Salem Art Fair or Belly Button Power

Last month was the Salem Art Fair, which is held in Bush Park every year. There is a ton of art work, music, and food. This is my second art fair. Here is a picture of me at this years art fair.




And here's one from last years Art Festival. Killer Hat huh?




Here is an artist's rendering of "The Count". This guy's tent was way at the end of the fair, which is where we entered from. By the time we had walked to the beginning and back, this guy's art work was almost all gone. He must have made a killing.




We also saw artists like this guy who was.... well very interesting...





We also saw Judge Judy... at least I think it was her... a lot taller than I ever imagined though.





The biggest highlight of the day was when we found the swing set! My parents put me down and I hit the ground running.... WOOOOT SWINGS!





Here I am using the powers of my belly button to persuade one of the kids to give up their swing to me. "I have one question, which one of you guys is giving up his swing and pushing me?"





After burning up the swing set with my outstanding swing skills, I took off running again. Eventually my legs ached and burned, and my head swam with fun overload, and I collapsed only able to drink milk and regenerate my powers.





Mom helped me up and I checked the belly button for additional back up power.





and I was off, the belly button once again fueling me for a bit longer.





Until finally there wasn't any energy left anywhere... and I rode home in the back pack, exhausted.

Grandpa's Birthday

My Grandpa's birthday was last month. We went out to the farm house to celebrate. I wore this sweet shirt and when I got out there they had presents for me!!!! Well, it was more for the house so that when I go out there I have some cool toys to play with.. .but still, I am definitely attending more birthday's!!



Here is my shirt and the cool new car toys out at Grandpa and Steph's house.




My grandpa opening a gift and me with a light mustache!




Ummm, can you say handsome studs?

Coloring!

My grandma bought me some crayons the other day, which I love... sometimes I love them so much I attempt to take a nibble out of them...


Here I am coloring with my dad!






It is pretty obvious the amount of talent I have by the drawings here on this page.






I was trying to teach Steinbeck to color but he has issues with holding the crayons... perhaps I can create a device to facilitate Steinbeck's passion for color.

First Post Back: World Beat

Last month we went to the World Beat Festival. It was pretty cool, I enjoyed seeing all the people, and different cultures, not to mention all the sounds.





This was far more ferocious and interesting looking a few months ago.






This, however, is still terrifying.... Not sure which world this guy is part of but I will never be setting foot on their soil!








Here I am checking out some Native American Dancers.








This guy was crazy he would do all these jumps and yells and stab at the ground, or do some twirls and stomp to the beating of the drums.








This is the moment I realized that the Native American dancers were not wearing underwear








luckily I found this flag to forget about all the horrors of World Beat.

Long Overdue

HEEELLLLLLLLLEEEWWWWW


It has been over a month since my last update. My lovely father is in charge of the typing and he thought it more important to study and take a few weeks off and ignore all my very important updates. He has a stack of posts on his desk needing typing and he assures me that this is now happening as we speak.. or write.. or .... however that would go.

I have been up to a ton of stuff, I have about a zillion pictures to share but it all rests in the old mans hands. I won't call him lazy, just distracted. So, since it will take a while for him to get everything in order I have a small update about my hearing that doesn't really rely on pictures to tell.

I have been really into sounds lately, when I hear a sound I point to my ear and look to see if others heard it as well, not to mention now that I can walk I can investigate sounds easier. My dad and I play this game where we make monster sounds and chase each other around the house! I know it doesn't sound all that fun, but drop by and play a few rounds and your mind will be blown. That's a promise!

I have also been practicing making sounds, like cars, or animals (sheep, horse, elephant, cow etc etc) and airplane sounds. When my ear falls off I walk around trying to put it on and saying "mamamamamamamamama". I also have started to respond to my name. Sometimes I pretend not to hear my name (which is ironic that a deaf person has to pretend not to hear) because I see that my parents want to strap me into something and I would rather continue playing with my trucks.

Actually I am doing good at listening. The other day my parents pulled out my listening box....

For those of you who don't know what the listening box is, its a box filled with different toys that help me to practice the different sounds used in language. Airplane (ahhh), a pig (oink oink), a ghost (ooooohhhhh), an ice cream (mmmmmm), a cow (mooooo) etc, etc.

.... my speech therapist Jessica gave me and my parents some games that we could play and work on using the listening box.

There is this one game where we pull out four or five animals, make the animal sound one at a time, and line them up. After they are all lined up my parents ask me to find which animal makes whatever sound they happen to make.

This game usually ended with me grabbing a car and making a sweet motor sound while sending it speeding past the lined up animals. But something awesome happened the other day. I picked up every animal in the right order every time they made a sound!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WOW! huh?!


anyway, check back for all the exciting updates, I'll see ya'll further on down the trail!

A Few Months Until Stereo!

So the other day I went to see Don Plapinger (one of my hearing doctors). We were going to test my responsiveness in a sound booth, upgrade my profiles on my implants, and also discuss my second surgery for implantation.

During the hearing test, I turned at 10db, which sounds like this

" hello Isaac "

So I am doing pretty good. I am getting good at locating sounds, mimicking sounds, and also just babbling away, with an occasional yell just because its funny to watch people get scared at the power of my vocal cords.

AHHHHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(be afraid)


We also scheduled my second implant date for September 16, which unfortunately makes it impossible for us to go on this cruise we were going to take. Which really bummed me out, as I have been playing with my boat in the tub pretending it was an ocean liner like the ones I see in the Baby Einstein videos, and just like the one my parents assured me we would be taking on the cruise.

