Wednesday Workout - Helping with Housework

I know ... a day late. It's been one of those weeks!

Since I stay home, I have the "luxury" (ya, whatever) of doing housework every.single.day (not that working moms don't have this "luxury", my "luxury" is being able to do it throughout the day and not at 10pm at night like I did when I worked full time). Anyway, Aiden "helping" (I use this term very lightly) with housework has been one of the best language builders, even if it takes me three times as long to get anything done.

Laundry - Not only is laundry a good sorting activity, it has helped teach him articles of clothing, the difference between a wash machine and a dryer, colors ("put all the BLACK clothes in this pile"), possessives (daddy's shirt, Ryan's pants), verbs (washing, drying, pouring, taking out, putting into, folding, putting away), adjectives (wet, dry, dirty, clean, dark, light, big, small). His favorite parts are throwing the clothes in the wash machine and destroying the laundry basket full of clean folded clothes ... ya, this part's not so fun and is one way he learned the words "not nice" and "angry" too.

Aiden "helping" with the laundry.

Dishes - Aiden LOVES to help put away the clean dishes from the dishwasher. Again, not only has this has been an excellent way to teach him the names of all the dishes but also opposites such as small vs big, clean vs dirty, empty vs full. While I am making dinner, I can ask Aiden for a BIG spoon, and he knows exactly which one to give me. He also loves to help set the table, again teaching all the silverware names and short sentences (daddy gets a big fork, Ryan needs two napkins etc).

Cleaning his toy room - I have to admit, he's not much of a destroyer. He likes things in the right place and tidy. BUT, that doesn't mean he's never destroyed. At times he'll go in there and empty every single toy bin for no apparent reason what-so-ever except "just because". I've actually done it a couple times myself with him just as a learning opportunity. This is a GREAT way to teach SORTING into CATEGORIES - animals (and you can get even more specific with jungle vs zoo vs pets vs farm), vehicles, music, food, balls, building blocks, baby items, furniture, etc. An idea I learned from the John Tracy Clinic Distance Education Courses is to label the toy bins with a card showing pictures from that specific category.

It's been much worse.

Grocery Shopping - This truly is the best therapy ever. In fact, I always say our trips to Costco are well warranted, killing three birds with one stone by getting shopping done, a therapy session in, and the best part, LUNCH! Truly though, grocery shopping, as much as a hassle it is with a toddler, is a wonderful therapy session all in itself. This is how Aiden has learned the difference between fruits and veggies, what each fruit or veggie is (he can finally tell the difference between a tomato and an apple) plus much more ... put in, take out, cash register, money, receipt, push the cart, pay the clerk, STOP throwing it OUT of the cart, that's not nice, SIT DOWN, mom's getting angry, and on and on (okay, so great therapy session for toddler, but after all is said and done, mom deserves a day at the spa).

Then of course there are the little things like helping to empty bathroom trashcans (aka, mom picks up a trail of trash from bathroom to kitchen), dust, sweep (Aiden LOVES to sweep - inside the cat's litter box), feed the cats/dog (then pick up all the spilled food) ... all of which is filled with language opportunities AND the look on THEIR face (not yours) when they know they've "helped" accomplish a task is truly priceless all in itself.

Wednesday Workout - Aiden's Experience Book

The experience book introduced to us by our AVT is not quite the same as the ones I've read about or made in the past. It is not one book on one subject, but a big binder full of daily experiences and lessons we're working on. Aiden's AVT started this with us and we not only use it at home, but also in therapy. It is a wonderful tool to help facilitate conversational speech, story telling, and it is a great means to building a strong literacy foundation. (oh, and it can serve as a great scrapbook for mom too!)

The ultimate goal is to get Aiden used to, and excited about, bringing his "story book" to therapy to tell Dr. Don all about an experience from that week. Kids are typically more excited and more apt to talk about something they've experienced, know, and understand. Depending on how long we're in AVT, once Aiden gets to an age where he can draw his own pictures, he will, or tell me about an experience in his day that he wants to add to his book.

Creating one page a day can be overwhelming, so Dr. Don and I decided to make one personal experience page a week and one learning/theme page a week. Before I make the page, Aiden and I always talk about the topic first then make the page together.

Situations we currently incorporate into Aiden's book include:

Emotional Experiences

(Today he fell off his sister's bunk bed, so I need to make a page on that for this week. This is when I cut my thumb and Aiden was upset about it).

