December 27th, 2009

Despite the fact that Carver's seroma continues to show it's ugly head, he is doing very well. I love that we are trying new things with Carver besides trying to get him to say something. I mean, let's face it.... Do we expect our newborns to repeat what we say at a couple weeks old? No, so we shouldn't expect a child who receives a CI to repeat words quickly. We've taken a step back and are working on prelinguistic communication. This would be similar to signing or using gestures to communicate. For example, when a child wants something, but he can't tell you - he will stand, grunt, and point at something. When you ask the child to give you something, they show that they hear you and understand by giving you the object. So, instead of expecting Carver to say something, we are expecting a response to our questions/commands. If he wants something, we expect some sort of gesture. Already, I can tell Carver to "Give me five, five, five", Carver will lift his hand and hit my hand 3 times. If he misses my hand, I show him where my hand is by helping him hit my hand. It's the best thing in the world. I know that he understands me and he is responding. Similarly, if I pull a pop tube open/shut (giving him a sound clue of what I have), and then say, "Do you want to get it?", He will reach out and grab the pop tube. We then raise it up/down to the count of three - one, two, three, then we pull the pop tube open. He helps raise it up/down as we count to three and laughs when we pull it open. He's also doing so good at meal time. Before every bite, we say, "Bite, Carver?", and he opens his mouth really big for the bite. I know this may not sound big, but to me it's huge and it feels really good. I'm so proud of my little guy.