While it seems like our feet have hardly touched the ground since we arrived back home after our UK trip we have certainly achieved a fair bit that's worth reporting on! On the hearing front it was full steam ahead with visits, revisits, progress checks and hospital visits. In one week alone we were up in Christchurch for 3 consecutive days with 2 appointments on each day. This gives you a fair idea of how well he has so far been looked after and checked out to make sure that, to date, all is going to plan and there are not any other issues that we need to know about. In this 3 day period we visited the audiologist, pediatrician, ENT department, Van Asch School for the deaf, geneticist and had an abdominal ultrasound performed! Tom took it all in his stride and I think actually really enjoyed both the attention he got as well as all the sights that a day out brings. Of course there is still a fair amount of uncertainty as to how much hearing the aids are providing but we (well the audiologist and Tom) are about to start behavioural hearing testing and so will hopefully get a better idea about this over the coming months and so be able to assess if in fact a cochlea implant is the way forward.
This winter the weather has been fantastic. At least while we have been around having missed a ridiculously wet and cold patch while on holiday. We have been treated to beautiful Canterbury blue sky days that have allowed temperatures to reach the high teens at times. Of course as I write this it is wet and windy! We have been making the most of it and have been getting good use out of our backpack with trips ranging from local walks down the river path to day trips in the mountains.
Our most recent was in celebration of fathers day last Sunday. The weather was fantastic and so we could head off as planned up past the lakes and on to Mt Sunday. This must be our 3rd or 4th trip here as it is only about a 90 minute walk but provides a spectacular viewpoint over the headwaters of the Rangiatata and mountains beyond. Mt Potts station also has a coffee shop that we have never visited and this seemed the perfect opportunity to give it a go. We must have been out for about 7 hours and all three of us were pretty exhausted once we got back home!
The Ashburton Lakes are a place we keep heading back to and I also managed the sunset trip
I had planned many months ago. While I had hoped for some ice or snow, I'm not sure I can complain too much with the view that I was presented! I think my previous trip really helped with the composition of several different shots going to show that planning is key.
We don't always need to travel miles though and have also been spending plenty of time in the domain, feeding the ducks and enjoying the swings which Tom really loves. The blossom is coming out in full force, it is September and October when
the domain really does look at its best. I'm hopefully going to be making full use of all our local resources with Tom because as of this week I am going down to a 4 day week so that Amy can increase to 3 working days. The reason for this is so that Tom only has a couple of days in preschool which we feel is ideal for him. The preschool is great and tom really enjoys it but with several children to look after we are finding that Tom is sometimes able to sneak out a hearing aid and give it a good suck before it gets noticed! It then has to be dried before being put back in, often only for him to remove it straight away again. This can take place many times in quick succession and so we do wonder how much time he spends without them in which is not ideal for his language development. We are also very lucky to have the option of changing our working days and it will be interesting to see what life as a part-timer is like.
That's just about enough for now. I'm fully aware that this is becoming a blog about general family life and trivial events but if you're still reading I'm sure you won't mind too much. I have also had 2 books printed of this blog, the first of the Asia trip and second of NZ pre-Tom, and so find this a great way to document more normal events and include various pictures to produce a reasonable diary of sorts. with so many photos being taken it is nice to have a few printed in a book to flick through with brief notes about what we were doing at the time and we have both enjoyed a little nostalgia browsing the entries made over the last 4 years. Opening day of the fishing season is the next event I am looking forward to but I won't bore you with that now...!
