You've got to be kidding me!!!

Ok.....so it's not like my family does not have tons going on right now with Peyton's surgery coming up and the start of a new school year in a brand new class.....but now I am totally useless! Today at recess I slipped on some loose gravel and as I hit the ground heard a "snap". Well that snap was my leg breaking in two places. Both bones in my leg broke at my ankle so I am now an crutches and with a two year old that means I am pretty much useless. I can't do ANYTHING but sit in the recliner. You know, I have always thought that would be nice, but it's HORRIBLE!!! Thank goodness that God has blessed me with a wonderful husband that has waited on me hand and foot since we left the hospital. I guess now I will take some pain medicine and go to bed (that's all I can do!!). I have to go to the orthopedic doctor in the morning to see the extent of my injuries. Please pray that I don't have to have surgery!

Last Hoorah!!

Well we just returned from Tybee Island where we spent 3 wonderful days on the beach. This was my last "hoorah" before starting back to school tomorrow! We had a blast. Peyton absolutely loves the beach and had a great time playing in the sand and in the ocean. I don't know who had more fun in the sand, Peyton or his daddy. Gran Gran and Grandpapa (Robby's parents) went with us and they really enjoyed seeing Peyton playing on the beach.

Tomorrow it's back to the grind. I am looking forward to a new school year but not looking forward to leaving my sweet little man at all. I have really enjoyed spending the summer with him and he's grown extremely attached to his mommy so tomorrow may be rough on Daddy and Peyton. I am looking forward to working with my new kids though. I am now going to be teaching the adaptive curriculum classroom and I am VERY excited about that. I am going to miss Preschool but you do what you have to do. I am also excited about my new parapro, Karen Bufford. She is going to be wonderful, but I am going to miss my old parapro, Jennifer. So there will be a lot of changes but change isn't always a bad thing, right?

As far as Peyton goes, we are anxiously awaiting our surgery date! We will only be going to therapy every other week until then. This is because we have really done all we can do until Peyton has more access to sound and language. That does not mean that therapy stops at home though! We will be working really hard still and counting down the days until he has his first Cochlear Implant.

Sorry!!

Well it's been almost a year since my last post! I have now committed to sitting down at least once a week and updating our blog. Of course tons have happened since my last post....so much I don't know where to begin.
Peyton received hearing aids in February of this year. They are giving him a lot of receptive benefit but still isn't getting the language that we need. We still don't have any expressive language (with the exception of the few signs he uses). We are still receiving AV therapy once a week, but we now go to Macon for these services because our wonderful therapist transferred there. The drive is actually much better and we would go to the moon to be able to see Candice. In June, we returned to see Dr. Todd for a check-up and it was at that time that he told us it was time to move on. So we immediately began the Cochlear Implant process. We saw Jolie (an audiologist at CHOA) for his initial work up and she began the insurance process. That was a two week process and today we got a surgery date of Oct. 27th. Yes...I know....that is the Wednesday before Georgia/Florida but the DAWGS are just going to have lose without us this year.....my baby is more important. Until then we will continue doing what we have been doing. We are still doing therapy at home but instead of it being a set time each day it has come more a way of life. Don't get me wrong....we still have times that we sit down and really work on our skills and function words for the week, but it is a continual process. It NEVER ends!!

That is the medical update....since my last post Peyton has turned 2. He is every bit of 2 and into everything with the attitude to go with it. We have had a great summer but have stayed really busy. It will be time to go back to work in a little over a week and I'm not looking forward to it at all. I will post some updated pictures soon. Again, I am sorry it has been so long in between posts and I will do better!!

Yes...We are still alive!!

Well hello everyone. I know it's been forever since I have blogged. Things have been SO busy. Things are starting to settle down at work and I am getting used to traveling around the county. Peyton is doing great! Still not tons of progress, but he is responding a little more to sound. Of course, I would love to see a lot more progress, but we will get there. We are still working really hard. We have therapy today!!! Since last time I posted we have 6 new learning to listen sounds and 4 new function words. Peyton has really enjoyed playing with the baby. When we make the "waaa, waaaa" sound he just rocks the baby. He will be a good big brother one day (maybe!). He has also really enjoyed the function word "pop". We having been blowing bubbles in the tub every night so he can "pop" them. He thinks that is wonderful.

As far as sounds go, he is still not making many consonant sounds consistently. He will make a few here and there. The one he makes most frequent is "gggg". We will take what we can get!! He is making a lot of vowel noises still and is laughing all the time. He is such a happy baby!

Well this past Saturday kicked off our football season and sadly enough it didn't get off to a real good start! We had tons of fun watching the game with great friends though. This weekend Peyton is going to MeMe's which will be good because the game is a night game. That means I get to go and tailgate all day with everyone. Robby and I are also going to the Yellow Daisy Festival on Friday so that will be tons of fun too!

I thought I would share a picture with you guys! I just love my little redneck! He loves to be outside just like his daddy and he won't go anywhere without his hat on!! He is 100% boy!!

Well it's off to shape young minds. Hope everyone has a great (short) week!

Goooooooooooo DAWGS!!

