Pretty, Pretty Princess

The girls and their friends love playing games with Sadie.  They always include her (the best they can) in what they are doing.  Sadie always has fun and never complains about what they are doing to her. They can even get away with holding her hand to put rings on them.

First Aubrie and her friend wanted to play with Sadie.

Then a few days later Chloe and her friend wanted to play it with Sadie.

We are so blessed that the girls have such good friends that want to play with Sadie and include her in activities.  It truly means the world to me (and Sadie).

*Just a side note. As the girls where playing with Sadie I looked up on my wall and saw the picture of Aubrie at the exact same age wearing the same outfit.  It was a little bittersweet. 1. Where did my little Aubrie go? I swear it was just yesterday that she was 3.  2. Can Sadie really be big/old enough to wear these clothes? 3. Sometimes I still get really sad that Sadie isn't able to stand and do what the other girls were able to do at that age.  But I look at that smile, and think "how can I be sad"?  She is amazing for who she is and I'm extremely lucky to have her!

First day 4 yr old preschool 2015/16

Sadie 2nd yr of preschool

 Her bus driver was trying to help her wave goodbye. As we all know, she was not a fan of the hand holding.  She told him off in her own way, LOL.

However, after she was almost all the way in the bus, she decided to wave good bye on her own. This is one of her new milestones she's been working on. 

After school she was all smiles. She truly loves school.  It's very rare when she complains about going. She always comes home smiling (or sleeping cause they worked her so hard).  Her teacher tells me about times she complains about doing something new, but she always calms down fairly fast and generally goes right back to smiling.

Sadie's welcoming committee!

  Sadie has been waving for a long time, but she has never waved in a "conversation".  During the summer we noticed that every time she got on the bus she was waving back to me, and the bus driver reported that she waves when she gets off the bus at school. I also talked to her teacher and she reported that Sadie will smile and wave when she arrives in the classroom, and then waves again when she is getting on the bus at the end of the day.  Now her waving is more purposeful. We walk into her room, or the door, or whatever and she waves and smiles. Or if we wave to her she'll wave back.  It's not your traditional wave, with arm extended. It's her own signature wave. She puts her hand up under her chin and she gets so tickled with herself and gives a big ol' smile.  It's the sweetest thing ever.

First day of school 2015/16

Chloe 3rd Grade

Aubrie 1st Grade

Traditional back pack pictures!

Sisterly Love!

So happy for their first day of school. I hope their love of school (and each other) lasts forever!

Always rains on the first day of school!

This is Chloe telling me it's not cool for parents to be at the bus stop. Already? She's only in 3rd grade, I thought that didn't come until at least middle school.

And off they go!

Sadie waited all day for them to come home.  She was happy girl when they arrived (I know she doesn't look it, but she really is, lol).

First Hair Cut

  Sadie had her first real hair cut. I've chopped away at her hair in the past, but it was far from professional.  But since she has decided that that she can sit in a chair I thought we would attempt a real haircut at a salon.

She did a fairly good job until...

I had to hold her head still to cut her bangs.  

 Then she told me and the hairdresser off.

Then there was no calming her down.  Good thing she was almost done.

The final masterpiece. She is so stinking cute!  If she would have cooperated and put her arms down you would have seen her cute little curls

 Then she waved good-bye to me and I took it that she was done with me taking pictures of her. LOL!

Our hearing journey is finally over

  It's finally over.  It's actually been over since March, but I never wrote a post about it. Since our life has been pretty quiet lately, I thought I would update y'all on those sweet little ears of Sadies'.

  As everyone knows my quest for Sadie to hear has been off and on for her entire life.  We excepted her hearing loss early on. It's a part of who she is.  It's not a terrible thing, it's a just a different lifestyle that we were ready to embrace.  We were ready to learn sign language, ready to adapt our life.  All was good.  But as Sadie started to show more about who she was and what she struggled with I started to rethink her hearing loss and started to consider a cochlear implant (CI).

  We tried the hearing aids in the very beginning, but seemed to be get no where with them, even though occasionally we swore she heard us, it just wasn't consistent.  And since the beginning of her life we had also tried signing with her, but we couldn't even get a wave out of her (at least not one that was consistent with hi or bye).  She can't stand her hands touched, so to try to attempt forming her fingers in any type of sign language was impossible. I was frustrated and I felt terrible that Sadie may never have any form of communication with anyone other than us.  That's when I really started to look into a CI.  Who would have thought that journey was so long and complicated!

  Fist we saw (or we were planning on seeing) a CI Dr here in our hometown. However, that Dr said, without even meeting Sadie and just reviewing her medical records, that he was not going to touch her and she was not a candidate for a CI. In a way, I appreciated this because it saved me some time and energy and I thought "OK, well I guess that's that".  However, a few months later, I was not OK with this answer and got really sad again about the whole situation.  He didn't even give her a chance.  Od course you know what happened! I started to look again.  Found another CI Dr about 2 hrs away.  I pursued this Dr.  After meeting with him and his crew about 3 times or so, he finally decided that nothing seemed concrete or consistent when it came to her hearing. He decided to do a test under general anesthesia called a promontory stimulation. It is test that they actually go in the ear and touch the actual auditory nerve with an electrical probe (or something like that) and then they watch the brain response to see if the part of the brain that is for auditory, lights up.

