Moot Thoughts & Musings

Harmonica Man
Moot Thoughts & Musings There are many cute little clips out there of kids dancing to music hearing it with their cochlear implants. I always feel like posting the videos the of E dancing when he isn't wearing any hearing devices. It looks the same. He feels the vibration through our wood floors. I guess I have an evil streak. heehee. Seriously, though, I do think the CI has made a differe...
Tech Tue, May 13 2008 hide this blog

The IEP Meeting
Moot Thoughts & Musings Ellis is a big boy now. We held his IEP meeting today in our home and drafted up a thorough Individualized Education Plan for when he turns three in a month and a half (eek!). Thankfully, we squeezed this in before baby. The meeting lasted two and a half hours, and I'm satisfied with what we came up with. One of our biggest concerns was that the IEP take into consid...
Language Education Tech Culture Fri, May 02 2008 hide this blog

keeping the bun in the oven
Moot Thoughts & Musings A little excitement over here in babywatch last night. I've been really tired this weekend. It's been lovely and warm (though I'm pleased to note that my feet are no longer swollen now that I've taken a break from basking in the sun). I rested a lot this weekend. But yesterday woke up feeling yuck. You know that weird yuck at late pregnancy that can't really be defin...
Mon, Apr 21 2008 hide this blog

evaluated
Moot Thoughts & Musings One of the things that needs to happen before baby is getting Ellis's IEP squared away, which is scheduled for May 2. So far, the IEP is turning out to be a much saner arrangement than E's IFSP (the 0-3 program). It's just us and two intelligent people who are easy to work with and are specialized in deaf education. With the IFSP, there's a weird arrangement of serv...
Education Tue, Apr 15 2008 hide this blog

notes
Moot Thoughts & Musings Sometimes when I turn on something for E to watch, I just hit the mute button. It's one of the perks of having a deaf kid. I usually don't hit mute when he has his CI on, but today I wasn't thinking and when annoying children's TV music came on, I hit mute out of instinct. Purely self-preservation. He came up to me a few minutes later and signed MUSIC HEAR. He's recen...
Language Tech Tue, Apr 08 2008 hide this blog

Life is like . . . a submarine.
Moot Thoughts & Musings Yet another rare appearance by Dad! Ever see Das Boot, or Crimson Tide? The Hunt for Red October doesn't count, because it doesn't really convey the reality of daily life on a submarine. It's excruciatingly boring, characterized by much olfactory discomfort, governed by very strict rules of economy, and only occasionally interrupted by periods of spine crushing inte...
Language Education Tech Culture Sat, Mar 15 2008 hide this blog

language notes
Moot Thoughts & Musings E's been doing really well about wearing the CI. Much better. He's worn it without taking it off all day almost every day for the past couple of weeks. (Except for the bit yesterday when he wouldn't wear his hat and CI at the same time--and the hat stayed, of course, it's all about fashion). It's nice not to have to search the house multiple times a day to find the s...
Wed, Mar 12 2008 hide this blog

My Two Year Old
Moot Thoughts & Musings Just when you think you have two-year-old figured out, he goes wonky on you. Morphs into a new human. There's a hundred little ways he's growing and changing. He wants to do it himself--he gets the juice out the fridge, hands me the bottle to pour for him, and puts it back. (I'm dreading the day when he decided he can pour it, too.) He comes up with more games to play...
Language Tech Sat, Mar 01 2008 hide this blog

milestone
Moot Thoughts & Musings When I started teaching my son ASL, learning it as fast as I could teach him, I knew that someday, he would go off to deaf school and come home and teach me signs. I always wondered what that would be like. I'm sure every parent goes through this with their kid starts learning things that the someone else other than the parent teaches them. Well, today I lived that ...
Language Education Tue, Feb 12 2008 hide this blog

Six months
Moot Thoughts & Musings It's been six months since Ellis's CI activation. It was actually 6 mos exactly a week ago, but I've been wanting to sit down and write a long, eloquent post, but it's just not going to happen, at least eloquence isn't. So I'll pound out some details just to keep them around. Last Thurs in his speech therapy session at CHOP, Totally Awesome Therapist declared that El...
Language Education Tech Thu, Jan 31 2008 hide this blog

a super bowl commercial not to miss!
Moot Thoughts & Musings Be sure that your volume is on!! This is SO FANTASTIC!! For more about the commercial see msnbc.com.
Media Art and Storytelling Culture Thu, Jan 24 2008 hide this blog

