Morgan's 3rd Birthday (Party #1)

I can't believe my baby is going to be 3 or May 31st. How the time flies by. Since we will be at the shore for her birthday we had a little party with Morgan's Grandmom, Grandpop and all her Aunts and Uncles. We had pizza, presents and a Cinderella cake. She had such a great time, and loves the new big girl bike that Grandmom and Grandpop got her. We will have a little something on her real birthday as well, and then she gets to take another Cinderella cake to school on Tue. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MORGAN!

Morgan's Magical Ears Bake Sale Prep

Well here I go again, it felt so good being able to make a donation to the Cochlear Implant Awareness Foundation that I am going to keep up the fundraising so we can continue to donate to this awesome cause. I reserved a table at a craft show in Delaware where my family has a beach house. I love to bake so I decided to do a bake sale. I have been up late at night and up early in the morning to make sure we had enough to sell at the sale. I also had the help of some friends and family to donate some baked goods. Everything looks so yummy its going to be hard for me not to eat it. Wish us luck on our 2nd Morgan's Magical Ears fundraiser.

IEP

Well our IEP day was May 20th. We started off the day with a trip to see Carmen at CHOP to be mapped. Nothing changed with that because Morgan is hearing all the high and low tones beautifully. She was hearing things that I couldn't hear( sad for me). And the appt after us never showed up so Carmen as able to give Morgan a hearing test in her right ear and programed her hearing aid. She is getting something from it which I really didn't think she was going to. Its not much but I might help with localization for her. She was able to respond when she heard something in that ear. I was very impressed. She was such a good girl and we were there for almost 3 hours. After we left there we went and took Morgan for her favorite chicken from Chik-fil-A for lunch before we went to the IEP. Since we were going from one appointment to the next we had to take Morgan with us to the IEP. WOW was she a good girl, I could not have asked for her to behave any better. She was a very good listener! The IEP last about 2-2 1/2 hrs and went very fast actually. The goals that were set for Morgan were very good and I think very attainable given that we put the effort into help her...I am now a 24 hr hearing support teacher as well as her Mommy or at least it feels like it. I am learning just as much as she is. I learn something new everyday and I have her to thank for it! With the idea of Morgan going to a mainstream preschool next year 2 days a week for about 4 hrs each day I knew I needed to have a support teacher with her each day so that they could make sure she was keeping up with her "typical" peers. Due to her scoring so well on all the test, and measuring as age appropriate they were not so willing to give me what I thought would be best for her. So after alot of discussion about the reasons why I wanted a hearing support teacher with her both days, they agreed to review the topic again. I took all the papers home to read more carefully. With the exception of the support teacher everything else looked pretty good. I was pretty pleased. Also on the way to our CHOP appointment we got a very nice phone call my in-laws. As you all know Morgan is attending Clarke right now and we were not able to send her there next year due to the fact that I had no way of getting her there 5 days a week from 9am-1:30pm, I was just thankful enough that my wonderful Mother in Law takes Morgan on Tue and Thurs this year. Well they told us they just love Clarke so much and have seen how Morgan has really made some astonishing progress that they will make sure she gets there next year. I was so shocked and thrilled I didn't know what to think. This was going to change everything that I had planned for her IEP that day. I decided to go into it with the intention of going to a mainstream preschool and see what happens. Now I am in the process of really deciding where Morgan will be going next year. Most likely it will be back to our Clarke family!!!!!!!!

