Cole started school today in a brand new building! I know he's only 2, but he is going to Carle Auditory Oral School in Urbana, IL three days a week for 2 hours at a time already! In total, he'll receive 3 hours of individual therapy (2 at school and 1 at home) and 4 hours of group therapy! John and I are taking turns bringing Cole to therapy and spending time with Ryder and Cora. I'll go with Cole most of the time, during which Ryder, Cora and Daddy will have fun adventures together. They already had a great time playing tennis at the park today! We are so thankful (again) for God providing such an incredible place for Cole to continue learning to listen and speak! Especially in a place that is so well equipped with an incredible staff and now a building that provides such a GREAT space for all that goes on there...especially since now his audiologist and therapist are in the same building! No longer do we have to go to the 4th floor of the hospital to map his CI's! It's so great to have everyone in the ECHO team in the same place.
CAOS serves students who are hearing impaired along with typically hearing peers who also benefit from the language-rich and theme based environment. This school has been in existence since 1997 and had many "first days," but the exciting thing about today, is that this "first day of school" was the first one held in the new almost 16,000 square foot building! Read more about the new facility on the Carle Foundation Hospital website on the following link:
We attended the Open House on Sunday when the ECHO building was open to families and the public for the first time on Sunday. The following videos were posted by two local news stations about the opening...
This video shows the inside of the building along with interviews, including Dr. Novak who performed Cole's implantation surgery:
This video shows the balloon launching that took place on Sunday after the doors opened to the families served at this school. We heard speeches, sang songs and released balloons to symbolize that they exist to help our children reach new heights! The sky's the limit for our kids! You can even see us if you don't blink...
So, I know you're wondering...how was Cole's first day??? It was wonderful. He had an hour of individual therapy and then an hour of group therapy with 2 other boys (I love the small groups!!!) One of the things I appreciate about therapy this year is that it is centered on teaching parents how to be their child's primary therapist, so every week we'll focus on a new strategy. This week we're working on "Audition Only" where we use only our voices to ask our kids to perform tasks. Once we started focusing on ONLY audition, it was funny to catch ourselves using gestures we didn't even realize we often use without realizing it. It's so easy to use gestures, especially when Cole's face is so expressive! It makes me want to use everything to help him understand what I'm asking of him, but I'm being extra careful now to not point to the chair, instead just say "sit down in your chair," and he is responding wonderfully. All the things he's heard us ask of him for 7 months are finally starting to register on a more regular basis.
So for a quick update...he's doing great :) Another mom whose son has been in group with Cole from the start, got teary this morning hearing his progress over the past month when we were on break. He's saying two syllables now for many words he only used to say the first sound for. I'll try and post a video soon but it's hard to capture sometimes! His favorite words include, airplane (eh-puh), open (o-peh), apple (ap-ah), for Ryder it's funny since he says Ba! and our favorite...Daddy! (a-e) I'm hoping Mommy is on the horizon, but for now it's Ba-Ba! :)
One of my favorite moments about taking Cole to school this morning, was the way he lept out of the car and practically ran across the street to get inside. Once we went inside, his new therapist greeted him and being the first time they met, she thought he may have been a bit shy at first, but not my Cole! He walked right into her room and confidently sat in the chair for his ling sound checks. As if he was showing off, he listened and responded beautifully to all the sounds I gave him behind his back from across the room, with Angie posed in front of him to remind him to listen...he barely needed her help. I told her, Amy (his previous therapist) had trained him well! We even laughed at one point when she put her hand over a toy he was putting blocks into, to try and get him to say "in" before putting it in the toy. He saw her hand covering the toy and immediately put his block up to his cheek and open his eyes wide to show us he was listening...You see, during the ling sound check we do at the beginning of each therapy session, Amy would cover the toy he was putting blocks into if he started to put them in without hearing the sounds first. He saw Angie cover the toy and thought he was supposed to start listening! He's certainly been well trained!
We're looking forward to a great year at CAOS. We love his therapists (3 different ones this year) and we really feel like he's at a great place developmentally, to grow by leaps and bounds this year! Between the time at CAOS and our life of therapy we live at home, we look forward to see what God has in store for our boy this year! We praise Him for leading us to the resources we have here to help us along this journey with our boy...
Another answer to prayer!
Can't wait to visit Coles school someday soon and see the little cutie pie in action!
XOXOX