The Ever-Amazing Emma

I have to take a little space here to brag about Emma.
She is just so amazing in so many big and little ways, but I don't think she always receives the recognition she deserves. This picture doesn't really do her justice: she was impatient about Mommy being on the computer when she wanted to use the Internet to play her games and this is what she looked like, but when I pulled out the camera she immediately brightened up and became a cheesey ham. I told her she needed to be grumpy again, so this is Emma being "grumpy" for the camera.

Emma's talents have been recognized recently at her preschool. I like her school because most of class time is dedicated to learning socialization, manners, safety, hygiene, etc, instead of the ABC's that Emma already knows. She knows most of the other stuff too, but those things can always be reviewed and practiced. Beyond that, the teachers have individuals goals set for each student. They have a list of about a dozen different areas like math skills, reading readiness, physical skills, etc, and under each area they have 3 steps (basic, intermediary, and advanced) plus a fourth that include enrichment options. Each of the steps have 6-12 developmental goals for the kids to pass off. It's a way for the teachers to keep track of where the students are developmentally and to help them advance in the ways they individually need.

The problem for Emma lies in that she's passed off almost everything! Last week Emma showed them that not only could she count and identify the numbers 11-19 (one of her goals), but she wrote them all up through the 30's before it was time to go home (okay, so some of her numbers were backwards, but that's just cute!). She can count through 100 and beyond and knows how to read a digital clock. So her teacher set a goal as a replacement of reading three letter words with picture hints. When her teacher told me, Emma immediately had it passed off because she's reading basic books on her own! The teacher than set a goal of reading phrases and sentences and didn't really want to accept my word that she already could, so that is one of her current goals. Her other two goals are to consistently get left and right placements correctly (which she can do, but mixes up when she isn't trying) and skipping--she kept thinking that galloping was the same as skipping. So you can imagine her absolute joy when at Wal-mart on Saturday, she suddenly figured it out! (The woman at the customer service desk thought she was so cute...) You can also imagine her teacher's reaction (part pride and excitement, part frustration that she suddenly needed another goal) when Emma came skipping in as happy as a lark on Monday morning. So the teacher's decided we need to come up with some for her because their lists (hundreds of things) have been exhausted. If you have any suggestions, I'm open to ideas!

Her primary teacher expressed her astonishment at Emma's reading abilities during church on Sunday. The teacher has a son that will be starting Kindergarten this fall with Emma and he's no where near that point. In fact, that's becoming a little bit of an issue because Emma has four other neighborhood kids (all here on the same street) ready to start Kindergarten with her this fall--but I would like to try to get her into first grade so that her potential isn't limited. Anyway, any thoughts you have on this I'd like to hear, too. (I don't think there are any other kids at church that are currently in Kindergarten.) Anyway, with the good, comes the challenges! (But they're good challenges....) I've only just skimmed the surface of her remarkable abilities, but I've gone on too long as it is!

Frustrations

So I just want to let you know that I don't blog as much as I like because of computer frustrations. In reality, I know it's my own fault because I'm too cheap to pay for a quality Internet connection. But that doesn't make it any less frustrating that the last 4 times that I tried to blog didn't work (mostly the picture wouldn't load). So I'm really hoping this one works and will restore my faith in borrowed Internet connections--but I am purposefully not including a picture. I also realized that although I have some time in the afternoons to do this kind of thing (Gavin is usually napping and Emma is usually playing with friends), I don't really have nearly as much to share as I thought I would. My kids are darling, but I'm not really the type of person that really recognizes and remembers cute kid tales, nor am I constant picture taker. Plus there's the reality that we don't do too much that's different or exciting from day to day. So, despite a desire to be a more prolific and exciting blogger--you'll have to settle for this!

They're here!

The kitchen cabinets came on Tuesday, and they are so beautiful! Jason asked if, now that they're here, we really can wait all the way until Spring to install them (or maybe even later so we can work on some outside stuff when Spring comes). After this last weekend's extravaganza with the living room, I'm totally up for taking a break for a while! But let's see how I feel in a week or two!

By the way, the third head in this picture is of Emma's friend, Emma Pace. She lives just three houses down and they love to play. So far every ward we've lived in has had another Emma within a year or two of our Emma's age. We just had our ward boundaries change and we brought this Emma with us and there was an Emma in the ward we moved into! Three Emma's in one primary--luckily they aren't in the same class!

The Magnificent Transformation

So, after a lot of work and determination--we have finally made a significant transformation in our living room! The first picture here is of Jason removing the old wood flooring (that we are guessing is circa 1920) on Monday morning, and the second is of the room Monday night with the new floor mostly in and the walls painted. We were motivated first with the idea that Monday was a holiday so we had no work (ha ha, this was a lot more WORK than I do ever at my job) and, second, on Tuesday our new cupboards for our kitchen were coming and we wanted to have some where to put them. The kudos really go to Jason because he took out 95% of the floor himself, while I had to chisel out the floor boards that went under the built-in bookshelf; and he painted all of the walls, while I just did the cutting in; but he doesn't get the full credit for the new floor because I did most of the kneeling, placing, squatting, standing, kneeling, crawling, standing, etc--and trust me, my body's complaining about it! (Though he was a great help and the next morning did a lot more of the floor while I was gone.) Probably the only major problem that we ran into was the subflooring under the wood we removed--we think it’s the original 1890s floor and it had a hundred years of dirt and dust built up on it, as thick as a quarter inch in places, which we couldn't vacuum because of the nails in the floor. So we swept and now have a small layer of 100 year old dirt all over our house! I am too tired and sore to clean it now (I wasn't slightly sick before this weekend that has turned into a really nasty cold) so it'll have to wait till the weekend when we'll do a thorough cleaning of the entire house. It will be so nice because with this remodeling our house hasn't felt very clean in months!