I actually got a blog award!
Moot Thoughts & Musings In the Blogosphere, usually at the end of the year, various awards get handed out by various websites, usually through a nomination process--i.e. your blog gets nominated enough, and you get an award. I've never gotten an award. I feel like I have a solid blog, but not necessarily a distinctive one, know what I mean? I don't really care. But for the first time this ye...
Language Education Culture Mon, Jan 14 2008 hide this blog

there's a lot I'm not going to say
Moot Thoughts & Musings We had our first meeting today with Ellis's "new speech therapist." I put that in quotes, because I'm not sure if we'll keep her. She drove me crazy. I'll give her a few sessions to find a groove, but if it ain't groovin' I'm ditching her. We wanted to add another therapy session per week, in addition to the one we're getting from Totally Awesome Speech Therapist at...
Education Tech Tue, Nov 27 2007 hide this blog

Ears, letters, phonemes, school, etc
Moot Thoughts & Musings It's probably about time to do another update on how fantastic Ellis is *grin*. I was kind of on hiatus from all deaf blogging for a little while. The comments were starting to get too intense for me, which, to some extent, I allow to happen merely by posting on the world wide web. whatever. Lots of fun things to write about today. On the CI front, Ellis is making ex...
Language Sat, Nov 03 2007 hide this blog

some words
Moot Thoughts & Musings I need to write this before I forget, because I think this little incident was an important little milestone in E's CI journey. He's 2 1/2 months post-activation. He doesn't respond to his name as much as I'd like, but then he doesn't respond when I wave him down either. He just gets really focused. I think it's a 2yo thing. But he's responding really consistently t...
Language Education Tech Thu, Oct 04 2007 hide this blog

more late night thoughts
Moot Thoughts & Musings I've been doing more research on the internet. I think I just need to go away and read a novel. I'm dreaming about deaf issues lately. It's just all deaf all the time. I'm trying to get a feel for the CI community. It's something I've resisted for a long time, because my first experience with it was so depressing. But it's a reality in my life now, and at some point I...
Wed, Oct 03 2007 hide this blog

evening thoughts
Moot Thoughts & Musings The two month mark has passed from E's CI activation. He's doing well, especially expressively. When he's wearing the CI, he more regularly turns to his name/other sounds. And he's consistently saying "bye-bye" and "aaah" for airplane. He's imitating speech sounds very well. I'm continually amazed at how great his speech therapist is. He's also completed two weeks of...
Language Education Tech Thu, Sep 27 2007 hide this blog

Deaf History Pit Stop
Moot Thoughts & Musings bust of Laurent Clerc By request, I'm posting a bit more about our stop at the American School for the Deaf in Hartford on the way home from our fabulous Maine Vacation. This was our first trip up through New England, and I thought that it was kind of cool how close everything is. Driving through Massachusetts is like reading an American History textbook as you pass [...]
Language Education Thu, Sep 20 2007 hide this blog

small, interesting moments
Moot Thoughts & Musings (I started this last thurs. better finish so I can get to other things) Today Ellis and I went to the children's hospital (chop) for his weekly speech therapy. I'd prefer that we not be going to a hospital for that as it reinforces the medical associations with deafness, which we essentially believe is a social, not a medical, disability. But, that aside, the [...]
Language Audism Tech Tue, Sep 18 2007 hide this blog

Dad speaks
Moot Thoughts & Musings Though I almost never post on my wife's blog, I almost always read through the comments she gets re. d/Deaf issues. Mostly I tend to stay away from commenting, because I have a tendency to take things personally, whereas she is much more measured in her responses. However, I feel like taking this opportunity to reiterate for those not familiar with our story, some of [...]
Language Education Sun, Aug 26 2007 hide this blog

CI Vlogging: One Month since Activation
Moot Thoughts & Musings Ellis's CI was activated on July 24. It is now August 25. So, how is E doing? Well, not bad! Sound awareness is the first step in the CI training process. Learning how to use the CI is often called "rehabilitation", but I find that term kind of yuck. I want to ask, Rehabilitation from what? So on this blog, I will call it CI Training, since it is a tool that needs [...]
Tech Sat, Aug 25 2007 hide this blog

