Christmas Eve in my family is BIG deal. We are Italian and there are many many traditions behind the culture and Christmas Eve, mostly revolving around food and midnight mass if you are Catholic (and usually the 2 are synonymous). A fantastic meal is usually based around several different fish dishes. I love this tradition and I loved helping my grandma clean the squid and the smell of my aunt’s house after the sauce had been cooking all day. We made a few menu changes due to non squid eaters but I wanted Seattle to be no different, so my family and I spent all morning making Christmas Eve dinner.

I was proud, satisfied and excited when everyone sat down for dinner right on time…

Moments into dinner Kai shouts hysterically that something is wrong with a “certain area” on his little male body. Long story short we decide to take him to the on call doc just to make sure something isn’t brewing that could send the poor boy into unbearable pain. We had taken his hearing aids out to give him a quick bath to try and ease the discomfort and then quickly decided to take him to the doc. With that Jason and Kai are off to the hospital.

I load up the rest of the kids (after I ate 4 bites of dinner) and the rest of the company and we are all off to the the Downtown Mars Hill Christmas Eve Service. We are all super excited about this, particularly because our kids are going to sing with the kids choir. Since we are always in Ohio at Christmas we have not had the pleasure of seeing our children sing as part of the Childrens Christmas Choir before.

We are all in the car when we realize we left Kai’s hearing aids back in the bathroom. Great. His singing debut and on Christmas Eve. For Pete’s sake could we be worse parents. And so we put on the jacket of guilt. Jason rushes him to the church after seeing the doc and being told he is not on the brink of medical disaster. He made it just in time. I tell the amazing childrens choir person that “Kai does not have his hearing aids. You will have to look right at him so he can see your lips and tell him what song is next” (The kids had really been practicing.) So as soon as he gets there she looks at him but then rattles off the names of the three songs so quick I barely had time to take a breath.

He just stares at her.

I figured now was not the time to explain that his auditory memory is less than average kids his age and that all those words were probably unheard as the room was super noisy and said so fast even if they were heard there was no time for his partially working hearing to pick it up and retain it.

So I turn to the ever present always ready to help big sister. The conversation went something like this. “Lucia, since Kai does not have his hearing aids you may need to help him know what song is next.” “Ok mom (turns to Kai) Kai, fold you hands like this and we’ll sing Silent Night first.”

Feeling he was in good hands Jason and I head to our seats. The kids come on stage. Kai has his hands over his ears. Usually when he is close the stage he turns his hearing aids off so they act like ear plugs. I am cringing and on the verge of crying because I can’t believe we have failed him in this way. Imagine standing in the ocean with a bunch of out of tune kids singing all around you, not hearing anything that makes sense. But God is amazing, Kai quickly lowered his hands, folded them (as he’d been told) and our 1st and 2nd born sang their little hearts out for Jesus with hands folded the whole time. I was so proud. So grateful for a God full of grace He is able to overcome my incompetance as a parent and produce pure joy through the faces and voices of my children. And just in case seeing them sing wasn’t cute enough Lucia kept poking Kai in his cheek with her folded hands until he would look at her and smile. She did this every few minutes. Later when we asked her what she was doing she said, “I was making sure he smiled.” That’s what big sisters are for, right?!

And so I was reminded by my kids once again on a night when we celebrate that God was born as man to die for our sins, out of grace, guilt free, that all my short comings, all my failings as a wife, mom, human were bought and paid for by an ever loving God.

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Kai Atticus was born 5 ½ weeks early at the UW Hospital. He failed his (now routine) newborn hearing screens at the hospital, however we assumed that he had fluid in his ears which is a common cause of inconclusive results for all babies, especially those born preterm. Being stubborn I did not deem it necessary to take Kai in for further testing and felt it a disruption to the new schedule we were trying to implement with 2 babies in our family.

Upon the urging of medical professionals we took Kai for a follow up hearing screen. The results were the same, Inconclusive/Failed, at which point we were referred to Children’s Hospital. A few more weeks passed before we were subject to extensive (and tense) 2 hours of testing which determined that Kai had a bilateral mild to moderate hearing loss.

Our audiologist was kind and did her job well but due to hospital policy (and a non-urgent diagnosis at a hospital filled with crisis) we were sent away with a hug, a pamphlet on hearing loss and a return appointment 6 weeks later to confirm or correct the results from this day’s tests.

(stay tuned, this is the first in a series of upcoming posts about the story so far regarding Kai’s hearing issues)

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So the thing about kids is that they change quickly. Kai and Lucia are both looking older in their own ways. Lucia is starting to take her first steps, and Kai is gaining weight quickly and becoming more aware of his surroundings.

If you click on the picture to the left it will take you to a collection of photos taken over the last month of both kids.

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Not much else to report other than that. He primarily eats/sleeps/poops, the usual newborn tricks. At this point we leave entertainment to our daughter Lucia. Here she is recently entertaining passersby in a shop window downtown:

and from another angle:

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Yesterday Kai was released from the intensive care unit to the normal nursery on the same floor as Kristina’s room. This meant that he was off of the iv and only being monitored for temperature and food intake. They let him feed in our room, but then would take him back to the nursery after feeding.

This friday morning they discharged him from the nursery and he is in mom’s room fulltime. The doctors want to keep him for another day just to make sure he is feeding ok, but we should be able to bring him home tomorrow!

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The birth is a little early and caught us by surprise, so we unfortunately had to deliver in the UW hospital instead of at the birthing center of our beloved midwife Charlotte Geddis. Kristina’s labor was quick and described by her as ‘intense’, which is an understatement.

Because Kai’s birth is at 35 weeks he is considered pre-term, so the hospital has been extra (maybe overly) cautious about monitoring his blood sugar, food intake and temperature. His first day has been spent in an incubator, but we have been able to visit him whenever we want, hold him, feed him, wipe off the black road tar that somehow ends up on his ass, etc…, so it has been more an annoyance than a traumatic situation. We trust God and his purposes in having us deliver in the hospital.

Kristina is doing well considering the nature of childbirth, and Lucia spent the day with her ‘Aunt’ Mandi and apparently had a great time. Jason is counting his blessings in that, at this point, he has only one wedding that he will have to pay for in his future.

Much thanks to everyone who has been praying for us. The evidence of God’s kindness is amazing.

More info soon…

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