BlimE Song.. - "Join Us"

Weeks of practicing for a dance with all other schools in Norway.
Finding the son.. practicing the dance.... excellent.

   

And in the end it came all together to the day the whole school performed it... All over Norway.
Great initiative..

Sing along

  

We've had this book/CD for a while now, and lately Lotte enjoys listening to the little songs, and more importantly sing along.

So, on trips with the car, and Lotte present as well, this CD with animal sounds and a song about the animal is played..

Today we noticed that she managed to sing along quite well, in good rhythm and even quite good intonation.

The practice in the last weeks payed off. 

As with many thing, we never pushed it. We allowed for Lotte to get interested herself. We never felt that pushing her to sing along with the right words, rhythm and pitch would not have been helpful. It will come naturally... 

She loves listening to music and videos on YouTube on the iPad. I'm sure exposure to all this music has helped her to make sense out of all the sounds. 

Needles to say, our car will be filled with donkeys, chickens, cows, horses and other farm animals for the next few weeks.. 

Recording is on its way..  

 

  

A house full of music..

No words.... (except these five..)

And for those who want to sing along with Lotte on the piano... Here are the lyrics..

(Barn av Regnbuen - Child of the Rainbow)

As good as it gets....

Again.... the camera was held on it's side....
Ah well.. just put the screen on it's side and everything is back to normal.....




Little girls in dresses picking flowers in the sun.... As good as it get's....

"Baby Baby"

While sitting at the kitchen table downstairs, we heard Lotte singing upstairs.. out loud.. "Baby Baby"...
Fresh out of the shower, putting her clothes on, she was singing out loud..
We went upstairs in order to catch our diva on video.... just in time.
She just put on her T-shirt (with the CI's on the shoulders) and entered the hearing world...



Btw.. She speaks Norwegian at the beginning "Det regner kjøttboller", sings "Baby Baby" and when out of view says in Dutch to me "Zo, ik ben klaar met douchen" ("There, I've finished showering.")

Enjoy....

This is the stage we are ... for now...

Been a while... and everything is going smooth... As smooth as one can expect with a lion that wants her own way, and is beginning to get the idea how to get her way..

Lotte is doing well. She loves to go to school, loves to do homework and in fact, loved to do math (addition and substraction) that she went through several extra books. She loves it. Not allowing anyone o help, but accepting when we point out when something is wrong... Wonderful...
We found her at times asleep in her bed with the exercises open..... darn... forgot to take a picture of that..

But... we suddenly realised something.... ...  We are terrible parents.!!!!
Today in the car she started to sing a Norwegian children song, and when she asked us if we could put the CD on, we said "No.!"... well, actually.. we said "no".
Can you imaging that...?? Our deaf child is singing  and we deny her the possibility to listen to it.... (Sure, out of tune and without melody, but that's no excuse to say "no".)
This is terrible... even worse than saying "shut up" to your deaf child that is babbling and babbling....
I hope there's help for us...

17 May.. Norway is celebrating.. So is Lotte..

F*ck you..???

As some might know we are Dutch, living in Norway, so Lotte speaks Dutch and Norwegian..

At school, second grade (age 7) they get English as well...

So... suddenly we hear Lotte say something like "f*ck you".. in herself, not to anyone...
So, her mom told her not to say that.. to no effect......

Suddenly we realised that she was singing, having difficulty pronouncing the lyrics..... Can you guess...


Queen..."We will, we will,.... rock you..!!"

Christmas-time.... singing the stuff....

There's a lot of singing in the Norwegian society, and it has been a problem for Lotte to make sense of singing.
Now, being able to read, it goes a lot better.... She really enjoys it..
So wonderful to see this deaf girl enjoy music and singing....

This is "Deilig er Jorden" ... about 800-900 years old....


And this is a new song.. "Så Blir de Stille" ("And then it became quiet.")
First without music... Just with her mother..


And now with music..

Time for piano- and singing- lessons.!

Thought to show Lotte's musical side coming out.
We asked her if she would like to learn to play the piano.... Of course she does :-) She started practicing immediately...... Any pianoteachers out there..??

Otherwise..... singing is another of her passions.... Any language will do.. This one should sound familiar..

Enjoy.!

Singing Norwegian ABC-song

ABC-sangen

A, b, c så lett som bare d, e, f,
g og h, og i og j og k,
l, m, n og o og p og så en liten q, ("Mø")
r, s, t og u
v og w, x, y, z så lett.
Og til slutt hva kommer så?
Æ, ø, å!

Singing "Leaves are falling"

Leaves are falling
Leaves are falling

To the ground
To the ground

Red and green and yellow
Red and green and yellow

Some are brown
Some are brown

Everyday miracles....

Terrible. The last update has been so long ago... as if nothing happens any more.

Far from it. We are just terrible with writing it down.

OK... here we go...

School is going great. Lotte is enjoying it full blast. And as a milestone I can add that yesterday she was allowed to go home by herself for the very first time. She has been wanting this for so long, and finally she did. First question when she got home.... "Can I go to school tomorrow by myself?"... and of course she can.  It's part of her "I'm a big girl now" identity.