Prophet, Seer, and Revelator--President Thomas S. Monson

After the rather unexpected news of President Hinckley's death last week, the latest news from the church's website is concerning the new prophet.

Thomas S. Monson is the new president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it was announced today at a news conference in the Church Office Building. President Monson, 80, succeeds President Gordon B. Hinckley, who died 27 January.

The new world leader of the Church has called to serve with him in the First Presidency, the top governing body of the 13-million-member faith, President Henry B. Eyring, 74, first counselor, and President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, 67, second counselor.

President Boyd K. Packer, 83, is the new president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will be filled later.

I think it's so exciting to get a new prophet and he's obviously chosen his counselor's well. I'm have to admit that I was surprised by their ages--they all seem so much younger than their chronological ages. I think it will be really interesting to see what the focus of this new presidency will be.
I want to take the time to express my love and appreciation for Pres. Hinckley. I will always consider him "my Prophet" because he served during most of my teenage and young adult years. I have made the most important decisions of my life under his term of service and he greatly influenced my own testimony. He was an amazing man who will be impossible to replace. But I'm certain that he's happier where he is now. Isn't it amazing the difference in perspective one has with the knowledge of the plan of salvation?

Gavin can hear...

A good friend from high school (Brittany Johnson Jones) reminded me that there are those of you that I haven't communicated well with over the last year, and thus aren't necessarily aware of some of the amazing changes that have happened--especially for Gavin. As I'm sure you all know, Gavin was born with congential hearing loss considered to be profound to severe; with the diagnosis of LVA (Large Vestibular Aquaduct), he's almost guaranteed the loss of all available hearing by the time he's an adult. It took quite a while before we felt everything really was true and conclusive because with this kind of loss, he has good days and bad days where he can hear better or worse (he still often surprises us with what he understands when he's not wearing his "ear"). So he finally was fitted with hearing aids around the time he turned one.

We then moved to Logan for Jason's job and eventually decided (as it became more and more evident how much he was starting to fall behind) that we should pursue the route of trying to get Gavin a cochlear implant. It's a fairly difficult process with lots of various professionals putting in their two-bits, but a good process because we knew they wouldn't let this major surgery (which kills all natural hearing in that ear) happen unless it would be successful. Amazingly, the biggest hang-up that the specialists in Salt Lake had for not wanting us to do this was because of where we now lived--Logan has a reputation of being extremely sign language/deaf culture oriented and they were worried that we wouldn't have the support and services we needed for Gavin to be able to learn to hear and speak.

We pushed through anyway and on April 13, 2006, a month before Gavin's second birthday, he had the cochlear implant surgery in Salt Lake. After a month of healing, we went in to have him "hooked-up" (which is when they gave us the external parts of the machine, turned it on, and set it for his needs). There is an external processor that collects the sound, turns it into electrical impulses, and sends it to the headpiece that is magnetically attached to the internal electrode. The electrode goes into the cochlea and directly stimulates the hearing nerve, completely bypassing the faulty part of his ear. So since May 21, Gavin has been hearing. It didn't take long for him to adjust to his new "ear" and was making leaps and bounds beyond what we were told to expect. I guess he just decided he was tired of being held back! At the time of implant he was almost two, but was at a 10-month-old level of language and cognitive development. Within four months, he had jumped to a 16-18 month level. And now, at thirty months of age he's already up to a 24-30 month level! He's just about caught up!

We need to give some credit where it's due, though. Gavin's teacher for the deaf (from the Utah School for the Deaf and Blind), Jennifer Kite, has been there through it all and helped more than I thought possible. But even more then what she was able to provide (because she admitted that she is not a speech therapist), within a month of Gavin's surgery we heard that USU was going to start a oral-language focused preschool. By the time September came, they already had it up and running and Gavin had started going to "Sound Beginnings" toddler group. It is an incredible opportunity for Gavin to be going there--it's the best and only program of the like in the state of Utah. And miraculously, the off-chance that Jason found his dream job here and we moved here without even knowing such a program would come into existence, turned what was most worrisome about Gavin's implant (lack of services) into the greatest opportunity available in the state! We are most grateful to the "One in Charge" for that!

So to summarize, Gavin is talking up a storm. He understands just about everything you say and is quick to do what he wants anyway! We know that he knows at least a hundred words and can say approximately half of those, and the number of words that are understandable to the untrained ear is slowly increasing. We are so proud of all that he's accomplished and no longer have any fear that he will be limited in life, we fully expect him to be completely "mainstreamed" by the time he's in Kindergarten!