WORDS!

  This past weekend, we stayed a couple of nights with my husband's sister and family because my husband was asked to perform the wedding of one of his former youth. E decided this was a good time to use his new hearing skills and bust out a few words to surprise us all. We wait until he says something repeatedly and usually with accompanying sign before we count it as a real, intentional spoken word and not just babble that happened to sound like something. We have THREE honest-to-goodness words! E said DAD, HOT and DUCK repeatedly, in context, and usually with the matching sign.

  E has only had his cochlear turned on for about three weeks, so this is pretty amazing! There are new letter sounds showing up in his babbling as well. His new favorite is "tut-tut-tut." The t sound is one that he did not seem to register before. Now, we are getting t's loud and clear! E is still wearing his processor well and even attempts to put his coil back on if it disconnects. I am so proud of my little man and the amazing things he has already accomplished. I firmly believe that he is advancing well due to the great language base he already had through ASL. I look forward to keeping you all updated on his progress with both new signs and new verbalization :-)  The other, non-confirmed words so far are MAMA, DRINK, BYE-BYE, and UH-OH. Stay tuned to see if these become confirmed with certainty!

  In other news, we have added another sea horsey to our home. We had our bases covered by purchasing three identical blankies once he showed an attachment, but we only had one singing sea horse that E sleeps with every night. Well, sure enough, we left the beloved sea horsey at his aunt's house. Daddy to the rescue with an emergency Walmart run! In 18 months, this is our first emergency Wally World trip, so I guess we've been lucky. My sweet baby E in snuggling with Sea Horsey the Sequel tonight. Don't worry Sea Horsey Part One....not toy left behind! We will recover you and there will be a nice trip to the washer and dryer in your future ;-)