April

The beginning of April was spring break. I was able to get some much needed spring cleaning done. We also had friends that were in town. They stayed with Jenny and Chance for the most part as Bryan was still having to do work and some classes. Unfortunately, the president of Brazil decided to visit that Easter weekend, so Bryan ended up doing a lot of overtime work, even working on Saturday and Sunday. We still enjoyed seeing our friends and their cute boys!

I was trying to let everyone sleep in, or go back to sleep to get some much needed rest. I put on Toy Story, and the boys watched the movie on KB's bed. 

I love this picture, they were having a blast dressing up as Buzz and Woody

Bubble time

On Easter, we had a little egg hunt in the morning. I made Eggs Goldenrod, which is a tradition from my side of the family. Then we went to church. Afterwards we went to the National Mall to do some sightseeing, and let the boys run around for a bit. It was a fun day. We were sad to see our friends go, especially Kiernan as he enjoyed having someone his age around again.

Kiernan had a chance to practice Easter Egg hunting before our friends came.

Kiernan had a dentist appointment this month, and had no cavities! That was a relief. 

This month was also a fun month with illnesses again, this time with roseola. I really hope we get these viruses out of the way soon, because I just cannot take that much more time off of work. 

And just some more pics of the boys

Kiernan was trying to convince me that Bryan's socks were his :)

A makeshift drink holder, we forgot his cupholder for his car seat at home. so he decided to take his shoe off and use that instead....

I forget how flexible babies can be. 

A great picture of PK smiling. He has that hat on to keep him from grabbing his hearing aids and losing them. 

Also a great picture of KB smiling.

Patrick can now sit up all by himself!

I cannot tell you how many days I had this month where I felt like this.

Our nanny sent this to us. Apparently during nap time, KB got into her make up drawer and decided to have fun. Silly kid. She thought it was hilarious :)

A hilarious game of peek a boo :)

March

March was busy with illnesses going back and forth, all viral infections of some sort. I can tell we've moved to a different area, as we keep getting sick and passing it to each other. We no longer have an immunity built up to the local strains of viruses like we did in Utah.
Kiernan got a chance to go to Chuck E. cheese again. he LOVES that place, and asks to go all the time. I have told him that we only go there for birthdays. Big mistake. He now asks all the time if it's November yet :) We did go for his third birthday, then he went in January for a birthday party. This month was just because my school's PTA was having a fundraiser there.
Patrick continues to make improvements with his listening. He is getting faster with responding to sounds, and better at localizing them.

He loves the wii and has actually gotten better. However....I'm not sure how this is comfortable. 

Patrick has one of the best smiles I've ever seen. 

Patrick loves being able to hold spoons himself. 

Remember the illnesses? Yeah, this was a common sight in our home. 

Patrick's first church outfit. 

First time in the duck bath, he loves being able to sit up while bathing. 

Patrick loves doing raspberries all the time now. 

Seriously, one of the best smiles. He makes others smile all the time. 

Patrick takes special interest in whatever KB is doing, in here they're both checking out the iPad. 

A ride at Chuck E. Cheese

February

I forgot to mention that in January, Kiernan and Patrick moved from Kindercare to a nanny who watched them in her own home. It was a perfect set up! The nanny was in our ward, so we knew she was the same religion, she was born in Brazil and lived there until she was six. This meant she knew fluent Brazilian Portuguese. She has a 1 year old, which means the kids still get some interaction with someone NOT in the family. Her apartment was on the ground floor, led out to a grassy area, and they had a playground and pool. The best part? She lives five minutes from my office. The boys adjusted quickly to her, and KB would ask from time to time when we were going to go to her house. This showed me that he did enjoy his time there. While he did miss all his same age peers at kindercare, I still think the best choice was to go with the nanny so that Patrick could be given more attention.

I brought this up because she would send pictures of the kids from time to time on my cell, which I loved. She made Pizza with KB

And was able to catch Patrick rolling on her cell phone for me. 

She was a great person to work with. She was also very understanding of KB's mishaps:

Why yes, that is a mac power cord that KB managed to destroy. don't worry, we replaced it ourselves.

Patrick got his hearing aids at the beginning of this month:

 Of course I immediately start my early intervention work with him :)

The video is of him responding to my voice on one side and KB's voice on the other side.

Of course, KB had to check out the hearing himself and see what it sounded like. I kept reminding him to be quiet or it might hurt his ears because the hearing aids are turned up all the way. He was quiet....then became his three year old self and just couldn't help but get louder towards the end, he'll say ow at the end of the video :)

We did get a chance to visit my Brother and his family in TN.

I unfortunately only have one picture from the visit, and it's of the three older cousins watching Veggie tales....

