The playground battle

I'm sure you other CI moms know what I am referring to. Plastic slides, tunnels, tubes. Cringe. I honestly had no idea how much anxiety a plastic slide could bring into my life. You see, static electricity has the capacity to potentially damage Sophie's processors or even her internal implant in rare cases. We generally try to avoid plastic altogether or remove Sophie's "ears" before she goes down a slide or through  a tunnel. This is getting increasingly difficult for a couple of reasons - it's hard to tell an almost two-year-old she cannot go down a slide, and the other option is also risky because it is dangerous for her to be playing on playground equipment at this age without any sound, even if we are right there.

Well, today I did not have to battle the plastic slides. There is a non-profit organization in the St. Louis area called Unlimited Play and they have designed and built three all-accessible playgrounds throughout the area. There are many great features to these playgrounds for children with various disabilities, including metal slides for kids with CIs!

We visited Brendan's Playground on this afternoon and as we pulled into the parking lot, Sophie said, "Playground? Swings? Slide? Take the ears off!"

Nope, not this time, sweetheart. How refreshing, right?! She was able to HEAR and PLAY until her little heart was content:

Guess what else? Construction has started on the fourth Unlimited Play playground in the area- right down the street from us! :)