Babbling Baby

As the holidays approach, I've been feeling very thankful for many things in my life. And Everly is at the top of the list! As of this week, she has been "hearing" for seven months. And this week her babbling, imitation, and expressive words have exploded. She has a few clear words: dada, mama, more, up, uh-oh, go. And she has several half words that will be full words very soon. For example, she says "oh" for open, "buuuhh" for Brooks, "neen up" for clean up. She has others but you get the idea. With each new sound, my heart explodes and I continue to be amazed that my deaf baby is hearing and speaking to me...

Last month, she had another mapping session with her audiologist. These sessions are long and boring. But she did amazing. Essentially they have to test and reprogram her implants. She has to sit in a sound booth and try to react to sounds (this didn't go very well). And then she has to sit on my lap in the small room for more than an hour with her implants hooked into the computer. I think most kids, or adults, wouldn't last that long. I was sure proud of her.  Luckily her next mapping session isn't for another six months.

It's been a special year for us and we are fortunate that life continues to be positive in so many ways. I wish everyone a happy holiday season! I'm thankful for each of you that support and follow along with Everly's journey. 

Everly loves to sweep!

Brooks and Everly love to play together

Loved the aquarium

Silly siblings

Riding the tractor at Tanaka Farms pumpkin patch

Everly wears her behind the ear processor for most of her therapy sessions. She's getting used to it!

Boo!

Brooks and Evvie are starting a harmonic band

With her friend Ruby at the John Tracy Clinic

Lots of cousin time in Arizona visiting GG 

Evvie LOVES her cousin Tahsa and tries to copy everything she does

Snuggling siblings

Everly threw her implant from a second story staircase. Luckily I found it. Can you spot it?

Busy kiddo

Watching the ponies with her buddy Tatum

Everly's first hunting trip. She wasn't too impressed :)

Helmet. Goggles.  Ready for ski season!!

Playing her baby grand piano many times a day.

Taking a break with Cooper during a walk at the Back Bay.

Halloween! 

No pants. No problem.

Everly loves playing with her babies. She rocks and feeds them. 

Fun outing at Zoomars petting zoo.

Feeding the guinea pigs. Gentle Everly! 

Typical bath time 

We play outside all the time. Thankful for our long driveway.

Calling for Brooks

Evvie started swim lessons. This is as far as she got the first time.  She usually loves the water but had some stranger danger issues with coach Dan...even though she watches Brooks swim with the same instructor every week.

Enjoying the empty beaches! Love were we live. 

There's just something about a deaf baby playing the piano :)

Everly's Update

Hello everyone. Sorry it has been a few months since our last update. I hope everyone has enjoyed their summer as it's coming to a close.

As of now Everly has been hearing for four months and we are very pleased with her progress. As we mentioned before, the changes we saw with her after the initial activation were immense. "Oh my gosh she heard that!" ... Was a common saying in our house for couple months. And in such a short time we have already gotten used to her being able to hear. Sometimes when her "ears" are off, in between changing clothes or after bath time, I will talk to her as if she can hear me. And then I realize her implants are off so she can't hear me! Our habits have changed in such a short time. I no longer have to touch her or get in front of her face to get her attention. Now I can just call her name and she turns to me. It's quite amazing.

Everly is starting to babble and make new sounds all of the time. It's so exciting when a new sound comes out of her mouth. She's proud of herself too when she makes a new sound. It's pretty darn cute. She doesn't have any words yet but I think her first word will be dada. Actually, I think she already knows what it means so now it's just getting her to say it on demand.

As grandma would say, Everly has music in her bones. She dances and sways to everything. She loves rocking her babies, playing the piano and other instruments, and listening to music. Every day I'm grateful that she can hear it.

It's back to our crazy fall schedule after Labor Day. Everly will continue with her therapy four days a week. This means lots of time in the car with mama!  I'm excited to see her progress even faster as the months go on. And I will try to be better at keeping everyone up-to-date!

Here are some of Everly's one year photos from the talented Carolyn Ruiz Creative!
 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy 1st Birthday Everly Jo!



It has been one memorable year for the Larson family.  Many emotional times, and lots of happy and sad tears, but in the end we have not only survived but conquered this year.  The day of Everly's diagnosis was probably the worst day in my life. There were so many unknowns.  And unknowns are scary. Since that day there have been so many milestones to celebrate. And with each milestone the unknown became less and less. We found the right doctors, we developed a plan, we found out she was a cochlear implant candidate, her surgery, her activation... Now our path is clear.  We still have Mount Everest to climb however it's not unknown anymore. And I know our family will conquer all the future milestones like we have done so far.

