Hoedown at the Farm

Last week, Nana and I took the twins to the family farm for a little outing.  Great timing for us, as the cows had been herded up and in the corral patiently waiting for their annual spring insect control routine. The bull had been separated from his "girls" and paced the corral until one of the cowboys put out some feed for him. The big guy has to have energy to keep up with his cows and all their calves. 
Emma walked to the corral with some help from Nana and I took Nathaniel in my arms to see the cow commotion in the paddock. There was a lot of mooing going on and my mother's dog, Ginger, was not especially helpful. She doesn't know she is a small poodle, not a large herding dog. She tried to herd the already penned cows which just made the cows more antsy. My mother had to take Ginger back to the farm house, leaving me with the antsy twins. 
Emma is my little daredevil, she likes to get closer, she wanted to get in the pen with cows. Nathaniel, on the other hand, is a bit more cautious, and one cow in particular, sent him into tears.  She had a particularly loud, high pitched moo, it startled him. At first, he stuck out his lower lip, pouted and then began to cry. 
It was fun to be at the farm with my mother and have her show my children their roots.  My mother grew up on the farm during the depression and through WWII.  I hope my children get to spend a lot of time with their Nana at the farm. I'd like them to carry some of the history in their hearts.
A couple of days later,  the children and I went to hear story telling at Barnes and Nobles. While we were there, I purchased a Melissa and Doug handmade, wooden with sound farm puzzle and a book, Baby Baa Baa to reinforce their time spent on the farm.   Today, I heard Emma say, "pig, pig, pig" when she was working on the farm puzzle.
Tomorrow, the twins and I are taking Daddy to the Dallas Zoo.  I wonder if I can find a book or a puzzle with zoo animals to reinforce our learning experience. It would be fun to hear Emma say "penguin, penquin, penquin" or perhaps she'll say "tiger, tiger, tiger."
It's off to bed, because tomorrow is Zoo Day!!!

Disappointment with Hearing Test

My son has Audiotory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder along with mild deafness in his right ear and more pronounced deafness in his left ear. He has been wearing hearing aids since he was six months old. We thought he was getting better, because we weren't able to discern much difference in his hearing when he wore them. When he was 6 months old, he would wake us up in the morning with his babbling.  He's been in speech therapy for about 6 months and showing improvment. He's making more sounds that actually seem like words. Today he told his speech therapist, Shannon, "Buh bye" and waved his hand as she left the room. We were all amazed. He talks so much more than his sister, who doesn't have a hearing impairment, so it's a bit disappointing to have a hearing test like he had this morning.
Funny, I thought he was getting better because he seemed to hear the same with or without his hearing aids in his ears. I didn't think that the reason his hearing was the same with or without aids was because he need more amplification. Why didn't I think of that? His last ABR (acoustical brain stem response) was markedly improved over his first one back in April. I thought his hearing was improving, but after I saw his test results I wonder how much he is not hearing.  He can hear speech sounds in his right ear but his left ear, that's a different story. So it looks like he is going to need another sedated ABR and more behavioral response hearing tests to determine what is going on in his noggin.
His audiologist at Callier Center for Communications said the next step is to turn up the amplification in his hearing aids and if that doesn't work we should consider a Cochlear Implant for his left ear.
Disappointing...
On the bright side, we caught his hearing impairment early. He is getting speech therapy and we provide a language rich environment for him at home. He has good  receptive and expressive  language skills. We are fortunate to live in Dallas with a very good medical school and the Callier Center. I'm also thankful my husband and I didn't take the advice of the first ENT we saw for him. We trusted our gut instincts and got help for Nathaniel sooner instead of waiting 6 months before we had him retested. By the time Nathaniel was 6 months old he had a MRI ruling out a audiotory nerve dysfunction, an ABR, and his first pair of hearing aids.  He's now 14 months old, we'll have to see what the next 6 months hold for him.