A Star is Born

Our next door neighbor is a teacher but she wants to break into the business of photography. So she asked if she could take some pictures of me to put up on her website.

I, of course, said yes. I think they turned out pretty good, and I figure what the hay, I'll give her a plug for her new business.

Studio Sub Dio
Sara Patrick
503.371.2077
www.paisleysplace.blogspot.com

She puts out some nice photographs for an extremely reasonable price.










I only include this one because in this photo it is the first time I am standing up from a sitting position on my own.











This is my blue steel

Penngy!

My Aunt Gina and Uncle Seth gave me this sweet penguin for my birthday that I love.... almost... almost... as much as I love "My First Bear".



I wish I had a video of how I like to gently pat his head and then squeeze him tight with a hug as I gently pat his back.






I also give him small kisses and pretty much take him everywhere.






One day my Mom and I (and Penguin) were walking to the store when suddenly my mom noticed that I was looking from side to side frantically.

I had lost Penngy! My mom had the audacity to suggest we continue on to the store seeing as how we were only a block or two away. But the thought of not having Penngy with me and possibly never again, was too much! I began to get tense and my breathing became rapid...

My mom noticed how panicked I was so we turned around and retraced our steps. We walked halfway back to our house when we saw his little black body resting on the sidewalk.

I cried out with joy! and then I held on tight to Penngy for the rest of the trip.

One other time I almost lost Penngy during the Thunderstorm, but that is a story for another post.

Return Of The Ex

It was a nice, clear, warm day at the beach. The air had that certain coastal richness to it. I was all set to have a super amazing vacation with the parents.




There we were enjoying the crashing of the waves. I was hearing them for the very first time. Hell, I was hearing the whole thing for the very first time. Dogs, People, the dirty seagulls with their constant yammering... All of it was stunning and wonderful. I marveled at the luck of getting such a nice day on the Oregon Coast this time of year.

I was just beginning to think the weekend with the parentals wasn't going to be a complete waste and I might actually enjoy hanging with them....



and then they dropped the bombshell on me. They had invited other people up to the beach house.






and not just any people, the parents of my ex girlfriend whom I had to dump on my birthday. How could they do this to me? What kind of stuff were they trying to pull with this? I mean are they trying to ruin my life?








I panicked, I begged them to cancel, I swore that this would ruin me for the rest of my life and that not only would they be paying for college but also the therapy sessions to erase this horrible emotional scar.







but my mom sat me down and told me that things would work out, and that I can't just run from obstacles or uncomfortable situations. Which made me feel better.






and you know what? When she finally arrived I was pleasantly surprised to see that she wore her Elton John outfit. Perhaps she was way cooler then I ever knew!
buh-buh-buh-benny and the jets!






So I made nice, showed her how compassionate and loving I am.




Even shared my toys with her!



then we watched the sun set.

Eating Cherries, and The Gilbert House

So life is finally slowing down for me here. Things have been really busy with my moms birthday, and my dads schooling, so it has been hard to find a time to write. Especially since I have really started to like sleeping. I hit the sack around 6:30 every night, and get up about 6:30 every morning. Which makes my dad crazy since he stays up every night drawing till about midnight. Mom tries to get up with me but Dad insists on getting up. Who knows about that guy.

So here are some pictures from the last week:

The Gilbert House is a kids museum where you can learn about bubbles, the body, electricity, different cultures, etc, etc, etc. It is spread out between two houses and between them in the back is a huge playground (which I didn't get any pictures of this time) that has bridges, caves, things to yell in, wood type instruments to play, swings, and a huge maze-like fort thing that you can climb and take slides down. Mom wont let me go down the big slide and I think my dad is worried he would get stuck in there...

So if any of you out there want to take me down the slide please send me an email!

Anyway, these pictures of the Gilbert House don't really show off the fun that is there, but you can see exactly how excited I am. Notice I have the same amazed expression on my face in every single shot? And believe me when I say we have about thirty more with the same expression. I was on fire that day!

Moments before I lose my Mind with Excitement.


Out of Control Face 1


Out of Control Face 2


Out of Control Face 3



Taking a slight break from freaking out




The other thing that went on this week was that we picked Cherries from our cherry tree, and guess who loves cherries? ME!

Walking

OK, so I am not really walking, but I sure am trying really hard. Today while I was at OHSU getting my new implant mappings I also visited the cute speech therapist lady. Her name is Jessica. I was so inspired and wanted to show off for her so badly that I let go of the chair and made sure she was watching me, and then I took two steps over to a table!!!

My parents said Jessica didn't realize how incredible it was, but I saw the glimmer in her eyes. She thinks I rule. I also showed her my belly button when my parents weren't looking... pretty sure she winked at me.

I also have started to do this thing where I will lean up against a wall really cool like, and push my walker away from me so as to appear as though I hadn't used it to get to where I am leaning.

You'll see what I am talking about in some of these walking pictures:

This is me during a very hot day, you can see that I cart around my milk wherever I go.




Here I am making the rounds, checking that the gates are all up and secure. They were...




Here I am doing that thing I mentioned before where I slowly move the walker away from me to impress any on lookers with my mad skillz




Chillin'





What walker? OH that! That was here when I got here...me? No, no, I don't use a walker.