IEP Tomorrow

We have our dreaded IEP tomorrow. I am really not looking forward to it. We have been faced with some really hard decisions with school for next year and trying to do what is best for Morgan. We really would like her to continue at Clarke as that is the best place for her to be but the county will not fund that program and we have no way to get her to school that is about and hour away everyday. If I could only get some transportation, all my worries would go away. They county wants her to attend their program they have for children with hearing disabilities. Although it was a nice school it would not be a good fit for Morgan. They have all the children from 3-5 years all in one class participating in the same activities. The individual speech therapy is given right in the same class that everyone else is playing in, so that is a little distracting and they may not get individual therapy it may be with another classmate. Although we would have that constant monitoring of her progress we still didn't think that was the best place for Morgan. We have decided to send her to a Private Christian school closer to home. Our family at Clarke has yet again gone above and beyond for us. Two of her teachers went and toured her new school Pennview to help give us ideas as to what we would need for Morgan to succeed in this school. They did not have to do that and they they did...they are the BEST and I will miss them very much. Wish me lots of luck for tomorrow! I am already stressing out just thinking about it.

PlayTherapy Session 4

Well things seem to be going very well with the new therapy...Morgan really likes going, and as soon as the therapist come out to greet us she is already saying " Bye Mommy" "see ya later". She if very comfortable with them. I went and sat in on the session for a little while today so that I could learn some things to help her move along at home. She is working on the He, She pronouns right now and syllables. She has already mastered the "ing" action words in less than two sessions. Way to go Morgan! They even made a little game for us to take home with the He, and She. They are already doing more than they have to. Morgan was able to master a two syllable word followed by a one syllable word very easily (ex: Muddy Boots). They moved her on to three syllable words then like Domino, Banana, Tomato, etc. They showed us how to use sing/song to help her make sure she got the three syllables in their. Or how to tap it out with/for her. It has really been working and Morgan thinks is fun. They aren't working to much on making sure all the pronunciation is correct right now as much as making sure she got the 3 syllables. Very pleased with the progress so far, and they are actually working on the same stuff she is doing in school which is another plus.

Playtherapy Session 1

Well last night session went Great...It didn't even phase Morgan when we left the room...they had her so into what they were going to be doing she didn't even care. I would periodically listen at the door to make sure she was ok and all I hear was her talking up a storm and laughing...it was so wonderful to hear that. They did her therapy with a big bin of noodles which she absolutely loved with farm animals, working on 2 step directions to get into the swing of things. Then they played a fishing game and on all the fish were pictures of action "ing" words like "brushing, eating, drinking, climbing, etc" She got about 80% correct on her own, and would repeat nicely whatever she didn't get that the therapist would tell her. Then they also worked on cards with words and pictures just working on getting every part of the word in without leaving off the end or beginning. Morgan also got about 80% correct on her own. Miss Lindsey was very impress with her. Morgan is just always amazing me with all the stuff she knows and can do. She did such a great job she got to go for and ice cream treat!

Playtherapy

Well we officially start our lessons at Playtherapy tonight...Morgan's first two appointments were just basically introduction info and some expressive and receptive testing. They are suggesting us to start out by coming 2 times a week. She doesn't really need alot of speech therapy but with her turning 3 at the end of this month and losing her hearing support teacher we didn't want her to not be getting any extra therapy after school. She scored 102 and 103 on the expressive/receptive test that they did, and the range for normal speech is from 95-115, so she falls right in the middle. We were very pleased with that and how much progress we know she has made over the past year. We are so proud of her! They are going to work on her "ing" action words and also she leaves the middle or end of a word out sometimes, so they are going to work on that. We are going to be mainstreaming Morgan in a private Christian school in Sept. so we just want to make sure she is kept up to par with her peers. We know she can do it, and we will be there to help her ever step of the way. Wish Morgan luck tonight and I will let you all know how it goes, so far I really love this place they are so loving and seem to be willing to do whatever it takes to help the children!

Morgan's Magical Ears Casino Trip pictures

The whole gang that was along for the 1st Morgan's Magical Ears Trip

It was a long fun day

It was beautiful outside!

Are we all ready?

Here are a few pictures from the 1st Morgan's Magical Ears Casino Trip, it was a great day and I hope to do more in the future. It was a great success and we were able to donate a good amount of Money not only for Morgan but also to the Cochlear Implant Awareness foundation. http://www.ciafonline.org/index.html Thank you to all that help, I couldn't have done it with out you!