As for Jack, it is hard to realize the progress until I am asked to quantify it. I took Jack to the California Ear Institute yesterday for a long day of appointments. First, we saw the speech pathologist. She was just incredible with Jack. She asked me to list the words he can say spontaneously (knowing the meaning and using them without prompting). I only came up with 4 off the top of my mind: mama, up, more and bye-bye. As we progressed through the appointment I realized how many more he knows. He can say banana, apple, peekaloo (yes, with an “L” in there – cute), no, on, shoe, eye, ear, nose, hi, grandpa, and I don’t know how many more. He signs 8 more words frequently. He has been with us for two short months and has been hearing English for just 3 weeks! WOW! It just struck me how far he has come in such a short period of time. The audiologist tested his hearing with his BAHA on and he again tested solidly in the conversational range, hearing tones at 20 dB across frequencies. He is hearing speech at just 15 dB – very clear! All the people at CEI were again amazed with Jack and he charmed them all. He was cooperative and full of smiles and gave out kisses (yeah, sloppy wet ones to near strangers) as we left. I have some great information on how to help him further and will probably seek some additional therapy for his drooling (which is likely caused by low muscle tone in his jaw) and increase our speech therapy to twice a week. Lastly, Jack was a star performer and slept through the CT scan that will tell us if he is a candidate for canalplasty surgery (allowing him normal, natural hearing). We will hear the results soon. A big relief that we were able to do this test without sedating him – probably the result of some prayers on my part and the good fortune of a fabulous, patient technician.
We (Jack and I) have had our first speech and language appointment with the school district people at our house last week. Lots of homework for Mom and Dad that has already proven to help Jack’s speech. They have made us aware of simple things, like how confusing pronouns are to Jack because we are referring to the same item using different words. Just try removing all pronouns from your speech for a while – it is hard! So, talking to Jack is now taking more effort, but we are already seeing the appearance of more consonents in his words.
Aside from all that, Jack and Jaden are getting along better everyday. Jack sure likes to pester Jaden and she just gets madder than a hornet! One day, she was pulling a blanket around the coffee table and Jack stepped on it. And so the cycle began; Jack steps on the blanket, Jaden screeches and tugs the blanket, Jack falls, screeches, gets up and stands back on the blanket. Repeat, repeat, repeat… Finally, I realized I was trying to talk sense to toddlers and confiscated the blanket! They have their happier, sweeter moments too and I will post some pictures here for evidence. They enjoy playing in the dog cage, squeezing themselves into boxes and baskets,
and running around with the shopping cart full of important items while jabbering away at each other. Darby and Carter have gotten in on the fun and have been pushing Jaden and Jack around in the shopping cart, much to the delight of all. We have had visits from various family members, which has been really nice – we miss being closer to everyone, especially with a new little one in the house.In the last month, Chris celebrated his 40th birthday with a trip with the guys to Vegas (and a cake with us at home),
Carter ran a car in the pinewood Derby, placing and impressive 4th.
Jack met the rest of his grandparents,
Carter played dart guns with grandma,
Darby earned an exemplary performance award at a Math contenst (sorry -no photo as I forgot my camera) and learned to sew on her new sewing machine with grandma,
So, overall we are very busy, but settling into a groove and adjusting well. I will post more when we hear back on the CT scan!
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