And boy did I deserve it after the last week and a half that we have had! It has been a little rough in our house lately. Illness. Yes, again. :( Sophie came down with RSV and an ear infection early last week and has slowly been getting better. Jared and I must have caught the nasty little virus from her and are still at war with it. Seriously, I have never been sick so often before in my life! I'm just hoping that everyone gets back to 100% soon and stays there for awhile!
Anyway, back to the purpose of this post. It has been three weeks now since activation and Sophie is doing wonderfully. She is responding to sounds and speech and is much more aware of her environment. As I have stated before, I narrate and label everything to her. In the past week or so, we have really focused on the word "doggy". We have a pet Maltese named Ollie and Sophie absolutely loves him. Great language opportunity, right?! In the past few days, when I say "dogg-eee", I have noticed Sophie look around for Ollie and start to crawl towards him if he is near. Of course, me being the skeptical realist that I am, this was not enough to prove that she actually understood what "doggy" meant. I have to continue to experiment until I am absolutely certain! ;)
Today, two amazing things happened to make me a believer. This morning, Sophie was in her high chair and we were eating breakfast. In between bites and me saying "open" and "mmm...oatmeal", I snuck in a "dogg-eee...?". Sophie instantly froze and looked all around. Then she leaned over each side of her high chair to look for Ollie (where he usually hangs out waiting for food to drop). I swear, it was as though I could hear the music and see the rays of light shining down from above! She understands! This is actually working! Then, as if that wasn't enough, I continued to "test" her. Several hours later we were playing in the living room and I said, "dogg-eee?". She stopped playing and actually POINTED to Ollie, who was lounging by the couch. Pointed to the doggy! How's that for receptive language, boys and girls?!
I tested my luck and tried to capture it on video. This is what I got:
Pretty amazing if you ask me!
Today was definitely my first "A-HA!" moment and I'm confident that it will be the first of many. I am seeing results and indications that this hard work is paying off. My deaf baby is showing me that she understands spoken language! And while I may still feel pretty sick and crummy right now, I feel more emotionally free than I have in a very long time.
That is so great!!! Way to go, Sophia!! These are the moments that make it all worth while!!!! I remember Allison's 1st word....it was "help", she wanted me to put her shoes on so she could go outside. With tears pouring down my face, I helped my little girl put her shoes on.
ReplyDeleteIt will not be long before it is common place to have Sophia listening and talking, you never forget, but your day is not centered around therapy and such. I think about it when I put her batteries in her implant, but we are not focused on it every min of the day.
That is when you know you have "made it".
That is great! So quickly too... what a rock star! Here's to many more... and it will NEVER get old!
ReplyDeleteMade me tear up to read this! Of course, I am reading this as I wait for my little guy to get out of his CI surgery, so I am a liiiittle emotional right now....reading about others' journeys gives me so much hope. My little guy's journey is at peterstale.blogspot.com. Thank you for sharing yours :)
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