The Coyote

One of my biggest concerns with having deaf children....has always been safety. We live in the country and wild animals aren't hard to find. Just this morning, four little ears wearing cochlear implants ran inside and proclaimed, "We hear something!! Hurry!" I ran outside to find that a coyote was very near. My dogs had decided to speed it on past our property but the kids, who had not a care in the world, were alarmed when they heard it. Thank goodness! Gman has decided to make a spear from a stick to ward off future predators, and Brook has decided to scare them away...

Bronze Medal Winner

It doesn't matter if you live in a very rural community where over 80% of the kids are on free or reduced lunches due to low income or being noted as homeless by the state or county we live in...

It doesn't matter that you have a disability, can't always hear everything, or if you are noted as a deaf child in a hearing world...

It doesn't matter that there are no "special schools" nearby to send my special children to which leads us into the public school system...

It doesn't matter. Gman earned himself a Bronze medal Friday for his outstanding SAT scores last year. This means he has learned enough in his regular classroom, with his regular teacher, without any pull-out time...to do very well, so well that earned a medal. This time, he's shooting for the silver or gold!

Some of you will ask about his SAT accommodations. He does take the tests in a smaller room, will fewer kids as opposed to the larger classroom full of his peers. This is because his ADHD is so severe and because they need to be certain he heard all the instructions but other than a change of rooms, he doesn't get any special treatment or anything. (Also, if he were to start having processor problems, he wouldn't hold up the entire grade while he troubleshooted-or is it troubleshot, lol)

Very proud of our Gman!

Giving Up

Years ago, I was blessed with a unique child. A child that cried no tears, a child that heard no song, a child that smiled at everyone but insisted on seeing the bottoms of their shoes so he knew what type of tread they were standing on. As an older child, he explained he could tell a lot about a person by the tread of their shoes. He compared it to tires. I guess he knew who walked off the road and took the different paths and climbed the mountains by the bottom of their shoes.

I won't say it's been easy for the Cochlear Kids, always. I know many say we make it look that way when they watch our videos, or meet us at the park, but it wasn't always. I had a child that medically, never was the perfect cochlear implant candidate to begin with. Just when giving up was within our grasps, a doctor looked at my child who had refused to learn any of the signs I tried to teach him, a child that was more social at age three than I had grown to be as an adult and he told me "I'll pray about it."

As he took the next three months to pray, I did the same. My child entered a very long and complicated surgery that our doctor was capable of performing and I knew that when my child came back to me, it would be the beginning of something big and fantastic, whether he could hear or not. Relief in knowing we had our final answer was something we looked forward to.

Now he's grown into a handsome (almost) eleven year old. He's learning all about Jesus and Faith and things we can feel but not physically see. Things that I was told years ago, would be very hard to teach a deaf child. He's learning that prayer can be the answer for a lot of things...for everything. It shouldn't be a last resort, I know that now, but if wasn't for prayer, there would be no Cochlear Kids.

~check out The Road~

Bullet Updates

We have been so busy around the Blakely home. The biggest news is that the husband will become "Mr. Mom" for a few weeks as he recovers from minor hand surgery that will actually prevent him from working his real job for a while. He has no idea what he is in for.....and that's right, he gets to have them for Spring Break which is a whole week off from school at the end of the month! Here are some quick updates on the Blakely kiddos.

• Gage finally has mapping this week, and yes, the husband gets to handle that. He'll do great! He's done it before by himself so they'll basically have a DUDE DAY afterwards until it's time to pick up little sis from school. I am going to ask that they change his mix on his processors so he can use the FM and still hear the students in the room speak as well as the teacher. Right now it's too low and he can't hear what's going on.
• Kids are doing great in school, no real concerns there, they have friends, make good grades, get in trouble (occasionally *wink*)...the basics.
• We are getting new neighbors. The children's grandparents are moving on and have sold their house and we look forward to getting to know our new "friends".

I had a Mama/Son day today and naturally, we spent it muddin', riding four wheelers, exploring, chopping, and anything else he wanted to do. I'm so glad I'm still healthy enough to get out and be a kid when it really counts!