Special Days

(birthdays, holidays, grandma visiting, etc.)

Fun, Interesting Daily Type Events

(we make warm cookies a few times a week for bedtime snack)

Changes in Aiden's Life

(for example, I'm in the process of making a few pages about starting preschool. Here's one I made to help Aiden understand why Ryan and Kailyn left everyday when school started up)

Future Events

(for example, we're heading to the beach for Spring Break, so I'll make pages on packing luggage, riding in the car, pictures of the beach etc)

Social and Hygiene Skills

(for awhile, he was constantly eating his boogers - ewww!)

Themes/Specific Lessons

At Aiden's age, a lot of our pages are based on themes/learning experiences (colors, letters, bears, sequencing, holiday vocab., or whatever the "theme of the week" may be.

As you can see from our example pages, it doesn't have to be hard and time consuming.

Some things I do to create these pages with ease:

• Use clip art, printable from websites, and magazine pictures. I'm no artist, so if I don't have a picture readily available of Aiden performing the task we're talking about, I find it on the Internet or in a magazine then I ....
• Draw stick figures with a picture of one of our faces for the head. You can find great online photo print specials. I pick a few pictures of the family with good head shots then print tons of them so I can cut out our heads and use them throughout the book.
• Use cardstock for the pages, it's much sturdier. Oh, and I make sure the experience we're talking about is on facing pages (so I use the front and back of each sheet), like we're opening a book and don't have to flip the page as we talk about it.
• Use descriptive words, vocabulary you want them to learn, coloring book pages, and printables to help with themes
• Keep and use items that represent an experience and gives the story an even more personal meaning, i.e. movie ticket stub, postcard from a place visited, wrapping paper, a card received, picture from the package used (ex. picture from the brownie box), invitation, etc.

Items I Keep on Hand

(I keep all my supplies in two shoe boxes, so when we sit down to make a page, I have all my necessary supplies in one spot).

• stickers and/or specialty paper (this is an easy way to make a quick page to talk about holidays, animals, etc)
• ziplock baggies (to hold pieces for some pages - for example, we made a snowman on one page and I would have Aiden dress up the snowman with different color scarves, mittens, hats that I cut out for it, so I stored all the snowman's clothes in the baggie.)
• Crayons, markers, sharpies, glue, hole punch, stapler, tape, scissors
• Laminator (great investment)
• any misc. items collected to use one day -i.e. bubble wrap, magazine clippings, clearance holiday items to use for the next year)

There are a lot of great websites, but some I enjoy for themed units are:

• dltk-kids (a non-member site with tons of preschool activities, holiday crafts, and printables)
• Daycare Resource (a member site, but they do have some free printables)
• Making Friends.com (non-member site, many printables for paper dolls)
• Preschool Printables (non-member site with tons of fun games, ideas)
• Hubbard's Cupboard (non-member site with good lesson plans and printables for different preschool themed units)

Wednesday Workout - BEARS

Every couple of weeks I choose a core area as our main focus at home. Whether it be a specific theme, prepositions, following two step directions, a specific letter sound or whatever the "focus" may be, we center it around listening and language for that time. I'm going to do my best to share some of our activities every Wednesday, but we'll see as time schedules tell. I'd love for you to comment on any activity ideas you have to add for all to see!

The past couple weeks, we've been working on BEARS.

It started at Aiden's speech therapy a few weeks ago when wonderful Ms. Cheryl read Copy Me, Copy Cub. She used a brown paper bag for the cave, pictures of bears printed from the internet for mama and baby bear, cotton balls for the snow (which Aiden glued on the "cave"), then they tore up brown construction paper together for the leaves to put inside the cave. Very cute idea and Aiden loved acting it out as she read it to him.

That same week, Aiden's AVT read him Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Aiden had never heard the story before, and with all the repetitions, I figured it a good book to work on three-four word phrases.

From there I extended it to bears in general - brown bears, black bears, polar bears, panda bears, and of course, teddy bears (and made a page for his experience book on the different kind of bears). Since we were talking so much about bears, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to also hone in on the /b/ sound since Aiden has trouble with it (he has trouble with a lot of his stops in speech production).

