Giving Thanks

I love holidays, any holidays, with the excitement and festivities. I love getting excited and feeling like something big and special is coming. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because it always reminds me of everything I have to be thankful for and it also puts me in the mood for Christmas. I was a little worried about how today was going to be when our morning was full of multiple breakdowns from our super dramatic little girl; and I'm sad to say, her mom too. Thankfully, we both got things under control and headed over to the Taylor's for an awesome feast. After our fun day with cousins, I decided to ask everyone what they were thankful for. I love how some of their answers are so innocent and simple.

Treyson: Family

Honey

Heidi (our dog)

Car

Ice Cream

Ashten: Family
House
Car
Grandmas and Grandpas
Cousins

Mandy: Beautiful, healthy kids
Amazing husband
Living so close to family
Jesus Christ
Traxton's new "ears" so he can hear me say "I love you"

Jared: Family and Friends
Free Country
Church
Home
Bees

We have so many things things to be thankful for!!!

One-Two-Three...Pinned

A couple of months ago Jared signed Treyson up for little league wrestling. He loved it right away, but I was a little nervous for his first match. I felt like it could be pretty dramatic if he lost, since it is such an individual sport. At least with soccer and t-ball when you lose it was a team effort.

Watching him at his first match, I was amazed with how natural wrestling came to him. (I guess I should have known since I am constantly telling him to quit wrestling with his brother and sister.) He was surprisingly really good, especially considering he only went to one practice before the first match.

The wrestling tournament lasted for five weeks and he was never beat. 15-0. It was so fun for our family to go watch him and to practice with moves at home. Thank goodness Jared wrestled in high school so he could teach him some cool moves. Last week both sets of grandparents were able to watch his last match. It was really neat for them to all be there supporting him and to see him pin all three of his matches.

Since Ashten was his practice partner at home, she has gotten pretty good too. She was such a good sport to let him learn on her. So far she is the only person who has been able to pin him. :)
Treyson's trophy for winning the tournament.

Activation!!!

We took Traxton back up to Salt Lake this week to have his post-op appointment with the surgeon. He said everything looked great and cleared us to have the implants activated. Once we met with the audiologist, she gave us the outer devices and programed them for the lowest level needed to initiate a response. Because the implant creates such a different sound than he had before, it takes time for the brain to learn what it is and how to interpret it as a language. We were told that some kids start to cry when they are activated because it is loud and scary. We really wanted to see a big exciting response from him, but it never happened. Jared and I felt like it was a little bit of a let-down. At one point he turned his head to a sound, but that was it. He was so good and patient while everything was set up, even though it was a little scary. The sound is quite minimal right now because his brain needs to adapt to the change. During the next week we will continue to turn his mapping up so that hopefully with each increase we will see progress.
Now that we are home, I feel like we have a huge amount of work ahead of us. We have to teach him that the new sound has meaning and how to interpret it. I am struggling with feelings of being overwhelmed because I feel like his success depends on me. We have such a long way to go and right now it feels like there is no light coming through at the end of the tunnel. I know I need to keep my expectations reasonable and take every day at a time.

He is such an amazing little boy. He is so strong and resilient with everything that he has been through. Even though we have dealt with some challenges in his little life, I am so glad I'm his mom and I wouldn't change anything about him.

Happy Halloween

Cutest Cleopatra, King Tut and Mummy ever!!!