15 months

Wearing hearing aides this month has been very challenging.  Before the new earmolds arrived (a couple weeks ago), he constantly pulled them out and often wiggled his fingers into his ears.  It's so hard to know if he has an ear infection or other irritation when he keeps doing this.  Travis checked his ears a couple of times and the Pediatrican checked at his well-baby appointment also.  Even though he had a runny/snotty nose for a couple of weeks, his ears checked out healthy each time.  So I think he just pulled them apart so much that the sound wasn't getting through very good.  They were whistling a lot even when in place. Finally the new earmolds arrived and they fit better, I guess, but they don't go into his ear canal very far so again, they are pretty easy for Isaac to just pull out.  He's also getting very good at shaking his head and waving his hands around so much that even with two of us trying to keep them in his ears, we have to give up at times.  We're doing what we can, but it's a very difficult battle to keep up with this month.  He's probably spent more time without them then with them.  We made new molds last week to try to get a better fit (again). 

It makes me feel confused about what his hearing limitations are. He hears without the aides. He responds to most of what is going on around him. He's not profoundly deaf so he should and does hear without aides. I don't know how well or what tones are clear or if most things are muffled. I don't know if he responds to our gestures and facial expressions or if he really hears and understands our words. When I hold the aides up to my ear, the sounds are amplified so much that there's no way I could wear them. Sometimes I wonder if it's too loud for him. I wonder if it's possible that his hearing is improving and if we are now damaging his residual hearing by stuffing the amplifiers in his ears. We pray for him. We pray for healing. We pray for understanding and patience and medical intervention... We pray for sucessful hearing assistance and speech skills. Is it possible for his hearing to improve? According to his genetic testing, the Connexin 26 mutation is known to niether improve his hearing nor progess in hearing loss. Maybe God will heal him. At this point I don't "need" him to be healed but I would like to understand his hearing loss issues better. I continue to pray for patience while he grows and develops his social and speaking skills. One of these days Isaac will be able to "tell" us what is going on in there.


We had to follow up with the Pediatrican to check his weight this month.  He gained about 14oz over the last three months but he's still pretty low on the graphs.  I guess the curve line shouldn't be going flat so we have to go in again in January.  He's getting thinner as he's getting taller but I don't think we have to worry about it much at this point. The doctor just wants to monitor him to track how much he gains within a month. I'm trying to feed him fatty foods that are healthy with lots of organic whole milk.

I've completely weaned Isaac. The last time I nursed him was on Christmas night.  The reality of the end of this phase of my life makes it sort of hard to let go of.  He's only been nursing at bedtime for the last couple of weeks.  He's drinking and eating all table foods at this point so he really doesn't "need me" anymore.  boo/hoo My baby's getting big.

Isaac is cruising all over the funiture and crawling to wherever he wants to go.  He's getting taller so we have to clear the edges of table tops now too.  For Christmas he recieved a new walking toy.  It transforms from a bike into a walker.  He likes both forms but hasn't figured out how to move the bike forward yet - just backwards, a little bit. When walking with it, he gets sooo excited and giggly.  He knows he's doing something very exciting!  He's also added kissing and lip smacking while he walks.  Makes me melt with love!  He needs to figure out how to back it up after banging into the walls and getting "stuck".  I think free style walking will be coming soon.