There are a lot of Goldilocks and the Three Bears books out at the library, each with their own twist. Some seemed too difficult and busy for a two year old, so I picked the easiest one that stuck to the story line as I know it. Dr. D had this boardbook by Bryon Barton, which was just short enough to keep Aiden's attention.

As I read the story, we act it out with different toys Aiden has to represent each scene. This story is also great in identifying the concept of size (big vs small, big, bigger, biggest, etc), adjectives (soft, hard, hot, cold etc.) and most fun of all, using different kinds of voices. To emphasize the story and concepts in yet another way, I made stick puppets and scenes from pictures I found on the internet.

We've also been reading other bear books such as these,

and one of my all time favorites which can be found here.

I'm also teaching Aiden the infamous teddy bear rhyme (I remember singing this as a kid jump roping):

Teddy bear, teddy bear turn around,

Teddy bear, teddy bear touch the ground,

Teddy bear, teddy bear read the news,

Teddy bear, teddy bear tie your shoes,

Teddy bear, teddy bear go upstairs,

Teddy bear, teddy bear say your prayers,

Teddy bear, teddy bear turn off the light,

Teddy bear, teddy bear say goodnight.

We each get a teddy bear and play together and I often find him singing parts of it as he plays with his teddy bears on his own.

Other songs I found we like:

Three Brown Bears (sing to Three Blind Mice)

Three brown bears, three brown bears,

See all their beds, see all their chairs,

The mommy cooked in a big brown pot,

The daddy's porridge was way too hot,

The baby bear cried a lot,

Three brown bears,

Three brown bears.

Hibernation Song (sing to Are You Sleeping) (and works on those "ing" verbs we've been practicing)

Are you eating, are you eating

little bear, little bear,

Eating nuts and berries,

For the long, hard winter

Little bear, little bear

Are you sleeping, are you sleeping

little bear, little bear

Sleeping through the winter

You are hibernating

little bear, little bear

Are you waking, are you waking

little bear, little bear

Now that it is Springtime

Sleeping time is over

Little bear, little bear.

A couple other things we've done:

• print out color sheets of the letter B, b and of different bears from the Internet
• play different songs/cartoons on You Tube to hear them in different voices
• give Aiden the props and let him tell me the story OR give him any of the books we've been reading and let him tell it to me (which of course is all over, but GREAT way to try and expand those sentences!)

Vocabulary taught: bear, cub, cave, snowing, scratching, waking, biggest vs big, smallest vs. small, hard, soft, just right, porridge, forest

Halloween Madness

Where did October go?? My life seems so nonstop right now, which honestly, it has been since the day I delivered my second child ten years ago, then add in a third, and I'm constantly in search for a stop sign. I'd even take a yield at this point. As much as I wanted to post about each little fun thing we did the past month, ya, didn't happen.

Our October was full of fun all around. I remember last year at this time trying to get Aiden to repeat the Lings "oo" and "ee" and what a better way than with all the wonderful sounds of Halloween! He gave me pumpkin-"uhin", and bat-"a", and even a long o sound for ghost ... but no "oo" and no "ee". Well, this Halloween he pronounces them both beautifully and from all our work last year, I could tell he found that vocabulary file in that cute little head of his and just took off.

This year we heard pumpkin (still without that /p/), witch (its and ee-ee-ee), ghost (now with a good /s/ and final /t/ and the lovely "ooooo" to go with it!), bat, trick-or-treat (ih-o-eet), owl (he says the best owl), moon, broom (which he really has trouble saying words that have the /u/ sound, but says it perfectly in isolation) and so much more.

What are the fun things we did to immerse Aiden in the world of Halloween and fall vocabulary?

I made pumpkins from construction paper, cut out different shaped face parts, then let Aiden glue them on as we talked all about it - he even announced he was giving it ears all on his own. (Vocab - eyes, nose, mouth, ears, pumpkin, triangle, circle, glue, sticky, orange, yellow, black). Even though he knows all this vocabulary, we worked on two and three word phrases such as circle eyes, black mouth, glue it down, glue is sticky etc.

getting his pumpkin off the fridge to show daddy

I made a picture chart which labeled different Halloween terms, then copied it again to cut out each card to play matching games, to which candy corn was the treat ... Aiden DOES NOT like candy corn ... so we switched to m&m's and played Halloween bingo with them.

