language sample - 3 year 9 months

Here's a spontaneous language sample from a few weeks ago. I wanted to record him talking about going to the beach, as that seems to be his highlight from this summer. Enjoy!

Do you know the colors of our rainbow?

Every time I talk to Lucas about his colors, this song comes to mind: Colors of the Rainbow from Signing Time. I love it. I think it has a nice tune, and I think it's fun to sign the colors. Rachel Coleman (of Signing Time) is an amazing inspiration, and she writes a really great blog here.

Anyway, back to Lucas. He knows most of his colors now (except some of the more obscure ones). He likes to name the colors of objects. Sometimes he'll even say "not green, not blue, not white, not pink, it's purple." But, recently he has taken to naming the colors for objects one step further. The other morning when I woke him up before school (7 AM) to take him to Nate's mom's house for the day, he started listing car colors for several people in our family: me, Nate, Oma, Opa, Nanny, Granddad. And I was really blown away. I just had no idea that he stored that kind of information! He would probably list more, but two of his aunts' cars are silver, so I think he just ignores them, haha.

So, here it is. I had to prompt him a little, but you can definitely see the wheels turning! "Haha", by the way, is "grandma." That's one word that he can not say yet, so that is his approximation for it. Please excuse the nudy boy. It was one of those exceptionally warm spring days, and I was letting him enjoy it!! (*turn off the music player first*)

Easter Egg fun

We celebrated a beautiful Easter weekend with family and great weather. Lucas was a good age this year to do Easter egg hunts. He has finally officially learned all of his colors, so it was an opportune time to work with colorful, plastic Easter eggs. We spent time with both sides of the family on Easter. Lucas had Easter egg hunts with my nephew, Ryan, and Nate's niece, Lydia. Lucas and Lydia matched too... how cute (thanks Aunt Sarah)! We also got to celebrate Oma's birthday!

He finally got to enjoy the candy after all that hunting!

The video is of Lucas on an Easter egg hunt with Ryan. Lucas had 12 yellow eggs to find and Ryan had 12 blue eggs to find. They were filled with M&M's, and Lucas liked them a little too much. :)

Snowmageddon

We were hoping for a little bit of snow this winter, and we certainly got our wish. Between last weekend and this week, our town has been blanketed with almost 40" of snow. The last time we got this much snow was in 1996. Some places are calling it "snowpacolypse" and others "snowmageddon." Whatever you want to call it, Jack Frost has certainly let loose on the northeast. I keep wondering whether it's ever going to melt. At this rate, we'll still have snow on the ground in June.

Lucas is, in a nutshell, thrilled. When he convinces me to take him outside, I can't get him to come back in. I have to bribe him with the prospect of watching Elmo's World, his most recent obsession. It's a little scary too. If he weren't so brightly dressed, I'd be afraid to lose him. It's a good thing that Daddy likes to romp in the snow and go sledding, because I'm only good for walks in his sled.

Enjoy the pictures and the video clips! I made a video out of several different clips, showing a variety of Lucas phrases: "snow", "stand up", "help, please", "cold", "brrrr", and more "snowwwwwww!" The second video is a bunch of still shots I pieced together of Lucas sledding with his daddy.


almost as tall as he is...
our neighbor's car...

total snowy joy...

ummmm... is he allowed to eat this stuff?

sledding with daddy...

playing in the snow with Aunt "Eeeeeee"

I guess the snow brought some new firsts for Lucas too... his first real sledding experience, his first cup of hot (warm) chocolate, and his first movie, "The Jungle Book." It looks like I won't have school again until Tuesday, so I'm really enjoying the time off with Lucas. Hope you're staying warm...

Lucas, how are you?

Daddy's been hard at work teaching Lucas to answer the question, "how are you?" Apparently, he's just fine!

a unique experience

Like many other kids whose hearing loss is associated with LVAS, Lucas has had gross motor delays since birth. He couldn't hold his head up until 6 months, he didn't sit on his own until almost 12 months, was unable to crawl with his belly off the floor until 12 months, and didn't walk until 21 months. He's doing remarkably well right now, although he's still a bit behind. I attribute his most recent gains to a unique opportunity he has had: aquatic therapy.

Our area is very lucky to be served by a premiere children's rehabilitation facility, the Schreiber Pediatric Rehab Center. Through this wonderful organization, Lucas receives both weekly speech therapy and biweekly physical therapy at home through Early Intervention. His PT recommended last August that we pursue aquatic therapy at the center to improve Lucas's balance deficiencies, and he has had weekly sessions since mid-September. His balance has improved and his comfort level in the water has increased immensely. The pool is designed for children, so the shallow end is only 1 foot deep. This means that Lucas can stand and walk there! Oma has been the one to accompany him to therapy, but I've gotten to go with him twice when we've had off school.

His therapist just adores him, and she keeps mentioning that he's ready for swim lessons. He always wants to put his face in the water, he doesn't want her to be constantly spotting him, and he just has no fear! So, we're looking into private swim lessons in that pool because of the depth, and I think it will be a much richer experience for him if he can HEAR. So, I'm heeding some advice that I got from cicircle over the summer, and I'm going to rig his processor so he can wear it in the water, using an Aloksak bag and a Lycra swim cap. I'm excited to try it out, and nervous at the same time. We'll see! I predict it will be well worth it!

