Thursday, January 31, 2013
Big talker
Why sleep when you can tell yourself stories in the dark???
Coinciding with Amichai's new trick of sleeping through the night (you can applaud when he does it a a second time...), came his new hobby of enjoying some solo play time before nodding off on his own...
Pretty sweet.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Curious Amichai
It's too bad our son isn't interested in exploring his surroundings...
Curiosity explosion in the De Lowe house! :)
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Curiosity explosion in the De Lowe house! :)
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Saturday, January 19, 2013
Hey Moms! Come home!
Sent from our babysitter, Amy, during our ASL class today :)
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Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Saturday, January 12, 2013
1st word!!!
I can hardly explain our excitement and awe in being able to post this blog tonight. Our boy is just amazing. Only a few weeks after we brought American Sign Language into our home and have begun to sign regularly with each other and with Amichai, our diligent observer has begun to finger babble...responding to our signs with hand movement (pre-language parallel to oral babbling before speech)...and tonight, somehow, I caught his first conversation with his Mama on video along with his first comprehensible sign...MAMA!!!
We are overjoyed and amazed and proud of our son. We hope you enjoy this priceless video as much as we have. Absolutely astounding.
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We are overjoyed and amazed and proud of our son. We hope you enjoy this priceless video as much as we have. Absolutely astounding.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Thursday, January 10, 2013
The End of an Era
Here's a sweet picture to document the end of the beloved swaddle for our Amichai. We were thinking the time was close, and then he rolled over to his tummy with his arms tightly swaddled, Harry Houdini style, right before our eyes. And that marked the abrupt end to the era of swaddling! :)
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Speech Therapy Update
We have started incorporating our Clarke School speech therapy learning into our daily routines at home. We are working on a few different things:
1. Detection of sound
-not just hearing, but understanding that sound is connected to what is going on in the world and is important to pay attention to
Things we are doing:
-making noise behind his head and when we notice his recognition of the sound, slowly bringing it around to his line of vision so that he can connect the sound to what is making it
-playing freeze dance (the sound of the music makes us dance and we stop when the sound goes away---cause and effect training)
-playing games and singing songs with call and response
-pointing out sounds in his environment and pointing to the ears: 'I hear it'
2. The six Ling Sounds
-the Ling Sounds are six sounds (AH, OO, EE MMM, S, SH) that represent the full range of sound needed to hear and take in language.
Things we are doing:
-making the sounds loudly, nonstop, in a multitude of contexts
-working on Amichai's association of these sounds with certain objects (eg ice cream=mmmm)
3. Name recognition
Things we are doing:
-trying to narrow down his nicknames (lol)
-saying Amichai often and loudly and when he turns pointing to him and saying: that's you!
-when he doesn't turn to his name, saying it again syllabically with three taps on his body to gain his attention
Amichai is doing great on all these fronts...total trooper!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
1. Detection of sound
-not just hearing, but understanding that sound is connected to what is going on in the world and is important to pay attention to
Things we are doing:
-making noise behind his head and when we notice his recognition of the sound, slowly bringing it around to his line of vision so that he can connect the sound to what is making it
-playing freeze dance (the sound of the music makes us dance and we stop when the sound goes away---cause and effect training)
-playing games and singing songs with call and response
-pointing out sounds in his environment and pointing to the ears: 'I hear it'
2. The six Ling Sounds
-the Ling Sounds are six sounds (AH, OO, EE MMM, S, SH) that represent the full range of sound needed to hear and take in language.
Things we are doing:
-making the sounds loudly, nonstop, in a multitude of contexts
-working on Amichai's association of these sounds with certain objects (eg ice cream=mmmm)
3. Name recognition
Things we are doing:
-trying to narrow down his nicknames (lol)
-saying Amichai often and loudly and when he turns pointing to him and saying: that's you!
-when he doesn't turn to his name, saying it again syllabically with three taps on his body to gain his attention
Amichai is doing great on all these fronts...total trooper!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Update on Amichai
A lot of folks have been asking for an update on Amichai, so here it goes! :)
In a nutshell, things are going great....it's a lot, going going all the time, but Amichai is a trooper and is doing awesome. It keeps us fueled to know so wholeheartedly that we have him in the very best care that there is (we are so lucky to be in New York). He is wearing his hearing aides every day and smiling and giggling at all the music, sounds and voices we expose him to everyday....relieving to know that he likes it! Right now, he hears about 20-30% of what you and I hear....mostly environmental noises (music, dogs barking, horns, etc) and our voices (but only at close range and not to distinguish language). In speech therapy, they work with him to learn to pay attention to and distinguish sound, as well as to develop the various pre-language skills that he needs by nine months....so that when he has his surgery in May, he will just soar with his cochlear implants.
Meanwhile, we are all learning ASL as a family....Shayna and I are taking intensive classes every week, Amichai has two hours of one-on-one ASL time (aka play with a teacher who is signing to him), and we hired an AMAZING deaf nanny for the seven hours a week that we need him to be watched, so that is another seven hours a week of exposure to ASL for Amichai!! Pretty awesome!
Thank you so much to everyone that has been checking in on us through emails and coming to this site....means the world. Love, love, love.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
In a nutshell, things are going great....it's a lot, going going all the time, but Amichai is a trooper and is doing awesome. It keeps us fueled to know so wholeheartedly that we have him in the very best care that there is (we are so lucky to be in New York). He is wearing his hearing aides every day and smiling and giggling at all the music, sounds and voices we expose him to everyday....relieving to know that he likes it! Right now, he hears about 20-30% of what you and I hear....mostly environmental noises (music, dogs barking, horns, etc) and our voices (but only at close range and not to distinguish language). In speech therapy, they work with him to learn to pay attention to and distinguish sound, as well as to develop the various pre-language skills that he needs by nine months....so that when he has his surgery in May, he will just soar with his cochlear implants.
Meanwhile, we are all learning ASL as a family....Shayna and I are taking intensive classes every week, Amichai has two hours of one-on-one ASL time (aka play with a teacher who is signing to him), and we hired an AMAZING deaf nanny for the seven hours a week that we need him to be watched, so that is another seven hours a week of exposure to ASL for Amichai!! Pretty awesome!
Thank you so much to everyone that has been checking in on us through emails and coming to this site....means the world. Love, love, love.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Holland
We were given this short essay at our support group this past Wednesday...many people in the group described it as the best thing they have found to express to their loved ones what the experience of raising a child with special needs is...and what it is not.
It is definitely hard to come up with the words to describe how, even now, in the midst of the overwhelm and overload, how much this new challenge adds to our lives and enriches our experience as parents. This story hit it right on. Enjoy it as we did.
WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by
Emily Perl Kingsley.
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
It is definitely hard to come up with the words to describe how, even now, in the midst of the overwhelm and overload, how much this new challenge adds to our lives and enriches our experience as parents. This story hit it right on. Enjoy it as we did.
WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by
Emily Perl Kingsley.
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Food!!
Amichai is eating!
This morning we gave him rice cereal mixed with breast milk!!!
Amazing! :)
Check out how he got upset every time we took the spoon away, hysterical...this boy was clearly ready to eat! We are SO excited to try different things in the coming days---next stop, avocado!!
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