Showing a picture with a word is also an excellent pre-literacy/phonological awareness skill to teach that letters, make words, and have meaning. After Aiden matched each separate card to the correct picture, we would "read" each word from left to right, top to bottom.

We went on a fieldtrip to learn all about COSTUMES and found the perfect one for my little monkey (which was LAST YEAR's costume).

Halloween 2009

This year he chose Mickey Mouse - his new all time favorite character.

Halloween 2010

He was so excited to try it on when we got home and was in awe looking at himself. I had to fight the little stinker though to put it on for trick-or-treating. He sure knew what to do to get that candy though and would run up to each door, knock (even if they were sitting outside, but had to knock because that's how we practiced all month), open his bag, and say, "Ih-oh-eet" and a quick "Tan tu" as he ran off to the next house.

We visited a pumpkin patch and ate fresh Kettle Corn and pet the (very few) animals they had, and went on a hayride.

I printed out a Halloween activity from the Listening Room, which was a book about how a witch found a piece of paper and made it into a house for her and her cat. We followed all the steps she took to make the house and in the end, the house was also a PUMPKIN! Very cute! Love this site.

We made good ol' Betty Crocker CUPCAKES with orange frosting and topped them off with owls and pumpkins. (SO much vocabulary when cooking/baking and honestly, TONS of fun too!)

Turn off the music on the right to hear him counting the yumminess before he gobbled one up.

(without captioning)

(with captioning - works on my Mac, but not my PC?)

I bought tons of stickers to decorate cut out pumpkins or just stick on plain old white paper and played "ghost" and read tons of Halloween books and sang songs and looked through every.single Halloween aisle at every.single.store we walked into.

The boy definitely knows Halloween.

Next up ... leaves, apples, and Thanksgiving.

Park Full of Prepositions

One of the things we're working on with Aiden right now are prepositions. Aiden has been using up, down, upstairs, downstairs, in, out, and on in the correct context for quite some time now, so we've been focusing on under, over, on top, and through. Once he begins to master these, we'll move on to others.

Besides using them in our everyday language as we play or speak with Aiden, I have found one of the best places for prepositions is the park, it is loaded with prepositional language! I've taken many different pictures from trips to the park to create an experience book which not only helps with prepositions, but also with"ing" verbs, and identifying all the fun playground equipment.

Aiden is walking OVER the bridge to go DOWN the slide.

Kailyn is hanging UPSIDE DOWN on the monkey bars while Aiden is standing UNDER them.

Aiden is climbing UP the rocks to get to the TOP.

Aiden is riding on the see saw UP and DOWN.

Kailyn is sitting ON TOP of the rocks.

Aiden is swinging from the bar at the TOP of the slide before sliding DOWN.

Aiden is climbing THROUGH the tunnel.

Aiden is sliding DOWN the slide.

(LOVE how this slide is not plastic either! PERFECT for not having to worry about static and failed processors!)

Not only has the park been good for language, but has been tremendously helpful with Aiden's low muscle tone, balance, and sensory integration. We are really starting to see some good gains, and I believe all the time playing outside and at the park have a lot to do with it. He is not stumbling near as much as he used to, he's starting to run, and by the end of any trip to the park, he's ready for a nice nap.

This is what I call some good ol' all inclusive fun play therapy ... and the best part about it, he doesn't even realize how hard he's working!

Muffins With Mom

Keeping Aiden busy during the day can be quite the task. One of his sensory goals for OT is:

"Persist at a purposeful activity for 5 minutes, with prompts if necessary."

which is one of a few short term goals to help achieve the long term goal to:

"Demonstrate simple praxis and organization of behavior by persisting at interactions with toys/equipment and imitating actions of others to enable purposeful play."

One way I have found that helps us reach this goal is to engage Aiden in helping around the house. He LOVES to help with cleaning up, laundry, sweeping the floor, feeding the cats, COOKING, etc. Not only are these activities filled with wonderful vocabulary, but Aiden is completely engaged until the end, which provides that needed sense of accomplishment and feel good of "I did it!". Even though it may take me twice as long to get these activities done, each additional minute is worth it.

So, the other day we made muffins.

Well, truly, Aiden baked and I directed.

"Open please mommy!"

We measured ...

and he poured ...

then stirred it all up (with a little help from mom).

He placed all the muffin foils into the pans,

and of course, we had to lick the bowl. YUMMY!

