Sammy's 3rd Birthday

Sammy's 3rd birthday - family celebration
Sammy's 3rd birthday party with friends
Doing the Spiderman Web Walk
Pin the "S" on Superman
Ready to blow out candles this time

Sammy turned three over the summer. We ended up having two celebrations for him ... one for family and Keith's best friend's family and the other with Sammy's playgroup friends. He splashed and played in the kiddie pool surrounded by bubbles on Saturday and enjoyed games like Pin the "S" on Superman and a Spiderman Web Walk on Monday. Sammy is very shy and is easy overwhelmed by new faces or too much activity. There is something special about it being his own birthday and he rose to the occasion and had a lot of fun. At other kid's parties, Sammy is too shy to participate in the structured games and wants to go play in a quiet part of the house away from all the activity. Clearly he was in the middle of the festivities this time and seemed to truly enjoy it.

Sammy's Hearing

I do have an update about Sammy's hearing situation, which is a mixture of good and bad news. The bad news is that I took him to the ENT at the beginning of summer and Sammy's right ear was full of fluid. The doctor advised us to see if the fluid would dry up over the summer and retest his hearing to see if another surgery would be necessary. At the end of summer his right ear was still packed full of fluid and the tympanography exam where they blow air in his ears and hope to see a bell shaped curve to indicate the ear drum's flexibility showed unfortunate "flat as a pancake" lines for both ears. The right ear drum doesn't flex at all and the assumption is that it is because of fluid behind the ear drum. The left ear drum doesn't flex either, but that is because there is a hole in his ear drum from where the tube used to be. So that's not great to discover.

The good news is that his hearing test indicated that his hearing is not only the same in his right ear as it is in his left, it is right on target for the normal range of hearing. So he is currently hearing fine, according to the sound booth test. Sammy was so cute during the exam. He was teetering on the edge of being overwhelmed with shyness, but curious and interested in the test enough that he kept going. He had to drop a little bear in the bucket every time he heard the audiologist talk to him over his headphones ... although, me being ever the realist or skeptic or whatever you want to call it wondered if he didn't catch on to the test and drop the bears every time he saw her lips start moving. The should do that test so he can't get visual cues. Oh well.

The plan is to check his ears again in four months, unless he has problems sooner. The hole in his ear drum is actually beneficial for now as it would let fluid drain out of that ear. Once he outgrows the fluid buildup problem, we can look into patching the hole, if it hasn't healed itself by then.

End of Kindergarten

Reflections Art Competition
1st place award for Photography grades K - 2
My New Best AmigaDressing up for Nerd Day in a respectful way
Running a relay at school
Sammy joined in on the fun
Shooting hoops at school
The last day of Kindergarten
4" long dragonfly in our back yardFingerpaintingMy palms look good red
Color Wonder boy
Chemistry experiment
Building a phone from his birthday
It actually works!

As I mentioned in a previous post, Johnny entered a photograph in an art competition at his school and there is a really sweet story behind it. The theme of the competition was "I can make a difference by ... " So the story goes: a new student had recently come to Johnny's kindergarten class from Argentina and spoke no English. Johnny wasn't phased a bit by the language barrier and instantly became best friends with the new little girl who's name is Milagros. We had play dates and then Johnny decided to enter a photograph of the two of them in the competition. With the aid of a tripod he took a great photo of them at her house. The explanation on his entry was this: "I have made a difference by being Milagros's friend. She's from a different country and we don't speak the same language. She just moved here from Argentina and everything looks different and scary. Now she's not so scared because she has a friend." The best part is that this wasn't just a theme he dreamed up to win a competition, it's real life and she is still Johnny's best friend. Not surprisingly, when I asked him what he wanted to do with the matted photograph after the competition, without hesitation he said "I want to give it to Milagros" and so he did. God blessed him with a generous and loving heart. The outcome of the competition was that he won 1st place for the Photography division, grades K - 2.

We had some fun days at the end of the school year. We dressed up as Nerds, but in a way that wasn't mean ... more like being silly and honoring our nerdy heroes. Sammy and I got to participate in a day long fun packed event at Johnny's school with all kinds of outdoor games and relay races. Sammy was tickled to be hanging with the big kids.

Some of our activities this summer were indoors, like finger painting, drawing, etc. Johnny got a few kits for his birthday that were a phone, clock and motor he could build with snap together pieces. He built the phone and the clock and made his first phone call to his dad. We had some friends over for a chemistry experiment day that was a lot of fun. Sammy's watching a balloon blow itself up with vinegar and baking soda. More on their birthday's in the next post.