So, this morning, she was dressed in record time. Like - everything on, all correct, which normally takes 10 minutes -, to go to school first, and at the same time preventing that her sister would join her. This was HER day..

Just for the record, going to (and from) school was never a problem, but she just walked either 10 metres in front. or behind us. Making sure she technically (in her little head) was walking alone. Not much fun for us.. bringing her, or picking her up....

Otherwise... she started the music class. She really wanted that (as posted before) and loves it. Her singing improved a bit. She does have trouble remembering the songs, but some of them do stick. And now, with Christmas there's so much singing. She want's to do them all. Just recently we noticed that she started to sing in perfect tune now and then. Meaning... she can recognise the pitch, and re

peat it.. YES!!! Little miracles day in day out.. 

Almost forgot... we introduced the "ears" day. In November we went out for diner to celebrate that Lotte started to hear 4 years ago... we're now in year#5... 

It was great to put the focus on it, because it is not just for Lotte, it is for all of us that we enjoy the fact that she can hear. Our little family of 5, but also extended to the rest of the family and friends. We all benefitted from it.

What else..... 

going to friends houses is no problem any more. We had the "first time she is picked up by the parent of a friend" day... No problem.. Inviting friends over, no problem. Chatting away with them... no problem. The children in her class know her now, and she is as fully integrated as can be. She has her problems with making herself understood at times, and there are things she has trouble with, but there are other thing where she excells. Just like any other child.

There is still a lot to learn, and a lot of catching up to do, but it is going very well. In her tempo, and at her terms - most of the time..

She is loving the christmas time. Opening the calender every day, the sweets, the singing

, the presents that are coming (she's sure about that).

Totally geared when we looked for the tree in the forrest.... again 3 weeks later when we went there to cut it down and bring it home. Was close to devistated that there would only be 1 christmas-tree in the house. (We would have 1 big one for us all, and 1 small one for the children..) and got totally excited when suddenly a little christmastree did appear. Couldn't wait to put all the self-made stuff in it. (the main reason for having a childrens tree..)

There's lot's more, and I will add later on, but for now I just want to wish you all a

Merry christmas, and a wonderful 2009... with even more everyday miracles.

Music school

"I want to go to the music-school"... Lotte said..
My wife wasn't sure she heard it correctly, so ask Lotte what she said..
"I want to go to the music-school" ..not so loud and clear. (We are working on talking with a soft voice..)
Many of the children in her class are signed up for this. Playing with instruments, singing. All in order to create a basis for music.
Still not sure if Lotte understood what happened in the music-class, my wife asked her "What do they do ther.?.
"Singing" Lotte replied. She is totally aware what's happening there, and wants to be part of it. (We're not really surprised.)

Of course she will go there. She loves singing and playing on her piano. She sees her brother playing guitar and her sister sings in a choir. Of course she must follow.

We never signed her up because we wanted to see how she would handle the transition from kindergarten to school.
As said before, that went without a problem. (Seems it happened overnight..) so there's no reason to keep her away from the music class. Just have to prepare the music-teacher about Lotte.)

So, another milestone. Our deaf daughter wants to make music.
And it is very touching to see her sing along with the music. It goes too fast for her most of the times, but now and again she suddenly hits the right note.
It's wonderful....
Still... lots of work to do in that area.!..

Films - over the years...

Lotte got Bi-lateral CI in October 2004, and was hooked up November 2004...
We have taken loads of film, but until now, I haven't put any of it on the blog.... The filesize is too big to transfer it.

Today, that changed. I have uploaded some "snippers" to Google-video.
Even though the films will be in their appropriate (chronological) place, I'll put links to them here.....

They will still be quite large, so have a look at the size before you start looking at them....

December 2005,
These clips are after 13 months with CI...
2005-12-20 - "Positioneren - Sanne komt thuis"

Following are children songs. We chose some in order to compare it later on...
2005-12-20 - "Poesje mauw" (18 MB)

2005-12-20 - "Ik zag twee beren"

February 2006,
These clips are after 1 year, 3 months with CI (1 month after the previous ones..)... and the result of 1 month CI is astonishing....

Some of the same songs, 2 months later.....
2006-02-16 - "Poesje_mauw"

2006-02-16 - "Ik zag twee beren"

And a short video showing Lotte using only speech. 13 months after "hookup". Lots of talk without eye-contact with me. The a teacher apears. She greets her teacher and tells her the sweater is new...
2006-02-16 - "Hei Torhill"

Been a while, and some links don't work..
I'll try to fix that.. In the mean while... this is 2006 - I think..

Note

Last week, in the car, she heared a woman sing, (actually, Katie Melua,) who sang a long, high note
Lotte repeated it. Perfect pitch!

These are "just" little moments.... but they have so much meaning!

Lotte zingt - "Poesje mauw"

Lotte zingt - Ik zag twee beren

Lotte sings "Ik Zag Twee Beren"

Lotte sings "Poesje Mauw"