kiele was awarded the Principal's Award in school the other day. it's the highest award a student can get in her school and i can't even relay how proud i am of her. she continues to amaze me each and every day. she's beautiful--inside and out. smart. and her outlook on life is inspiring, to say the least.

some reading my blog might not know...kiele is deaf with a cochlear implant. so she's deaf but she hears...almost as well as you and i, but different (rather robotic sounding). she talks almost as well as you and i too.

but, things haven't always been as easy as they are today. kiele's hearing loss wasn't diagnosed until age three, even though she was hearing impaired from birth (long story). at time of diagnosis, it was also determined that kiele had a profound speech and language delay. she received bilateral hearing aids...but her hearing loss progressed quickly. at age six, her hearing was bad enough that she became a borderline candidate for a cochlear implant, which changed her world...and mine.

through the years, one thing i always knew was that i would keep kiele mainstreamed in her zoned school. it was something that i was passionate about. i was going to fight any and every school, if i had to -- to force them to provide kiele what was educationally appropriate for her needs. and in washington, i had to fight. and i fought hard. kiele's 1st grade teacher and case manager tried to tell me that kiele would be better off in a deaf school. they didn't believe in kiele the way i did. they weren't sure she was going to read. they didn't think she was going to keep up with the other students in her class. on evaluations, they thought that kiele performing below average (but according to special needs was within normal limits) was good enough. i fought for kiele with all my heart and soul. i knew she was capable of so much more -- while performing below average might have been good enough for them, it wasn't for me.

and now...
kiele's one of top in her 4th grade class, getting awards for her academic excellence and acheivement. she's an avid reader, reading entire books in one day. no one doubts her potential these days. no one. everyone knows that kiele is a shining star--a star who touches everyone's life she comes into.