Everly is a very happy one year old.  She enjoys walking (although a little unstable still), playing too rough with her brother, exploring the sand at the park, and swinging. Her hearing and listening are coming along great as well. She is only eight weeks hearing and she responds to many sounds both loud and quiet. She's even beginning to correlate sounds with meaning. For example, if Cooper barks, she looks towards the door because that usually means someone's coming in the house. If you say "bye-bye Everly," she will give you a wave. And many others...

Thank you to all of our family and friends for the support over this last year. No doubt you've played an important part in our lives. And we are grateful to have all of you.

 

 

At the zoo!

Petting the goats

Family trip to Big Bear Lake with Grandma Lou

Cool lake breeze on her face

Everly loves hearing in the bath with her waterproof processors. Thanks Advanced Bionics!

Playing with uncle Brad on the slide and trying to avoid the three dogs

Belly raspberries from daddy 

Everly loves the little pool in our little yard

TV time!

Morning snuggles with daddy. That flash is too bright!

Our little walker

Snack time in the back of mama's car after therapy sessions

 

 

"You will never have this day with your children again. Tomorrow they'll be a little older than they were today. This day is a gift. Breathe and notice. Smell and touch them; study their faces and charms of the present. Enjoy today mama. It will be over before you know it." -Jen Hatmaker

One Month of Hearing!

It's been one month since Everly's activation.  As you can imagine, her world has exploded! In the first weeks after activation, Everly has shown a lot of different and new reactions to voices and sounds. We have been diligent in our observations as to which sounds elicit a happy or curious reaction and which sounds startle her. It's amazing the difference we have seen in just one month. Everly definitely responds to Cooper's barking, clapping, knocking, singing and playing the piano. In the last week or so, she's really starting to respond to our talking voices.  It can be confusing for her to differentiate between new sounds, voices and noises in these beginning stages. She hears better and responds more in a quiet room without too much background noise.

On Friday, we had another mapping session with her audiologist at USC. They tested her current settings and made some adjustments to her programming. She did remarkably well. No tears this time! Well, I had some tears but that's a normal occurrence for me these days :) We were told that Everly has access to hear most of our speech sounds. She did not respond to the softest and highest frequency speech tones but we believe she has access to hear those sounds and didn't respond because she doesn't recognize them as sounds yet.  That's where the therapy comes in.

Below is a video of her one month mapping session. You can see her clearly responding to the beeps. It may not look like much but this is an immense improvement from just one month ago.

We couldn't be happier with her results thus far. I can't even imagine how she's going to impress us in the future. I can't wait.

Everly's hearing birthday!

Wow what a week it has been! Everly's Cochlear Implants were activated this week starting on Tuesday, April 21st. This will be considered her hearing birthday and a day we will never forget. Everly was such a trooper. I can't imagine how scary it must be to hear sound for the first time. When the implants were activated, she cried most of the time which is a normal and good reaction. It meant that the cochlear implants were working. We went back two additional times so the audiologist could continue to adjust the programming/mapping. It's more complicated than this, but essentially she turned up the implants each time. We needed to make sure Everly was comfortable, not in pain, and could tolerate the mapping. Everly had no tears the second and third day. It's amazing how she learned to tolerate her new sense so quickly. By the third day, she definitely reacted to the testing the audiologist did. It was amazing.

Although Everly is 10 months old, her ears are that of a newborn. Think about what you expect a newborn to hear. Not a lot. Newborns don't know their names; they don't know their mother's, father's or sibling's voices; they don't turn toward a sound; there's no meaning attached to any sound. Most newborns can sleep soundly in a noisy room. It's a little bit of a hard concept for me to comprehend. It seems as if Everly should know her name, should know my voice, but she has only reacted to a couple sounds thus far. Of course this will all come in time. We resume all of our therapy next week. I am looking forward to getting back to our routine, albeit a busy one.

Thank you to everyone for all of the positive thoughts throughout this period in our lives. We couldn't have done it without all the support we received. And a special shout-out to the grandparents, as they were with us every step of the way.

First reaction of her new sense...

1st activation day

 

All hooked up with her new equipment

 

It's been a long morning but she;s still happy

 

The grandmas singing to Everly

 

 

Everly's hearing birthday is a day will we never forget!

 

At home after activation playing with brother Brooks

 

Reading books is so different now!

 

2nd activation day with our audiologist, Jamie. No tears today!

 

Playing while testing my new magic ears.

 

3rd activation day. Trying the second device that goes behind the ear. She will eventually wear this one when she gets older.

 

More testing...

 

Lots of wires and equipment!

 

Finally we are finished...at least for now! With our audiologist, Jamie.

 

 

On the way home...we spent a lot of time in the car this week. 

 

My new head gear.  I think she looks like a cute little bug now!

 

Playing with Brooks and using her voice!

 

She reacted to hearing the piano today.

 

It was pretty amazing.