Even though we set the timer, he kept coming back to check out his muffins,

and like any good cook, insisted on tasting them before sharing with anyone else.

Listening Room Activity of the Week

Check out THIS quick, easy to create preschool activity that The Listening Room has posted this week. (note - you'll have to sign in in order to be taken to the appropriate page I've linked to. If you haven't signed up on this site, do so TODAY! They have weekly activities, PLUS a ton of other wonderful resources to help you and your child learn to listen and speak! You can sign up here) All you need is the printout, a Pringles can, some glue, and objects that represent the pictures on the printout!

When I saw this activity, I thought it'd be a perfect way to 1) get Aiden's siblings involved in an easy to play, after school activity and 2) introduce a new activity (gotta change 'em up quite frequently or Aiden gets bored and doesn't want to "play"), yet continue to work towards the same goal of getting him to label objects with their noun name instead of just with the sound they make.

Although Aiden currently associates, and vocalizes, most of these sounds with the appropriate object, we're still struggling getting a good /oo/ and /ee/ out of him. I can say we FINALLY have the rounding of the lips and now we're just searching for the sound that goes with it! Ahhhh, one day it will come.

Apples and Leaves

Sometime ago, I said I wanted to post on Aiden's blog the particular theme we're working on. I'm finally getting around to it and I'll start with what we're doing now then go back as time allows and post the others. I hope to keep these up as a recurring post everytime we start something new. This is good documentation for Aiden's journey, but I hope it helps others too. If you have anything to add (activities, songs, etc), please leave them in the comments section for all to see!

With fall in the air, what a better time to work on the two things that remind me most of this beautiful season - apples and leaves. We started with apples/fruits about a month ago, but added in leaves. We're slowly moving on to pumpkins/Halloween for our next theme.

Theme: Apples and Leaves

Vowel Variety: oo, yum, oh, wow, up, down, fall, ah, pretty

Functional Words in Phrases: cut, peel, more, bite, crunchy, smooth, down, uh-oh, eat, pick, pour ... etc.

Activities:

Play farm/store/baby with apples

Cut up an apple and look at the core, seeds, stem, apple slices

Use half the cut apple and apple slices, dip in paint, and press onto paper.

Make an apple pie and/or apple butter

Go apple picking and/or visit a Farmer's Market

Separate the apples or leaves into big and small

Go on a walk and watch the leaves fall from the trees and hear them crunch under our feet

Play in a pile of leaves talking/singing about throwing them "up, up, up" then watching them fall down, down, down and hearing them "crunch, crunch, crunch".

Collect all shapes, sizes, and colors of leaves then bring them home to use in song play, books, arts/crafts, etc.

Print out apple/leaf clip art to color

and ... climbing trees with dad

Books:

• Up, Up, Up! It's Apple Picking Time, by Jody Fickes Shapiro
• Apples, Apples!, by Salina Yoon
• Apples, by Gail Gibbons
• Leaves, Leaves!, by Salina Yoon
• Leaves, Leaves, Leaves!, by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace
• It's Fall!, by Linda Glaser

Songs/Finger Plays:

Falling Apples (to the tune of London Bridges)
This is Aiden's favorite song for both apples and leaves (just replace apples with leaves) I use real leaves and real apples and do the motions as we sing.

See the apples falling down,
Falling down, falling down,
See the apples falling down,
Down to the ground.
Pick the apples and throw them up,
throw them up, throw them up.
Pick the apples and throw them up,
Up to the sky

Applesauce (to the tune of Yankee Doodle)
Peel an apple, cut it up
Cook it in a pot, When you taste it
You will find, it's applesauce you've got!

Apples/All the Leaves are Falling (to the tune of Are You Sleeping?)
Apples are falling, apples are falling,
From the tree, from the tree.
Pick up all the apples, pick up all the apples,
One, two three. One, two, three.

Five Little Apples (similar to Five Little Pumpkins or Five Little Monkeys)
Five little apples hanging on a tree
The farmer didn't care
So guess who came to eat?
A caterpillar! Munch, munch, munch!
Repeat four more times using a different animal
(again, I use real apples and leaves and whatever toy animals/puppets I have. It's a lot of fun singing this with the names of people in your family too!)

We sing all these songs with props and Aiden is very active in it. He likes making the animals eat the apples and the leaves or picking up the leaves and throwing them in the air! Another idea is to use a felt board if you have one and use cut out felt apples and leaves.