The Almost Missing Post or Jack Comes to Visit

Because I have had a bit of a hectic schedule as of late I keep a folder on my desktop full of pictures that I want to eventually put up on the blog. Which is why my posts seem to come in a flurry of like five in two days and then nothing for a week or two.

So before each of these flurries I go in and do some organizing. I move pictures from the camera into a dated folder. Extract any that were meant for a blog post, and then move them to my blog folder. Once the new pictures have been added I go in and remove the pictures that I posted in the previous flurry session.

I was about to delete a large chunk of them when I suddenly thought "wait, did I ever post these?". After a quick check I realized I had not. Now sometimes pictures get stuck in the folder for a few cycles and eventually I say "I am never going to write this post, the punchline is stupid!" or "Why did I think this would be amusing?". This, of course, was not the case with these pictures as I am sure you will agree.

So here it is, The Almost Missing Post or Jack Comes To Visit:






My Friend Jack came to visit. So I showed him around my house.




On the way through the kitchen we noticed a nice bowl of cat food.




Which we did not eat! I repeat we DID NOT EAT IT!!!!



NAH WE TOTALLY ATE IT HAHAHAHAHAHAH



We know we are strictly forbidden from eating cat food, and as parents swarmed us Jack got paranoid. I assured him the parents would see the cat food and think it was merely raisins. But Jack was getting the jitters and perspiring like an alpaca in the Sahara. He was losing his cool.... and I told him he needed to chill out.



but suddenly I found myself looking over my shoulder... Was he right? Did they know... why were they staring at us? Should we ditch the evidence?



We decided the best possible solution was to get rid of it before we could be questioned. We threw some on the ground and smashed them into the carpet. But the crumbs weren't crushing up fine enough!




So we just had to stuff as many as we could into my mouth while jack shot water down my throat!



Guess who didn't get caught?!?


muhaaahhhh ha ha haaaa ha haaaaa

*wink*

Implant Update and Tulip Festival!

This is another one of those posts where I have been meaning to write for some time but have yet to catch up and post them all. So it is a slow process.

But before I do that, I will give a current update about myself and my implant. It has been about three weeks since I have had it turned on, and I am making some pretty good progress. I am not very consistent but I do turn to some sounds especially if they scare me. It usually has to be pretty quiet for me to really hear it (as in not a lot of background noise). The best response I have had is when I hear a new sound a few times during the course of say an hour or two, and then if that sound reoccurs (and I am not running around the house) I usually can hear it.

Like when my dad chases me around with this toy that Maya's mom gave me for my birthday. It's a little toy you push that holds balls and they roll around and make clacking sounds as they tumble around and around. Sometimes I turn to that, sometimes I don't.

I also was playing with a ball and a tin can and it made a strange sound, and for a few hours anytime I heard that sound I would turn... Of course, I got really sick of my parents doing it every five minutes so I just started to ignore them.

I have also started making car sounds when I push my cars around... mmmmmmmm mmmmmmm mmmmmm... I do this without being prompted because I rock! I also really like it when someone makes a sound by putting their lips together and blowing out and it kind of makes like a bbbvbvbvbvbvbvb sound. (lol, I am about as good at hearing sounds as I am describing them)

Today I started doing the Ahhh sound for my mom and Grandma in the car. However, when we tried to show Dad I was like... "Listen lady I am not a toy for your amusement! I will do it if I want to do it!". I had a similar situation where I was smacking my lips like I was pretending to eat after my dad was showing me how to do it. Then he tried to get Mom to come out, and I was like "show's over folks!"

All in all pretty good progress so far.

The other thing I must brag about is that I have a few signs that I do now, although we are trying to concentrate on oral sounds instead of signing so I am not really working on signs anymore, but I do the dad sign for... well dad, and sometimes... anything or anyone that I don't know the sign for..

I do the bird sign when I see a bird, and when I want to brush my teeth (constantly) I sometimes do the brush sign. I used to do the milk sign, but I stopped breast feeding so now I don't really do that sign.

Anyway, enough about me and my amazing achievements. Here are some sweet pics.. Oh... but my parents are going to try to compile a video of all my achievements. We follow this blog of a girl with Cochlear Implants (her parents are Republicans so its a real turn off, otherwise she would be hot) and they give a month update and a video so I am going to try to do that as well.

Of course my dad is frickin' busy with school and has finals so it may be a few weeks late.


Anyway, here is the tulip festival. It was awesome, and it was colorful!
Once again, these images are all very large files so if you click on them there is a lot of detail to look at.

Here we are arriving at the fields!



A look at the fields and all their wonderful colors!




Check out this cool windmill and rows of soon to be flowers mirrored by the lines of clouds.


Here I am with my mommy and some rows of yellow flowers!



My dad convinced my mom to jump behind the flower cut outs for my blog... lol, totally worth it.
He also convinced her she needed to step in the giant clog.


There was also this giant clog ride that you could get on, but I was too small to ride it. Or at least that's what my parents said. I think they just didn't want to ride around in the clogs.


Then we got an elephant ear. I ate the whole thing and almost passed out!



When we got back to the car we saw two bugs doing it.... lol