I've pieced together some video clips from therapy that capture his incredibly contagious laugh, his complete lack of fear for the water and his ability to stand in the pool. Enjoy!

attached to his ear

Lucas is attached to his ear... both literally and figuratively! It has really become obvious in the past few weeks how much his CI has become a part of him. When he wakes up in the morning, he asks for it by making the sign. If the whole processor comes off, he brings it to me to put back on. If the coil comes off, he will even try to put it back on himself. It's an understatement to say that I'm ecstatic that he has embraced it and not rejected it.

Sometimes when he doesn't want to go to bed, he insists on keeping it on. So much so, that I'm afraid he's going to poke a hole in his head while signing "CI". Most of the time though, he hands it right over, as it's an integral part of his bedtime routine. When I ask for his "ear" before nap time, bath time or swim time, he happily hands it over. But, when we were at his cousin's house a few weeks ago, he was not too keen on the idea of giving it to me before going down a slide. I can't blame him, but he will have to learn in time.

He leaves it pretty well alone in the car these days, unless the coil gets knocked off, then he just pulls the whole thing off and gently puts it into the cup holder in his car seat until we reach our destination. Once in a while, he pulls it off if he's really mad. I've been told that that will only get worse...

It's such a part of him now. It's as routine as putting on his shoes, only so much more magical. I really hope it stays that way. Here he is, asking for his processor. Right after that, he got giddy with excitement as I put it on. PRICELESS.

snowy birthday party

Although Lucas's birthday is not for a few days, yesterday was supposed to be his birthday party, scheduled for 4:30 PM. Mother nature had other plans. Snow, and lots of it, was in the forecast, so we re-scheduled for 9:30 AM, hoping that a few might venture out. We still lost 5 adults and 2 kids in the count, but we had fun at Lucas's snowy birthday brunch! We liked it so much, we might do it again next year, minus the snow!

playing with his cousins...

getting ready to pin the tail on the donkey...

success!

trying to blow out the candle!

The best part of this year's party? Lucas got to hear us sing "happy birthday" to him! Priceless. Last year's party was a few days before implantation. Enjoy the video!

sharing his story

My school district runs an extensive United Way campaign each year. I always sit and admire the strength of the presenter to share how this organization has impacted their life.

This year, I got to be that presenter.

Lucas has received services from 2 local agencies that are funded by the United Way. I've traveled to each of our district's building's faculty meetings to share Lucas's story and talk about how the early intervention services he has received have impacted his outcome immensely.

At the first meeting I attended, I couldn't hold it together. I cried almost the whole time. I don't know if that will ever change, although I've held it together much better at the other meetings so far. Lucas came along, and everyone got to see him in person. He was so great, and really helped my little presentation. Yesterday was my own building's faculty meeting, but Lucas was sleeping, so he couldn't come. Instead, I made the following video to share. I think it made just as much of an impact, if not more. It's a slightly different version from the one that I showed, for privacy sake. Enjoy!!!

yes and no

Lucas has officially learned to say the word no. There's no going back with this one! I love that he always nods too. Enjoy the video!

then and now

Airplane then:

Airplane now:

I am just so in love with this kid!!!

How does a bunny go?

Don't blink or you might miss this little video.

Hope it makes you smile!

interesting happenings

the neighborhood watchdog

Lucas is having a bit of a language explosion. His speech therapist pointed out that if I'm having trouble keeping up with the running lists on this blog, he's probably having a bit of a surge. Just in the past week, he has added dat - that, uh hu - uh oh, no, mah - mine, eye, hel - help, and rou rou - round & round. He's also changed the way he says banana to a very clear "nana."

Lucas also now says "uh" for both up and down. Hmmmm... we need to work on that one. I have no idea why he started that. We just keep reinforcing the correct words.

Okay... if you look at his signs list on the sidebar, it continues to expand, although he has not seen signs from us in maybe 2 months? Last week he added bear, truck and water. This week he added baby, help, silly and banana. And... I got some of these signs by just prompting, "Lucas, how do you sign ____." That's how I found out he can sign silly and help. He never did those until I basically asked him if he could. Strange.

Lucas has been doing well with identifying body parts, mostly on faces. He will point to his own, and to those in a book or on me. Last night before bed, he found one of his books on body parts, and basically read it to himself. He'd open a page with a belly button on it and pull up his shirt to point to his belly button, etc. So, I then decided to further test his knowledge. I asked him where his hand, leg, toes, feet, and tongue were, and he correctly identified all parts, with this little smirk on his face like "hahaha, you didn't think I knew these, did you?" All of this constant repetition is really paying off.

Another really cute thing he is doing is a bunny "sound." Whenever we do animal sounds, I always ask him, "How does a bunny go?" (knowing that I have no good answer). I then scrunch up my nose repeatedly like a bunny nose. He's now imitating it by opening and closing his mouth. I need to get it on video. It's so cute!

Lastly... for your viewing pleasure, here's a video of our baby who is finally not only walking, but walking in circles. If you listen closely, you might be able to hear him say "rou rou" for round and round and round. Repeating words in threes seems to really be working. Sorry the video is so dark - I take these video clips on my still camera and there wasn't a lot of light at the time. Also, I think his "ear" had just fallen off in all of his silliness... the wig tape had lost its stickiness for the day. The video is not captioned, because it's just baby jargon, and I don't know how to caption that anyway.