With this theme, he's voiced apple a couple of times. I don't even know how to spell how he says it, but it's more of just the vowels "a - le" without too much of the /l/. I just can't get him to say that dang /p/! Whenever he sees an apple he does say "mmmmm" and rubs his belly! When I ask where the leaves are, he'll look up in the tree or throw his hands up.

Overwhelmed, Amazed, and Tired

I have forgotten how life with a one year old is so nonstop (after 8 years since my last child), not to mention, one with a cochlear implant. His naps are down to one a day, at which time I go like hell trying to do all the things I can't when he's awake, and when he's up, there's no sitting down (have no clue how I got it all done when I worked full time ... I think I need to go back!). The boy is into everything!

This, in addition to a laptop that gets on my every last nerve with its turtle speed, and a pretty new desktop with a virus that needed restoring (but of course before I could do this, I had to save the hundreds of pictures and videos on it ... an all day task which turned into a forever task when you have a nonstop one year old! WHEW!) Therefore ... no recent blog updates!

The last couple of weeks have been a bit overwhelming. Despite lack of sleep on both our parts, (the boy is up at least two times a night, sometimes for hours at a time) he is a ball of energy. What happened to the day of playpens? He thinks the only way he can play with his toys is if we're entertaining him. And while I love all the language he gets with playtime, he needs to explore his toys on his own too ... in a limited area.

Then we add in the CIs. I was so excited to be done with the hearing aids. I thought it was the ear mold he hated and that's why he constantly tore them off. Nope. As with anything, there are good CI days and bad CI days.

• Good day = CI on most waking hours. Still working on keeping it on in the car and in the high chair. Pilot caps are not working as he just fights me tooth and nail. For a one year old, he is pretty strong, and in the end, usually wins. I need to go buy some wig tape to help the BTE (behind the ear/processor) piece stay on. Yesterday I did bend the bottom ear part around his ear lobe and into his ear a bit more, and this seemed to really help.


• Bad day = Mom following baby everywhere to consistently replace coil on head only to be ripped off and thrown by baby.

Thank goodness we've had way more good days than bad days.

All in all, I believe Aiden truly loves to hear. He's responding more to voice and some environmental sounds. He's been responding to all Ling 6 Sounds , /m/, /ah/, /oo/, /sh/, /s/, /ee/, and is even imitating some of them (/ah/ and /mm/). Last night I was playing peek-a-boo with him and when I'd say "BOO" (covering my mouth with my hand), he'd cover his eyes and laugh. My heart melted and I couldn't get enough of it!

We're back to square one with our therapy. Here's what we're working on now.

• Distinguishing between long & short sounds - For example, "aaaahhhhh" vs. "eee-eee-eee".


• Turn taking - I've also call this the Power of Pause. When I make a sound, I'll wait for him to respond, then after he makes a noise, I'll make the sound again. This initiates taking turns.


• The /s/ sound - He doesn't respond as much to /s/ as he does the other lings. This is a high frequency sound and a little more boring. We use the teapot to imitate this. I pretend to pour the tea (while making the /s/ sound), then drink it (gulp, gulp, gulp) then "mmmmm" and rub my belly. He loves this!


• Face parts - Eyes, ears, nose, mouth ... face parts have great vowel sounds. We point out face parts on everything - in the books we read, on his toys, on us, on our cats. I'm just waiting for the day when I say a part and he actually points to it!

It is hard because Aiden was such a good hearing aid user and we were seeing a lot of this already, such as him imitating short and long sounds, turning to his name, babbling, vocalizing back and forth with us ... things I know we'll see again in time. Patience and hard work. I keep reminding myself of this. Patience and hard work. It will come.

We're also trying to find a good morning and nighttime routine. In a perfect world scenario, I'd love to be able to read him a book every night with his CI on, then lay him down for bed, but that's not working. He seems to need to have them off a bit to settle down and drink a bottle. I'd love to hear what others do.

So this is where we're at. Next Tuesday his left ear will be activated and I can't even imagine keeping two CIs on, but I am so excited to have them both turned on. It's what we wanted since day one. I'm praying that it's sooner than later that he WANTS to wear his CI's and starts realizing the difference with them on vs. off.