Gid's vlog
Moot Thoughts & Musings My friend's crazy, smart 4 year old Gid sent Ellis some vmail. Gid is 4yo, is hearing, and loves ASL (he learned it from his smart mama who took it in college). Ellis is, of course, deaf. Couldn't resist posting Gid's mad signing skillz, esp the fingerspelling!
Language Thu, Aug 23 2007 hide this blog

Finding Fishes
Moot Thoughts & Musings Lately, Ellis has been into the movie Finding Nemo (I know, someday he'll discover there's life beyond Pixar, but the secret's safe with us now). He'll sign "watch, fish" when he wants to watch it. It's pretty cute. Well, it's touched Daddy's soft spot, let me tell you. Last week, I was really dragging, and Chris insisted that he would take Ellis with him on a couple [...]
Language Tech Tue, Aug 21 2007 hide this blog

and the following muggy evening
Moot Thoughts & Musings Do you know that part in Gone With the Wind where Scarlet cries "I will never go hungry again!!"? Sometimes I feel like that about summer. After surviving four and a half summers in New Orleans with hardly any air conditioning (we had one window unit that would sputter forth a little cool air that you could feel if you sat directly in front of it), I feel like crying [...]
Language Tech Thu, Aug 09 2007 hide this blog

reflections on a hot afternoon
Moot Thoughts & Musings I'm back. Our internet was down for a few days. I was trying to be calm about it, but it was hard. So call me a loser, whatever, it's my social life. The blog has sort of become all things deaf this summer. This morning, I took Ellis for his last weekly playgroup at PSD. Next time he goes, he'll be in the big Two-Year Old Class that meets without mommies for three [...]
Language Wed, Aug 08 2007 hide this blog

More deaf blogging
Moot Thoughts & Musings I wanted to post a link to a blog that I guest blogged on yesterday. Amy and I have had some exciting conversations and we wanted to share some our dialogue, which we did on her blog. It's been an incredibly encouraging to me as a parent, yet unsure how my crazy kid's life is going to go. :-) I'm totally pumped, writing the blog entry and VIDEOchatting later. How [...]
Language Tech Culture Wed, Aug 01 2007 hide this blog

zoo train!
Moot Thoughts & Musings Today Ellis and I joined our friends for a trip to America's First Zoo. It was a hot day but a fun trip. Before we went in, I popped into the gift shop to find a hat for Ellis. A hat or double-sided tape for wigs are the best things to keep Ellis's CI on his head. He wears a behind the ear processor, which is a little bulky for the little guy, so a little extra help [...]
Tech Mon, Jul 30 2007 hide this blog

The greatest irony
Moot Thoughts & Musings When we had a baby and found out that he was deaf, one of the first things we did was set about learning sign language as fast as possible. Signing was something I was considering anyway, because of the widespread popularity of baby signs to give babies early communication tools. And I mean, don't all deaf people sign? The answer, astoundingly, is NO! There are a [...]
Language Audism Education Culture Sat, Jul 28 2007 hide this blog

Activated!
Moot Thoughts & Musings Ellis's new cochlear implant was activated on Tuesday. Overall he did really well. He looked around, and for the most part, seemed interested. At one point during a break, I signed to him, "Do you want to hear more?" and he looked back and then nodded. But then he also nodded for a cracker. I'm not entirely sure if he understands "hear" yet. The cool thing, though, [...]
Tech Wed, Jul 25 2007 hide this blog

a park and a possibility
Moot Thoughts & Musings Yesterday we went to a picnic that CHOP sponsored for the families of kids with CI's. At first I was a little reluctant to go, since we seem to been Auditory-ville around here. Every time I go to parent events I feel like the weirdo who signs. But I had met some nice people at the educational seminar thing and the other family with a CI kid from E's class was going to [...]
Language Audism Education Culture Sun, Jul 22 2007 hide this blog

gettin' educated
Moot Thoughts & Musings This afternoon we rode the train into center city again to attend a seminar about educational issues for children with cochlear implants. It was helpful for me because it brought together a lot of the information that I knew sort of floating around my head, and I was able to then apply and categorize the information with regards to educational strategies. For the [...]
Language Education Tech Tue, Jul 17 2007 hide this blog

cool new stuff
Moot Thoughts & Musings We went to the hospital today to pick up Ellis's external processor for his cochlear implant. It won't be activated it until next week. So we have a week to get used to it. I think he knows it's his cool new thing. Believe me, it's been on and off about a billion times today. It felt so nice to be having an easy-going appointment after all the drama of late. We took [...]
Mon, Jul 16 2007 hide this blog