But they say we can take a cruise anytime, and getting my other ear implanted is priority number one.... I can hardly wait for the second implant. I get super frustrated when It falls off, or when I have to take it off for baths or swimming. What can I say, I love to hear!

One other thing about the implantation in September is that Cochlear is releasing a new implant (which is already out in Europe but not FDA approved here) and OHSU is one of the medical facilities that has the ability to implant kids with the new device as long as it is done between now and the end of September.

The only problem with it is that I would only get One of the new processors (thing worn around the ear) and would have 3 of the old ones (there are two processors for each ear, in case one is damaged we have a backup while it is sent off and fixed).

The only problem with having one new and one old, is that only one ear would benefit from the new technology, and that the new one is a lot smaller so my sweet sweet symmetry would be off.

We are asking Cochlear to consider giving two New processors (so both ears will benefit from the same technology and preserve my symmetry) and keeping two of the Old technology processors for back up.

Lets keep our fingers crossed. I have a good feeling about this as the Cochlear company has amazing customer support (one of the reasons my parents chose them). I think they will come through, even if its something like, we get only one new one now and an old version that we don't open and then trade in once the FDA approves the implant.

I will of course keep you posted about any new developments on this front....

P.S. I am FULL ON walking now and keep my parents very, very busy. I will post photos soon.....

Conquring The Ocean

For some reason I was scared of sand the last time I went to the beach. Not really sure why, but I was.

So naturally my parents took me back there...

The day was calm and warm.





My mom carried me out to a little pool of water that was trapped on land from the retreating tide.





I felt panic boiling inside my belly.






But the warmth of the water was too enchanting.







I looked at my reflection, and saw small creatures swimming around....






I had to get a closer look, this little tide pool had the all the right ingredients for pure awesomeness..






Needless to say......

Fear....

Conquered!





The waves were very loud and I kept looking up at them.





*they looked like this*







When I heard the waves crashing they got me all pumped up,






so I started to make my own waves, turns out I'm a pretty good wave maker.






I found my truck that I love and started pushing it around in the water. I tore the place up!






VROOOOMMM




This is a picture of what the car sees when I push it around.





Wheelie!





At some point my truck adventures came to a screeching halt because I found something in the sand.





My dad insisted it was alive but It didn't really move, and seemed more like a rock to me.








until I grabbed it and flipped it over,








and underneath was the craziest thing I had ever seen. Zillions of little tentacles.








After that my dad took me down to the waves... they were even louder up close.






I got wrapped up in a towel and we headed home.
My fear of sand long forgotten, and my new found love for the beach birthed into existence.

A bird tale

The world is a magnificent place that continues to put me in a state of awe. As spring and summer roll around I see the wonders of animal and plant life. In fact, I recently got to experience the cycle of life first hand.

It was about.... a month ago (flashback music)...

Cherries were ripening on our cherry tree, the sun was out, birds and bees puttered around, and the trees and plants were howling with a deep green as they soaked up the sun. Flowers were exploding with color and I was out on the deck playing with my wonderful little glacier toy driving my cars into its depths and tossing raisins that I wanted to save into the blue water (upon returning the next day these raisins had grown plump and juicy!).

I was minding my own business when I heard chirping above me. I looked up to see a wonderful little bird in the tree (you will have to excuse the horrible pictures, I am only 15 months old and my job at National Geographic is still pretty far off).




Could you see the bird? Well it's there, trust me.

After I took the picture of the bird, I watched it for awhile. It stayed in the tree for a few minutes and then flew toward the garage where it landed on these small houses that hang on the side, and to my amazement it went inside the little house. Now this was shocking as I thought those houses were just funny little things my parents had put up for some reason or to make their house look bigger. It turns out these are actually bird houses and my new found fascination had found itself a home.

I went and grabbed my dad and showed him what was going on. He was shocked that a bird would actually use these rickety old houses as well. We watched as the bird brought in small little pieces of plants.



My dad said the bird was building a nest to lay eggs.

I was very excited because my dad told me the eggs would turn into small little baby birds. I was going to experience the miracle of life!

I noticed that Ripley was also very excited about this miracle and wanted to congratulate the bird because he started hanging out below the birds new home and watched it fly in and out.



At some point mom called us in for lunch. I can't remember what we had but my mom makes me lots of yummy foods, so I am sure it was delicious! During lunch there was a large noise from outside. My dad cursed and said "the bird house" and ran outside. I got scared and went after him. The bird house was on the ground and Rippy ran past me.

My dad carefully picked up the bird house and attached it back to the garage. He also then put a stick under it to hold it up because the top busted up into small pieces.
(and yes, the above picture was taken after this incident, but I thought it still fit well enough)

After we fixed it my dad was worried the bird might not return for the eggs, and Ripley was worried he might not get a tasty snack after all. You can see Ripley is searching for a tasty treat on the ground.




After about an hour the bird came back and was laying on the eggs again inside. Ripley was brought in and then day turned to night, and night turned to day, and days turned to a week.

That next week, while we were eating lunch again there was a large crash from outside. Another curse rose from my dad followed by "RIPLEY!!!" as he ran outside. I once again got scared, and went after him. Mom came running and picked me up. When we got outside the bird house was again on the ground busted up, and the eggs were strewn across the ground. My dad was looking around for something to put the eggs back in the nest with.

We eventually got the bird house back up. Two of the eggs were destroyed but we had saved two of them. The bird returned and was squawking loudly as it jumped from branch to branch in the tree.

The bird went to the house, peered inside and then took off. We checked the house from time to time but after a day or so of not seeing the bird it was obvious it had had enough of our crappy little bird apartment and had decided to move on.

Poor birds.

I still love Ripley.