With all this said, I still wake up everyday with a smile on my face, as I put on his CI, knowing that they're the best gift we could ever give him! What a simply amazing journey we're on!

We Love Therapy Sessions!

We haven't had our AVT session for a couple weeks since we've been on vacation, but we were up bright and early to head down to Cook Children's for our bi-weekly therapy. It's nice, because Aiden's daddy is now working 10 hour days so he has off on Fridays to go to therapy with Aiden & me. I like him hearing it from them, then I don't feel like I'm "telling him" what to do all the time! : )

Aiden usually falls asleep soon after we get in there, but he raring and ready to go today, giving out huge smiles and really participating! We always start our sessions with Becky asking about all the new things Aiden is doing. Here's what he's doing that makes his mommy smile (and sometimes even cry)!

*He found the da-da-da-da sound again! He was saying it for awhile then seemed to lose it. I know all babies do this, but as a mother of a deaf baby, I get terrified that he's going to stop cooing and babbling. So hearing the da-da sound from him again is music to my ears!! What I have been doing with him is taking his hand to feel my throat and my breath as I say "da-da-da-da-da" and after about a week of doing that Aiden started picking it back up and when he says anything, we all go crazy showing him how excited we are!

*He's been grabbing his toys and of course brings them right to his mouth. The last few days he's been making a long O and the OO sounds as he holds the toy to his mouth. I think he likes the vibrations.

*Aiden loves vocal play (where we talk to him then pause for him to respond, then we talk again, etc). He gets so excited and is really experimenting with a lot of sounds! He's also starting to be very vocal when he's by himself too. Before if no one was around, he would just sit there very quietly, but now, I think he's starting to detect his own voice and gets really loud talking to himself! I love it!

*He's really been exploring a lot. He has found his toes, hands and other parts of his body; he loves to touch our mouth when we're talking to him; and of course the hearing aids are still being pulled out, but not as bad as before.

I JUST LOVE IT!!!! My binky boy is really starting to notice sounds and it just takes my breath away!!!!

After we talk about Aiden's highlights, we go into our lesson. Here's what we learned and will work on this week.

*Communicative intent (powerful moments) - We learned about this with our other great AVT Miss Helen. This is where we introduce a new game or song with Aiden (i.e. peek-a-boo), and then after playing it repetitively, start to pause in between lines to give Aiden the chance to respond. Ride a Lil' Horsey is a great one to do this with. As we bounce Aiden on our knee we sing:

"Ride a little horsey into town, Ride a little horsey

Then faaaall (pause here for reaction) DOWN"

and then tip Aiden down towards the floor. He loves playing this!

*Learn-to-listen sounds (tell then show) - Whenever Becky introduces a new sound she always includes a song to sing with it and a book to read about it. This week we're working on:

• spider (eeee-eeee-eee), "Itsy-Bitsy Spider", Little Miss Spider by David Kirk or The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle
• bus (bu-bu-bu), "Wheels on the Bus", The Wheels on the Bus, by Paul Zelinsky (this is a great interactive book!)

Being a teacher, I have a lot of these books, but if I don't, I love Amazon.

*Reading to Aiden - We continue to read Aiden around 10 books a day (we're all in this together!). I know this seems like a lot, but I'm talking about the little infant, touchy-feely, interactive books. As we read him the book, I pick out one extra thing to focus on, for example, describing the sun on each page or counting the animals on each page. Aiden loves the touch and feel books and is now reaching up himself to check it out. Another of his favorites are the books by Karen Katz, they have that lift-a-flap feature. If anyone has any other favorites or suggestions, I'd love to hear about them to add to our collection!

Now I'm off to find a toy spider (ewwww - I absolutely hate spiders, even the toy ones!) and a bus to add to our learning to listen box. Whenever I go to any store, I always look for cheap items to add to his learning to listen box and can usually find them here or there. Any suggestions on where to get all these toys would be greatly appreciated too!

Back Home and Getting Ready ...

... for all of Aiden's upcoming appointments! It was a nice two weeks off, but we're home and back into the swing of things. Aiden has really done a lot the past couple of weeks! I cannot believe how fast he is growing and changing! I have to say too, his hearing aids have become such a daily routine ... almost like changing his diaper, they go in when he gets up and come out when he lays down. The buzzing can drive me crazy, but I've become good friends with Otoferm!