Ellis's bedroom, otherwise known as the early...
Moot Thoughts & Musings Today, despite my tiredness--and E's for that matter, I feel like I really pulled some great parenting guns. First of all, we didn't go anywhere. I get to midafternoon, and then I just can't take it anymore, so we go somewhere, ANYwhere. It takes a lot of perseverance to get through that time without going anywhere. I'm glad we didn't, though, because Ellis is getting [...]
Education Mon, Jul 09 2007 hide this blog

Videoblogging 7/7/07
Moot Thoughts & Musings Ellis loves his popsicles. Those of you who know ASL will enjoy his little kid signing (I gave a few clues here and there for those who don't--hope you can read it now that it's all low resolution.)
Language Sat, Jul 07 2007 hide this blog

FAQ
Moot Thoughts & Musings So we're three days past the surgery, and here are couple questions I get a lot. So can Ellis hear now? No. There are two aspects: 1. Just having the device inside his head does not give him access to sound. There is an external processor which he will either wear behind his ear (like a giant hearing aid) or in a pack--whatever is more comfortable. The external [...]
Tech Thu, Jul 05 2007 hide this blog

Ellis home
Moot Thoughts & Musings Well, we're home. The surgery went as well as it could've. Praising and thanking the Lord for his mercies. They assured me that he would throw up on the way home--combination of ear surgery, anesthesia, motion. But he just slept. He slept when we got home. Then watched Cars for a little bit. He threw up once a couple hours after we got home. Hopefully, that'll be [...]
Mon, Jul 02 2007 hide this blog

Ellis. Surgery. Tomorrow
Moot Thoughts & Musings Tomorrow is the big day. As my friend's kids so tactfully put, the day Ellis's head gets drilled. The cochlear implant surgery is scheduled for tomorrow, and so far everything seems in order to go. We arrive at the hospital at 9 am. This has been a stressful time for us. Definitely one of the more difficult decisions we've made. But I think we've made the right [...]
Sun, Jul 01 2007 hide this blog

Wearing a lead vest
Moot Thoughts & Musings Chris, Ellis, and I left the house at 9 am this morning and drove down to the hospital for Ellis's scheduled 10am CT scan. We arrived on time, got checked in, and waited and waited and waited. I was already a little edgy, because for the CT scan they needed--of the inner ear--he had to super-humanly still, so that meant sedation. And with sedation means no solids, [...]
Tech Wed, Jun 13 2007 hide this blog

May 18
Moot Thoughts & Musings I'm graduating. It's happening in Louisiana. I will be having a home visit from our Deaf mentor then a trip to the nature center with a bunch of moms/kids from church then cleaning of the "storage room", which, ironically, includes cleaning up my thesis once and for stinkin' all. I just had to get over the point when mild panic would ensue when my eyes would light on [...]
Art and Storytelling Thu, May 17 2007 hide this blog

Val Day and the Love of Snow
Moot Thoughts & Musings Valentine's Day dawned wintry and blizzardy. Sleety snow misted around us, and a chilly wind found the spot between my scarf and coat collar. At 7.30 am I was trudging through snow in inadequate (yet my sturdiest) shoes with the umbrella stroller strapped to my bookbag and a heavy Ellis in my arms, awkwardness compounded by the fact that he was wearing a million [...]
Thu, Feb 15 2007 hide this blog

Ellis talks
Moot Thoughts & Musings Today we popped over to see our friends Amanda and 11 mo old Maddie. While Maddie was climbing all over me and handing me a teddy bear, Amanda managed to capture on video Ellis SAYING 'mom' (it's actually "ba", but since he can't hear it anyway, that's pretty good!). Watch the movie here.What's amazing is that he has connected a vocalization to a word. I didn't teach [...]
Sat, Feb 10 2007 hide this blog