Well it has been a while since I have blogged. Things have been busy, busy, busy around the Duvall house. Our gargen is putting out TONS of veggies. We are staying really busy picking, shelling, and freezing all the goodies. Peyton is still doing really well with his sounds. We practice ALL the time! He loves to sing and this week we are singing "Open, Shut Them" and as soon as I start singing he makes a fist. He has had some really good hearing days, but yesterday was not one of them! He was extremely ill yesterday and that may have been part of it! He is also cuttingh is 1 year molars and that has not been fun for anyone involved. I was threatening to sell him yesterday, but if the truth be told, whoever bought him would have to take me too! :)

We did have a fun weekend! We took Peyton to get his picture made with Uga at Picture Day. Poor Daddy got up at 3:30 am to get a ticket, but it was well worth it. I will have to post the picture (when I figure out how to do that!). He LOVED that and the picture was SO cute. It was a really neat experience. It is probably something we will do every year from now on.

Well tomorrow is therapy! Daddy has a meeting so Ms. Pauline is going with me. Yes, she is the babysitter that does EVERYTHING!! I will let everyone know how it goes!! Have a great week!

Weekend.......WHERE ARE YOU?

Ok...am I wishing my life away. I am SO ready for the weekend already. Work has been good this week, but I think I am just still exhausted from the lock-in this past weekend. Anyway, Monday was a not so good day for home therapy. Peyton did work on his sounds for Daddy for a little while on Monday, but by the time I got home and sat down with him he would have NO part of it. That is so frustrating!!! He did work for a little while though and I guess that's better than nothing. I loves playing with his bus so we really worked on the bu,bu,bu sound.

Well yesterday was therapy. I was extremely nervous all day because we were going to get the results of his baseline evaluation. Even though I know Peyton is behind, it is still hard to hear. Before I tell you the results, let me just sing Ms. Candace's praises. Ms. Candance is our AVT therapist and it like family now (She should be! We spend more time with her now than we do our family!). She is ABSOLUTELY amazing! Robby and I know without a doubt that God placed her in our lives because she is exactly what we need, not to mention exactly what Peyton needs. I know personally how hard it is to go over test results with parents, especially when there is a delay. She did a wonderful job, without "sugar coating" anything! Thank you for all that you do Candace!! OK...now on to the test results! My baby is one smart cookie!! He scored high is the areas of Physical, Adaptive Behavior, and Social-Emotional Development. He scores were in the low average range for Cognitive Development and below average in the area of Communication. The Cognitive and Communication was not a surprise to us. Spoken language effects both of those areas tremendously! So basically, this evaluation told us that there isn't a global deficit. Peyton is just behind because of his hearing impairment!! Talking about relieved. I thought my baby was smart but to hear it from a professional is a whole different story!! Candance did break down his communication deficit and basically Peyton is about 10 months behind in both receptive and expressive language. This is definately a gap that we want to close! So right now we are going to continue therapy and revisit the language scales in about 3 months. At this point, if we don't see a lot of progress and by "a lot" we mean more than 3 months progress (because our goal is to close the gap) then at that time we will start the process of evaluating him for hearing aids (which is the next step in this process)! Although that is something that both Robby and I wish that Peyton did not have to go through, we want what is best for him and trust Candace and Dr. Todd totally! We are very appreciative of all the prayers and just ask that everyone keep them coming!!

Because of the evaluation results we didn't get to do a lot of therapy, but we did get 3 new Learning to Listen sounds: cow (mooo), truck (nu nu nu nu), and bird (whistle). We are also working on the function word "push". So the work continues!

Today is Wednesday so we won't get to see a whole lot of Daddy because he gets home after we are already in bed. He also just called and said that Peyton is running a fever. It's low grade so I think it's probably just teeth. That means he will probably not be in the best of spirits today. It's a good thing he is with Gran Gran and stay at home. Happy Hump Day everyone!!

Home again, home again!

Well my baby boy is FINALLY home! He had a wonderful weekend at MiMi and Poppy's but I missed him like CRAZY!! My mom said he had a really good hearing day on Saturday. It is so weird to me how his hearing comes and goes. She said he responded to just about everything! She was really impressed and took advantage of it and worked really hard on his Learn to Listen sounds! She said by the end of the day when she pulled out the therapy toys he would just put his head down. But he always participated. He is such a trooper.

Peyton left on Thursday toddling around and came back yesterday running. WOW!! He will fall down and just stand up right in the middle of the floor. I am so proud. Now I know our work is cut out for us. I chased him everywhere last night. He loves to be chased. He will run and just laugh and laugh! He is so much fun. I have thoroughly enjoyed every stage he has went through. I just can't wait for him to talk. I just want to hear him say "Mama" so bad. I am confident that it will come. I know it is not going to come as easy as it will with others but I am sure that it will come one day. We are working WAY to hard for it not to!

Well Peyton had a wonderful weekend and so did Robby and I. We had the lock-in on Friday night and had a blast. We had a good turn out and all the kids had such a good time. We did sleep to about lunch on Saturday and then hit the garden. We picked and shelled butter beans for the majority of the afternoon. Then we decided that we needed some time together so we went on a date. We went to eat at the Olive Garden and then went shopping for Peyton some Fall and Winter clothes. We really had a good time together. Then of course, yesterday was church and then I went to pick up Peyt!

Well it's a new week with tons to do! I hope and pray it will be a productive week for me, as well as, for my sweet little man!!