This is what we've been working on the past few weeks:

The Listening Box - this is a box that we put all kinds of objects in for Aiden's learning to listen sounds, like different animals, an airplane, a car, etc. Of course, before I got pregnant with Aiden I sent many huge bags of baby toys to Goodwill, including the Little People garage and two barns with all the animals! The sounds we're working on right now (using a very "mama drama" voice as our AVT Miss Becky calls it):

• airplane - aaaaaahhhhhh (long sound with different pitches)
• sheep - baa-baa-baa (short sound - same pitch)
• cow - mooooooo (long sound at same pitch)
• cat - meeeeeoooow (long sound with different pitches)
• duck - quack-quack (short sound with same pitch)
• car - brrrrrrm with a BEEP BEEP at the end
• train - chug-a-chug CHOOO CHOOO

This is how our at home therapy typically works:

"Aiden, listen." (as I point to my ear)

"Airplane." (say object but don't show it ... we call this "Tell then show"

"aaaaaahhhhhh, aaaahhhhh, aaaaahhhhh" (make sound of object)

"Airplane." (show Aiden the object)

"aaaaahhhhh, aaaaahhhh, aaaahhhh" (create sound with object moving around)

Then I give the object to Aiden to check out, which, of course, goes right in his mouth . Babies learn through their senses and since Aiden can't hear, he is learning even more through his sight, taste, and hands. After he's done exploring the object, I say, "Bye-bye airplane", then put it away then ...

"Here comes more." (Then I start all over with "listen Aiden" and a new object. I'm not sure why, but I was told to use the word "more" a lot. This is a question I have for this week's session.)

Peek-a-Boo and Pat-a-Cake - We play these all the time and Aiden just loves them! Especially pat-a-cake. He gets the biggest grin on his face and laughs out loud when we "throw it in the pan!"

Vocal Play - This is where Aiden and I have our mommy-baby talks. They are so much fun! It's amazing to watch how he belts something out then will stop and wait for me. He watches my face so intensely then gets so excited to babble back! We hope that he hears himself make these sounds (even a little) and then he sees my reaction to them by me repeating the sound as well as me showing excitement. If he were to realize that nothing happens when he makes the sounds, then he'll stop making them. We all do a lot of vocal play with him!

Aiden's first booth test showed he may hear low frequency sounds in the 75-80 db range. This range does not include any speech sounds, but we're hoping his brain is detecting a short sound vs. a long sound. We're hoping that when a sound is made, he's realizing there is something there and is getting a good jump start to listening. This is also preparing us all for the therapy once Aiden receives his implants, which we're still praying he is a candidate for.

Aiden's recent milestones include:

• gaaaaaa's and kaaaaa's sounds
• da-da-da-da sound when he starts winding up and getting mad (of course Aiden's daddy takes this as his first word! : )
• short a and long a sounds
• rolling from belly to side
• grasping objects with both hands and bringing right to his mouth
• reaching for objects with both hands (we just saw this for the first time this weekend!)
• starting to hold his bottle
• Belly laughing! I love this!
• Frightened cry ... he's starting to cry when someone he doesn't know talks to him or when he seems to get frightened by a sudden movement.

The appointments we have this week are:

ENT - I can't wait for this one. We're mainly going in to see about Aiden's brachial cleft sinus. BUT, being the anxious mom I am, I am also going to ask lots of questions about the cochlear implant candidacy process. I'm hoping to get the MRI done the same time they do his surgery to close up this hole, why sedate him more than needed!

ECI - I haven't really posted about my ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) crew, I will soon. They are all wonderful! We have a Teacher of the Deaf (TOD) and an Occupational Therapist (OT) who will visit this week.

Four Month Well-Baby Visit - I can't believe my baby is four months already!

Auditory-Verbal Therapy (AVT) - We see Miss Becky this week and Miss Helen next (we rotate between the two each week).

(Our wonderful team of professionals and the role they play in our life is a post all on it's own ... I'll post this soon).

Then next week we go back to the audiologist for another booth test and to adjust his hearing aids. Very, very busy, but all well worth it! I have to say, working with Aiden has become quite fun! It is amazing to watch my baby grow ... in all ways! Every time he flashes that big grin at me just melts my heart! I know he's going to be okay; I have faith it is all going to work out; I have hope my baby will hear and speak one day and right now we're working hard to get there.