Thursday, June 10, 2010
She Can Write her Name!!
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
What I Learned This Weekend
Just got home from the Colorado Schoool for the Deaf and the Blind this afternoon. I love this yearly family retreat. I get so many things out of going. First, my kids get to be around other kids with various disabilities which helps Faith know there are other kids out there like her. It also helps Anthony know that there are other families like ours with one sibling who is deaf or blind or has another disability. Anthony's teachers already tell us frequently how empathetic and helpful he is with his classmates and this atmosphere lets him be himself and enjoy other children just like his sister and make new friends of his own too. Dana also went this year and knocked out 16 hours of volunteering towards her high school requirements. She stayed with the 4-6 yr old kids most of the time and I think she enjoyed being there. She is taking American Sign Language (ASL) as her foreign language, so it is great for her in that way too!!
For both Faith and me, I think it is a great opportunity for us to see older role models, people who are deaf and signing a lot. It's good for Faith to see so much signing because it reinforces her own use of it. I think it is too easy at home for us to not bother signing because we know she hears us; but she needs to see signing as normal communication because she needs to sign to us for us to understand her more thoroughly. And it's good for me to see adults signing so that I can practice it myself and so that I too can see it as just a regular part of our lives.
I also got to meet two mom's with kids just a little older than Faith who have been dealing with feeding issues which is becoming my biggest focus now for Faith. One of their kids has become a good oral eater with some feeding tube supplements and the other is going through a longer road of learning to eat and went to the feeding clinic here that I want to know more about. One of the two little girls also wears a Baha like Faith, but has a different syndrome, CHARGE syndrome, which I have heard of before but don't know very much about. They live within a half hour of us and we exchanged info so we can get together soon to learn more from each other and let our kids play together. It was really cool to see how excited her little girl (6 yrs old) got when she found out Faith also wears Bahas. It's a really big deal for them!
The biggest thing I got out of the conference though was meeting two young men in their early 20s who grew up deaf/hard of hearing and after many years of other support with their eductation, ended up going to the CO School for the Deaf and Blind (CSDB). The school is a residential school with dorms for their students. They both started going to school there around 6th grade and both played football and one of them even went on to play football with the University of Wyoming and went all the way to winning a National Championship in 2004. Both of their lives were fascinating and heartwarming to hear about. But, beyond that, it has opened my eyes around a decision Fred and I will need to make at the end of next year. Faith will finish preschool next spring and we were hoping she will be ready to start kindergarten at the same school as Anthony. Even though the school she is going to pre-school at is where the Deaf Hard of Hearing program for our county is located, I have really been hoping she won't need to stay there for K-6, simply because I want her at the same school as Anthony. I have been toying with the thought of moving him to that school, but it feels like a mean thing to do because he has already gone to 4 different school settings -- 3 different pre-schools plus the elementary school where he just finished Kindergarten. If his first pre-school hadn't closed we would have stayed there for the whole 3 years (he started going 1 day a week when he was 2.5 yrs old). Anyway, it just plain stinks to have to figure out how to make everything work well for everyone. But being at the retreat this weekend helped me see just how big a deal it is to these students to be around their peers that make them feel more confident and more comfortable with their differences. If Faith is really speaking clear enough to be understood by most people by next summer, it will be very tempting to move her to our home school and get a little less support/therapy in trade for more time with her brother and hopefully a stronger relationship (if that is even possible!), not to mention it simply being easier for us to deal with one school instead of two.
In the end what I learned this weekend just makes our decision that much harder, but I feel like I understand more from what might be Faith's perspective as she gets old enough to have an opinion. I want to do what is best for her, until she feels ready to make those decisions herself.
