2 Week Check-Up

It's been 2 weeks since Christian was activated. I'm not going to lie. Other than the weeks following our initial diagnosis (which happened the week of our wedding anniversary AND my baby brother's wedding), these past two weeks have been some of the hardest. They've been emotionally draining. They've been hard. At times I've wondered "Where did my little boy go?".

This past weekend, I feel like we hit a turning point. While he's not consistently responding to his name (as he did when he was aided), he is turning to it now every so often. He's been experimenting with sound, now calling his Daddy "Dah-m" (it sounds like DUMB, which REALLY irks Chuck). He babbles and chats in a voice a bit lower, but when his implant is off, his voice is much higher than usual. Yesterday, his back was turned to me, and I asked him to find his horse, and he walked right over to his barn, grabbed the horse, and signed for me. He did the same for many of his little animals. And when I ask him to find his Daddy, he always finds a picture and points right to it. I shook my keys behind his head while we were walking, and he turned. He was incredibly startled by a horn beeping while we were in the car one day. He even sat forward with a very concerned look on his face, when he heard a baby crying at the craft store.

So, things are coming together. We're really working on having some structured listening time everyday in his high chair, which for all you parents of toddlers know is a difficult task in itself!

We go back the first week of July for our next mapping session. In the meantime, I've been immersing myself in some really cool online classes on Audiology Online, mostly about AVT and Making the Most of Your Child's MAP.