up way too fast! We wish we could just keep them in this stage for a little while longer. Emma keeps us laughing and I still think that she might very well be the first deaf comedienne. She puts on the "Emma Show" every night before bed. It consists of chasing her dog around the house, peeking around corners and roaring at mommy or daddy with her arms over her head like she is a bear, and sticking those rubber worms and snakes to the wall to and jumping everytime they "twitch" as they begin to lose their grip. We must have sat and watched the kids for 2 hours last night. No TV, no conversation---just watching the kids play. While Emma's hearing loss was a tragedy for the whole family, we are truly blessed to have two great kids! I often say that when God was formulating the recipe for Emma, he got too much personality and not enough hearing. But she is still perfect in every way!

Monday, 6/21/2004-I'm sorry I have not posted an update in quite a while. Work has been busy and we decided to pick up where we left off last fall when Emma was diagnosed and finish remodeling the house. Emma is doing incredible. She now recognizes certain letters and makes the sound they make (mainly H, M, and S). She responds pretty much all the time when you call her name and you can pretty much tell her to "go put it back" and "sit down" and she will do those things.

We just returned from Granny and Granddaddy's house. The kids had a blast as usual. Emma was all smiles and was so excited to see her cousins Brooke and Taylor. She just jumps right into everything head first. No fear and no shyness. She has really opened up.

Emma has really learned how to say "Uh Oh!" well. She knocked a little chair over and immediately put her hands on her face and said "Uh Oh!" We are still amazed at the progress she is making. It seems like there is a new sound or a new word everyday. Amy was telling Emma to "wash her hands with SSSoap" the other day. Emma immediately started repeating the "SSS" sound. That is a sound that the hearing aid could not reproduce for her sufficiently so it is strong evidence that the Cochlear Implant is working well. Her receptive language is developing well (I would say almost at the rate of a hearing child) but the expressive is a little slower (but that tends to follow the receptive somewhat). Emma loves her new therapist, Melissa, down at the Callier Center. Amy said she just runs right to her when she sees her. We have been incredibly blessed by our whole team at Callier. At Callier we feel like there is this whole team pulling for Emma. We are fortunate to be living so close to them.

Tuesday, 6/8/2004-Well, we had figured our updates would have fewer and fewer, but Emma is making amazing strides! Now we can tell Emma to "put it back" or "take it to mommy" or "bye bye" and she responds!!! And the amazing thing is we no longer have to yell for her to hear us! We can simply speak at a normal level and she responds. She has been full of hugs for her brother and they have been playing together like best friends. Last night, they played chase around the house and 'hide and seek'. She still plays "mother hen" to Landon trying to clean up after he is finished eating or trying to cover him up when he goes to bed. Emma's new sound tonight is "sss" which is pretty remarkable considering that sound tends to be the hardest for hearing impaired. Up until yesterday, when Emma would hear that sound, she would make more of a sound that sounded like someone clearing their throat. Yesterday, we noticed her actually repeating the "sss" sound. We are so proud of her!

We are also so proud of Landon. While at the pool the other day, Emma had picked up a teenage boy's toy. He kept asking Emma for it back and of course being in the pool, she could not hear him. Amy told him that she could not hear him as she was deaf. The boy looked at Amy and said, "like for real?" To which Amy said "yes". But what was so impressive was that Landon looked at them and said, "this is my sister and she is deaf and we are proud of her!" Amy and I looked at each other and just smiled. He is one awesome big brother and one great little boy!

Be sure to check out our buddy Jeff's website. Jeff received his implant in September 2001. These videos are absolutely incredible. You can also see in these videos that, although Jeff has a hearing loss, he enjoys music very much! But I think the best video on this page is him talking to his dad on speaker phone. Jeff is a great resource for anyone looking for information on hearing loss and cochlear implants.

Monday, 6/7/2004-We noticed Emma responding to a normal conversation voice when called over the weekend. Amy can also tell her to "go take it to daddy" and she will bring me whatever she is carrying. She is also beginning to talk much more although it is still hard for people that do not know her to know what she is saying. She is terrified when the dog barks in response to someone coming to the door. She seems to be hearing quite a bit. Amy has placed magnetic animal figures on the refrigerator and you can now stand behind Emma and make the 'learning to listen' sound for that animal and Emma will point to the appropriate animal. We are amazed at how well she is doing and at how fast she is responding.

We had our friends Bob, Janette, Travis, and Megan over this weekend. Megan is 2 1/2 years old and has bilateral implants. We noticed that she did not miss anything. While eating she would look over at Emma and say "Hi Emmo!" If you were to meet Megan and not know her situation, you would never know that she has a hearing loss. She has learned to listen and is now learning to talk. When we first met Megan six months ago, she had a vocabulary of about 30 words. This past weekend, I would say that her vocabulary has grown so fast and so large that it is impossible to keep up with. Janette said she has become a little "parrot" in that she is repeating everything. I can not wait until we are there!

Tuesday, 6/1/2004-Emma is making amazing progress. She is quickly repeating the sounds she hears and is usually 100%. She has learned all the "Ling Six Sounds" and is now repeating them after Amy says them. We can not believe that it has only been six weeks since hookup and she is already making such strides. We hope to post some new audio and video clips of her progress.

Emma's hair is getting lighter and lighter as she plays out in the sun and swims a lot. The tips of her curls are pretty blond and she is getting deep auburn highlights elsewhere. She loves the water, loves to be outdoors, and loves animals. Something interesting we noticed is that Emma seems to be the only one that can handle the rabbits without getting scratched by them. When she picks them up they just relax and do not kick. Any of the rest of us they scratch and kick very hard. It must be the "mother hen" in her coming out.