Patrick learned to do raspberries:

and KB continues to work on cueing with us (he's cueing bigger in here to tell me to make the balloon get bigger):

January

Kiernan having fun with the iPad

January was a busy month. We both went back to work, Bryan went back to classes, and Kiernan and Patrick went from a daycare to a nanny at her home. Our nanny is in our ward, and offered to watch the boys for a steal. We decided it would be better overall to have the boys with her than int he daycare. While Kiernan needs the socialization with other kids, Patrick also needs the one on one time as we now knew what his hearing loss was. Our nanny has a kid of her own who had just turned one, so we felt it was a good place for the two boys to be. She lives in an apartment complex, which means Kiernan will have opportunities to socialize with other kids in the area. A huge bonus: she's from Brazil and speaks Brazilian Portuguese. She agreed to have some Brazilian Portuguese time with Kiernan, which Bryan was very excited for.

Bryan got a car this month. Someone in our ward was selling their car, and Bryan really had had it with the metro here in DC. He'd be able to spend more time at home/doing homework if he was able to drive. So we got a car for him! We are back to a two car family again. It's a sporty car, so Bryan enjoys driving it. Has a nice stereo system, a big muffler, tinted windows, etc. Definitely not a car for us to do any family activities in :)

Patrick had his third scheduled ABR on the fourth. At this visit, he no longer had fluid in his ears. Hooray! Bryan was able to go with me this time, and he had a better understanding of just how hard it was to keep Patrick awake and hungry before the appointment.
At this appointment, Patrick was found to have a profound hearing loss. he had no responses to anything, except for one questionable response on his right ear. We got ear mold impressions made on the 19th, and got his hearing aids two weeks later in Februarty.

My 29th birthday was this month. I can't believe that I'm now in the last year of my 20s. Bryan got me an iPhone for my birthday, so hopefully I'll be able to take more pictures of our two boys. :)

Holding a bottle for the first time, with the Nanny. Growing up!

Finally got a picture that shows his BLUE eyes. He's also wearing his hearing aids :)

Kiernan attempting to cue I Love You

Patrick laughing :) 

December

I should note that I've been having to go back and post what happened month by month. I honestly don't remember much about this month.

Patrick did have another BAER test scheduled. Unfortunately he still had fluid in his ears, so if we had tested him that day, we weren't going to learn anything new. We also had follow up ENT visits towards the end of November. Nothing was wrong other than fluid in the ears at those visits as well. The next ABR was scheduled for the beginning of January.

Patrick really started enjoying making noises this month. He's reaching for toys and loves watching Kiernan all the time. He lights up whenever Kiernan or Bryan walks into the room.

Christmas was very low key this year. It was the first year we had Christmas without any of our immediate family members on either mine or Bryan's side. While we missed them, I really do think that we needed to have a calm Christmas. Bryan had just finished his first semester at Georgetown, and I had just finished the first half of my work year here. New school, new state, new baby, new jobs....that's enough excitement to last us awhile :).

I only have a couple of pictures on my computer of Patrick from this month, no one else. I need to be better about that.

November - BAER testing

Before reading on, I ask that you respect my feelings and decisions. I have friends who are a part of the Deaf community, I have friends who are not a part of the Deaf community. I am aware of the politics, and feelings people have about children with a hearing loss, etc. I debated a long time before deciding to post this, and feel that I need to as this also serves as a journal for me. I will reserve the right to delete any demeaning and disrespectful comments. I love all of my friends, and hope they can show the same love and respect for me as well.

Patrick had his first BAER testing this month. Fortunately my parents were here for this so I didn't have to go alone. It wasn't until the afternoon, so we spent the morning at the National Zoo so we could wear KB out, and hopefully keep PK busy enough to not focus on being tired and hungry.
When it was time for the appointment, my dad took KB home to get lunch and watch tv (he refused to take a nap), while my mom went with me to make PK stay awake in the car seat. That was not fun. My friend Jenny can attest to this as she helped me do this at a later date. My mom was flicking ice cold water into his face, dripping it into his hands, rubbing it on his feet, etc. just to keep him awake. Boy was that baby mad.

We got there, and the audiologist introduced herself. We first went in and tested his ear drums. He had fluid in his ears. This does affect the test, however the audiologist still wanted to proceed. She explained the process, then left the room to allow me to nurse Patrick to sleep. The whole point of keeping him awake and tired before the test is so that he'll be so tired during the test, he won't wake up. He did BEAUTIFULLY, meaning he stayed asleep for so long she was able to do every single thing they needed. It took just over an hour to do it all. She did air conduction, tone bursts, and bone conduction. As I was watching the computer screen and her face throughout the whole thing, I just knew. I knew our son definitely had a hearing loss. I had seen enough BAER test results through my job to know that he wasn't showing any peaks in the readouts (brain activity picking up sound).