  In February we had this test performed and then in March we got the final report and the Dr's final thought about her hearing.  The test showed that after multiple attempts to stimulate the left auditory nerve, there was absolutely no response from that ear. Which is also consistent with the MRI findings, "no nerve was seen".  But the right ear when stimulated would show a response. But it was extremely inconsistent. Sometimes the nerve would "spark", other times absolutely nothing.  The Dr described it as "fatiguing quickly".  This also was consistent with the MRI, as it showed a very thin nerve on the right.  I found all that out the day of the test.  The Dr then ended our conversation that day with "I'm not sure what to think, but I'll run it past all my colleagues in different states that work on difficult, not so simple, cases to get their opinion before we make a final decision".  I knew in my heart the answer, but I still hung on to a string of hope.

  Finally at the end of March, I got the word that it was over.  Sadie was not a candidate for a CI.  Even though I knew in my heart that this was the answer, even though I had been told this by another Dr, I was still super sad and shed a few tears.  Not because she can't hear and never will, but because she has so many challenges in life, I just wanted to try to make one thing a little less challenging.

  It took me awhile to get over it, but as always I did.  Sadie is who she is, and I can't change it. I can only embrace her for who she is and go forward from here.  Do I still think that she can hear us sometimes? Absolutely! Do I still talk to her like she can hear? Absolutely! Does she respond to us at the most perfect times? Absolutely! That one nerve sparks often, just not often enough for a CI to work.

This was taken after the testing was done and we were headed out of the hospital.  I'm pretty sure I could read her talking in herself in her mind here and she was telling me "stop taking pics, I'm tired, put me in the car, I'm over all this testing"!  LOL I love her!

*By the way, I have found another hearing option. It's called an auditory brainstem implant (ABI). But it's still in the beginning trials for children here in the US, but it's been successful in other country's. Soooo maybe in the future our hearing journey may begin again, but for now... we are content.

Theraputic Kitties

   I grew up with animals. I think animals are important for kids to have. They teach compassion, responsibility, love. They are great companions.  I know typically most people gets dogs as a therapy pet, however, we already have a basset hound.  Since I love cats and all of my cats that I have had as adult have passed away from old age, I thought it was time for another cat.  I started searching. I wanted an old cat that wanted to just cuddle and lay around and was tolerant of movement. I searched for probably a year or so (only on-line).  Didn't really have much luck. The girls and I started to go to different pet stores, the pound, cat rescues, etc...  One day we went to the pound and Chloe fell in love with this cat. She wasn't old like I wanted. She wasn't calm like I wanted. But she was very lovey, and purred like a little engine.  She couldn't get enough of us. The girls quickly fell in love with her.  After I himmed and hawed around and debated for awhile, I finally agreed.  We brought Jacquelyn home (Jackie for short).  After she warmed up to the family and environment, she quickly took to Sadie. Jackie doesn't lay down with Sadie as often as I would like her too, but she does hang out with her occasionally.  I'm hoping that as the cat gets older and being that she will already be used to Sadie she will lay with her more often.  We shall see.  (By the way, we got this cat back in January. She was 6 mo old).

First they just laid next to each other.

Then Jackie started to reach out for Sadie,

Finally Sadie started moving closer to her. Now obviously with Sadie's avoidance with touching things with her hands, she didn't reach out. But she did reach out with her foot.  She did this several times. Jackie just laid there and was patient as Sadie kept "kicking" her.

Then 3 months later (in March) I was looking for volunteer opportunities for the girls to do this summer.  Since they love animals I thought I would look into animal shelters and such. I found that there was a cat rescue house about 2 miles from my house. Perfect!  So one day we all went there to find out more details.  We looked around at all the cats and took a tour of the building.  As we walked around I asked about the volunteering, they told me that they only took volunteers 18 yrs and older.  I was bummed, so were the girls.  As I went to leave, I looked for the girls and they weren't around.  I found them cuddled up with a cat. A very sweet, fluffy, beautiful, 6 mo old male cat. I knew in my heart how this was going to end, but I tried to stay strong.  I told them no over and over.  But the cat just kept laying there in their arms like a baby, purring, and looking at me like "I'm so sweet, adopt me, your girls love me and I love them". He was so docile. I gave in. I couldn't help it. He won my heart right away too.  So we adopted him on the condition that he got a long with Jackie and Slinkey (our dog).  Luckily for the cat, he fit in perfect with our family and the other pets.  We kept him.  When I took him to the vet for a check up. They told me that he was a Maine coon. Come to find out that they are known to be therapy cats because of there gentle, sweet personalities and nicked named "the gentle giant" because of their large size.  Crazy how the Lord works in mysterious ways.  This cat is amazing with the girls.  He tolerates everything and never complains. When they are done he just gets up, walks away, and sleeps.  This is Rocky.

All stretched out.  He just turned 1 yrs old.  He's supposed to keep growing until he about 3-4 yrs old. He's going to be a big cat!