Ellis Island

When we moved to this city block last October I debated whether or not to get a deaf kid sign. I kind of decided against it. For one, I didn't think it would make any difference. People would speed regardless. For another, we've taught Ellis ...

Blog entry - diber - 08/12/2010 - 22:05 - 0 comments

But the highlight of our VBS experience this year was Ellis had his first personal ASL interpreter that the church hired for him. It was like night and day for him. He was excited, engaged. This picture makes me nearly choke up. He's ...

Blog entry - diber - 07/13/2010 - 15:44 - 2 comments

Today Chris and I were on our first parent panel. We were asked to come to a regional meeting that the State Dept of Ed sponsors for those who are service providers for children with hearing loss. There were people in the room from all over ...

Blog entry - diber - 06/24/2010 - 21:23 - 2 comments

In a week, Ellis will begin his first experience having a personal ASL interpreter in a hearing setting. He will just barely five years old. He has been in great situations thus far. At school, he has full access to communication, because he goes to a ...

Blog entry - diber - 06/14/2010 - 08:49 - 0 comments

So why three parts? Because I had more thoughts than I had time at a time to write. And because what I wanted to say falls roughly into three points: background, what's going on now, and the obligatory abstract reflections. Incidentally, this is ...

Blog entry - cjones - 05/26/2010 - 09:48 - 5 comments

In a previous post I talked about our difficulties finding an interpreter for church, and I mentioned some of the reasons why we think it's important to have one. Let me just say: thank God for the men in our church. Here's why. We recently changed ...

Blog entry - cjones - 05/22/2010 - 16:28 - 6 comments

Amid all the searching and learning we've done since we discovered Ellis was deaf, the biggest issue for us, the elephant in the room, always was what to do about church. Anyone who knows us well knows that we take church very seriously. J and my own ...

Blog entry - cjones - 05/22/2010 - 10:38 - 2 comments

I guess I spoke to soon. I made some inquiries about including ASL in Ellis's IEP evals, thinking that it had been overlooked. Or just didn't really exist. When we were preparing his 3yo transition to preschool evals, my understanding was that there ...

Blog entry - diber - 01/28/2010 - 09:25 - 0 comments

'Tis the season for IEPs. And Ellis is getting ready to transition to kindergarten next year. No, that is not my baby going to kindergarten!! Part of the process is evaluations. I was pleased about many aspects of the evaluation results, ...

Blog entry - diber - 01/27/2010 - 22:42 - 8 comments

This evening Ellis and I went over to school for the first ever meeting of the CI Parent Support group. The CI Coordinator and I had been talking about this last fall, so I said I'd make soup, because it was either that or, um, pizza. No offense about ...

Blog entry - diber - 01/27/2010 - 22:31 - 0 comments

Yesterday we went down to the children's hospital (CHOP) again for Ellis's two year evaluation and mapping. Today marks two years since his activation of his cochlear implant. He wears a Cochlear Freedom on his right ear. Ellis is ...

Blog entry - diber - 07/24/2009 - 13:28 - 3 comments

It's amazing. Simply amazing. We've been agonizing over how to find an interpreter for our church services. Having made no progress, we turned the project over to Mom, and within a few weeks she has made more progress than we've made in many months. ...

Blog entry - cjones - 07/24/2009 - 11:55 - 8 comments

A couple weeks ago we had our last speech therapy session at the children's hospital. We have been going every week since Ellis's CI was activated 21 months ago. He does get speech therapy, both group and privately, in school, but we had been going to ...

Blog entry - diber - 04/22/2009 - 21:59 - 5 comments

Yesterday was such a dreary day! We woke up to a blanket of snow that eventually got soaked with rain, becoming a wretched blanket of slush. Since our weather was somewhere between snow and ice, I took Ellis to his audiology appointment via ...

Blog entry - diber - 01/29/2009 - 12:57 - 3 comments

I know it's been a little slow over here on Asteroid B612. I had hoped that the December Photo Project would kick up my momentum a little, but after the new year I kind of dropped off a little. I do want to blog a little more, just a matter of ...

Blog entry - diber - 01/21/2009 - 13:40 - 0 comments