Yesterday evening I picked Toes up at daycare, put her in her coat, wrestled her into her carseat and headed home.
Along the way, we talked about the Christmas lights. We talked about how "Green means go!" and "Red means stop!" She told me to "Go that way!" whenever we came to a corner. We looked for garbage trucks. She asked for music. She told me "No!" when she realized it was Mommy's music, not hers. (I can never seem to fool her.) She bopped her head to the Wiggles. She sang "la la la" to Princess of the Sea.
When we arrived home, Toes and I walked to the mailbox to get the mail, we went inside the house, then to her room to wake up her bear from where he had been napping since morning and to put her coat away. We talked the whole time. About how we were going upstairs to wake up her bear and how she would hang her coat up. I asked what she wanted for dinner and she said "Chicken! Applesauce!"
When I took her coat off, I realized her right coil was trapped deep inside the sleeve of her coat. That only could have happened when I put her coat on at daycare.
For the previous half hour, she was listening and responding based on only her left implant. Even to music.
And I hadn't noticed a thing.
I never in a million years expected her to learn to listen and respond so well on her left side in only one month. It felt like we had only just begun our journey into teaching her to listen on that side. Yet it looks like we just might already be there. Already.
At therapy this morning, Toes's therapist told us that now that she is responding so well on the left side, we don't need to work with her right side off any longer. What a relief!
It was so difficult to work formal left-sided therapy into our schedule, given that she really disliked having only one implant on. Whether it was her left or right side. As soon as we would turn one off, she would start complaining. So, on weekdays, we were often only able to work in 15 minutes - and it had to be focused therapy where we kept her constantly interested in what we were doing. Otherwise she would remember she only had one implant on and start with the arguing.
Now we can go back to our usual process where we incorporate therapy into our every day routine - instead of concentrated sessions. We're back to our form of "normal" again.
Go Toes!
