All Ears

James is definitely saying "outside", "all done", "up", and "bird." And I think he's saying "book", and I also thought I heard him repeating "cloud" this morning (when he was watching, what else, Baby Signing Time). It's great to hear new words coming along again!

We took him to the ear doctor yesterday for a follow-up. (It was the typical 40 minutes in the waiting room for five minutes with the doc.) The tubes are still in and there's no fluid in his ears, which is good news.

(When we were in the waiting room, we talked to a family with a ten-month old baby who had just gotten cochlear implants. Hearing aids hadn't worked for her. They were having the implants activated that day, so the little girl was going to hear sound for the first time. They were so excited, and we were excited for them -- what a miracle!)

Today we took James in for a speech evaluation as part of a study on outcomes of children with hearing loss that we're participating in. He's too young for a formal speech eval, so the evaluator just listened to him and asked Mike about what kinds of sounds he was making. (I was disappointed to miss the session, but I had to be at work.) Part of the session was playing games, and in another part, they played pictures/audio of the sounds babies make, starting with the earliest ones and working up to "jargon" (what sounds like sentences but doesn't make sense to the rest of us). James made that part easy, because he just imitated all the sounds (at least until he got to the jargon section)! James was happy and attentive the whole time. The evaluator said he was making good sounds, and commented on his patience, perseverance, and good disposition. (Mike said James also did well on the problem solving games.)

All of this bodes well for his communication. The evaluator said that kids like James, who aren't shy and don't get frustrated easily, tend to have better outcomes. That makes sense, because hearing problems are likely to create obstacles or annoyances, and people who have the personal characteristics or resources to push past that probably have better experiences. (Go, James!)

Mattie and James both continue to be just wonderful little guys. They're so sweet and so much fun! I may have mentioned this before, but about a year ago, I started saying what a great age they were. Three different parents of kids a couple years older than the boys all said the same thing: "It just keeps getting better and better." I didn't completely believe that at the time, but I think they were right. :)


P.S. In the interest of full disclosure, parent of teenagers say the reverse! A couple of them, seeing us pushing the little guys out in their strollers, have said, "It gets worse!" And then they laugh in a not-altogether-pleasant way. And then mutter something about paying for college.