I flashed back to a time when I once told my friend Jenny that I was afraid of having a hearing child (KB), because I didn't grow up hearing and feared I wouldn't be able to relate to him as well. Here I am now, with a child that more than likely has a hearing loss, and I'm scared out of my mind. Why? heaven knows, I'm deaf myself! Yet I knew why. I was scared for him to go through all the different trials, etc. that I had to go through. I guess just being a parent is scary, period, no matter how your child comes out.

After that long hour was over, she confirmed that Patrick definitely had some kind of hearing loss. However, the degree was unconfirmed due to the fluid in his ears. He showed NO responses to anything....None. Even the bone conduction, which proves he definitely has a sensorineural hearing loss to a certain degree. The bone conduction test can only test so loud, hence why the degree of the hearing loss was still a question. At best, he had a moderate hearing loss.

I put on my brave face, and everything echoed in my head that everyone else has been saying "At least I'm deaf. At least I understand. At least I'm prepared with the background knoweldge. At least I do this for a job. At least I have experience with both hearing aids and cochlear implants. At least I have family members who are deaf. At least I already know a visual communication system. At least, at least, at least."

We got home, life went on. My parents left a day later to go visit my other siblings.

I was very surprised at my own reaction to all of this. I thought I would take it in stride. I always knew there was a chance one of my kids would have a hearing loss. However, I still wasn't prepared for it actually happening. I was angry. I blamed myself. After all, it is my genes that made him deaf. It *IS* my fault. I suddenly found myself envying the parents that didn't know why their child was deaf, or knew why but it wasn't due to genes or anything the mother did. At least it wasn't their fault. I cried, a lot. I had a VERY difficult time going back to work hearing all the "at least you know what it's like, at least you have experience" things all over again. It took a lot in me to not just say "I don't care, it's still my fault and I don't deserve to be his mother."

Like I said, I was surprised at my reaction. My parents were surprised. My husband was surprised. My close friends were surprised. It really just hit me harder than anyone thought it would. My husband was more at peace with it than I was, and he's hearing!

It wasn't until something happened at work where I met a new family on my caseload that made me step back and take a new perspective that I was able to get out of my "blame me, I'm an awful mother" stage. Obviously I cannot really give details, but in short, this mother had so many other trials going on compared to me,t hat I just had no right to be acting they way I was. I was being selfish. I have since come to peace with what has gone on since then.

I still fear for Patrick's trials as he grows up. I also fear for Kiernan's trials too as a sibling of a deaf child. However, at least I DO know what having a hearing loss is like. At least I DO know the different communication modality options out there. At least I DO know the amplification choices out there. At least I DO know child development, and what is supposed to happen in Patrick's development. All of those people were right. At least I DO know. How hard must this be for parents who have never had anything to do with deafness or hard of hearing, especially with young children? That's exactly what my role is in my job, to guide those parents to making the decisions that are right for their family.

This experience has given me a whole new perspective on how I will do my job. I respect and appreciate what new parents have to go through a lot more now. I understand the grieving parents do more now. I understand the grieving some parents don't do, and admire them for that. Already, Patrick has given me another blessing in my life and that is to help broaden my understanding of being a parent as I try to relate with and support the parents I work with. Kiernan has done this too, in his own way.

Both of my boys have changed my life for the better, already. I love them. I also love my husband for helping me understand what I was feeling, and supporting me.

I am ever grateful for my family, and wouldn't change a thing.

November

In November I was fortunate to have more family come out to visit us.

My parents were able to make a side trip to DC during a business trip in Chicago (how they made that work, I don't know, and don't care). My brother Michael and his wife came down from Philly to visit as well. So we scheduled the baby blessing to be during that time as my parents were not able to be there for the birth. Below are the pictures from the baby blessing:

Patrick in his baby blessing outfit:

Photo Credit: Chance Hammock

KB having fun with the leaves at church:

Photo Credit: Chance Hammock

Our little family:

Photo Credit: Chance Hammock

Us with my parents, my brother and his wife:

Photo Credit: Chance Hammock

It really was wonderful having them here. 

Then we had KB's birthday the next week. He turned 3!!!! I can't believe it. I also can't believe we're a family of 4...so...yeah.

The kid can NOT keep his eyes open for pictures. It drives me nuts, but it's endearing at the same time.....most of the time :) 

Yes, I made the cake. Yes, it was worth the work after seeing his smile :) 

Patrick enjoyed Kiernan's birthdy as well :) 

Patrick also began smiling this month :)