Finally about the conference, we also go to hear about a lot of assistive technology for people with hearing losses from special phones to alarm clocks, doorbells, smoke detectors, headphone equipment, etc. That was very useful for me too! We said our goodbyes around noon and then hit the road getting home just around 2pm. Fred arrived home from his trip to Vegas just about an hour or so after us. He is looking very tan now and had a great time with his old buddies from NY. I'm really glad he gets to take this trip every year and get some nice downtime from watching the kids and doing everything around the house. Even so, next year I hope the dates don't overlap so that he can come experience the family retreat for himself! :P
Well, it's late and I need some real sleep in my own bed tonight!
For both Faith and me, I think it is a great opportunity for us to see older role models, people who are deaf and signing a lot. It's good for Faith to see so much signing because it reinforces her own use of it. I think it is too easy at home for us to not bother signing because we know she hears us; but she needs to see signing as normal communication because she needs to sign to us for us to understand her more thoroughly. And it's good for me to see adults signing so that I can practice it myself and so that I too can see it as just a regular part of our lives.
I also got to meet two mom's with kids just a little older than Faith who have been dealing with feeding issues which is becoming my biggest focus now for Faith. One of their kids has become a good oral eater with some feeding tube supplements and the other is going through a longer road of learning to eat and went to the feeding clinic here that I want to know more about. One of the two little girls also wears a Baha like Faith, but has a different syndrome, CHARGE syndrome, which I have heard of before but don't know very much about. They live within a half hour of us and we exchanged info so we can get together soon to learn more from each other and let our kids play together. It was really cool to see how excited her little girl (6 yrs old) got when she found out Faith also wears Bahas. It's a really big deal for them!
The biggest thing I got out of the conference though was meeting two young men in their early 20s who grew up deaf/hard of hearing and after many years of other support with their eductation, ended up going to the CO School for the Deaf and Blind (CSDB). The school is a residential school with dorms for their students. They both started going to school there around 6th grade and both played football and one of them even went on to play football with the University of Wyoming and went all the way to winning a National Championship in 2004. Both of their lives were fascinating and heartwarming to hear about. But, beyond that, it has opened my eyes around a decision Fred and I will need to make at the end of next year. Faith will finish preschool next spring and we were hoping she will be ready to start kindergarten at the same school as Anthony. Even though the school she is going to pre-school at is where the Deaf Hard of Hearing program for our county is located, I have really been hoping she won't need to stay there for K-6, simply because I want her at the same school as Anthony. I have been toying with the thought of moving him to that school, but it feels like a mean thing to do because he has already gone to 4 different school settings -- 3 different pre-schools plus the elementary school where he just finished Kindergarten. If his first pre-school hadn't closed we would have stayed there for the whole 3 years (he started going 1 day a week when he was 2.5 yrs old). Anyway, it just plain stinks to have to figure out how to make everything work well for everyone. But being at the retreat this weekend helped me see just how big a deal it is to these students to be around their peers that make them feel more confident and more comfortable with their differences. If Faith is really speaking clear enough to be understood by most people by next summer, it will be very tempting to move her to our home school and get a little less support/therapy in trade for more time with her brother and hopefully a stronger relationship (if that is even possible!), not to mention it simply being easier for us to deal with one school instead of two.
In the end what I learned this weekend just makes our decision that much harder, but I feel like I understand more from what might be Faith's perspective as she gets old enough to have an opinion. I want to do what is best for her, until she feels ready to make those decisions herself.
Finally about the conference, we also go to hear about a lot of assistive technology for people with hearing losses from special phones to alarm clocks, doorbells, smoke detectors, headphone equipment, etc. That was very useful for me too! We said our goodbyes around noon and then hit the road getting home just around 2pm. Fred arrived home from his trip to Vegas just about an hour or so after us. He is looking very tan now and had a great time with his old buddies from NY. I'm really glad he gets to take this trip every year and get some nice downtime from watching the kids and doing everything around the house. Even so, next year I hope the dates don't overlap so that he can come experience the family retreat for himself! :P
Well, it's late and I need some real sleep in my own bed tonight!
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Family Retreat
Faith and Anthony are having a blast again which is why I really love coming! I will post more pics later!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)