charting language

Ellis runs ahead of me in all his four-year-old boy vivacity. As I lumber along with the baby on my back, lugging our little bag full of snacks and water bottles, I watch him, waiting for the moment, just before he disappears around the corner, when he'll turn around and make eye contact. I wave him down signing WAIT FOR MOMMY! but he's already plopped down on the park bench and signs WAIT. As I get close, up he pops again, and I watch the back of his head bounce, jump, and dash along.

Cut to later. Ellis is picking up his fifteen-month-old brother. Again. He adores his brother, but sometimes his love is a bit too lavish. I kneel down, fully intending to affirm his love, but to talk with him about more appropriate ways to express it, while firmly prying his arms away from the baby, who is screaming his head off. Ellis drops to the ground, flailing and squeezing his eyes shut.

Four years ago, when we learned that our brand new baby was born profoundly deaf, we knew our experience as parents would be different. We got a kick out of being able to vacuum in the same room as a sleeping baby. We cheered at his vocabulary of ASL at such a young age. We stomped the floor to get his attention.

However, I feel like it's only been this year that I've really begun to get a glimpse at what it means for Ellis to be deaf, and deaf in our hearing family. I've started to see how he settles himself socially. Personally, I'm starting to see the particular ways I fall short as a parent. True, nobody is a perfect parent, but I'm speaking of the ways in which I struggle as a Hearing Parent of a Deaf Kid.

The primary aspect of this unique experience is communication. We are settling into the bilingual dance between spoken English and ASL. Two years ago Ellis got a CI. He's doing pretty well with it, his receptive language is stronger than expressive. I can talk to him without signing through the simple aspects of our routine and that works out fine. He doesn't like to wear it at home. We don't press him to, but, I will admit, I may or may not have bribed him with chocolate milk to wear it at home sometimes. He wears it at school or usually any other time when we're not home. He is most comfortable with ASL, and that is the language we use with him primarily, even if we are speaking, too. This is especially true in discipline situations, where I need to use whatever language we have to its fullest, and since ASL is his preferred language, that is what I use.

From the beginning, we've pursued our education in ASL vigorously. We've taken classes, lived in the dictionary, had Deaf Mentors. But we are far from native signers. We get by. We can communicate fairly effectively with our four-year-old: we can read books in ASL and talk to him about the world around us.

I have found lately, though, that my ASL is starting to fail my parenting needs. It's taken me awhile to figure out what the matter is, because I know the signs and how to use them, but somehow I'm failing to communicate. I think there is a Deaf presence that I don't have. I'm not really sure how to describe it. A way of using my body that transcends the actual signs, that enters into his space, meets it, communicates with it. Connection is a key part of my parenting philosophy and to be so defeated by the basic communication that I need to make it happen is beyond frustrating. It has deeply discouraged me in these past few months especially.

It's not all a total big Fail. We do get along, after all. We do connect. I give him as much physical presence as I can. I give him as much language as I can. And we are a happy family. But sometimes I look at my hearing friends with their hearing kids--parents and children who speak the same native language--and wonder at the ease of it all. To just talk, effortlessly.

He shuts his eyes. Bam. Communication stops. He glances away from me, focusing back to his play. Communication stops. Sure, he might pick up more than I think peripherally. But it is unnerving to have the eye contact lost. The conversation could just be small talk about his play, but it is lost mid-sentence. Is my signing that weak? Do I not have the persona to indicate that I'm talking to you? Ellis seems to think that I can only hear him if I'm looking at him. He screams my name while I am driving until I glance back giving him the visual acknowledgment that I hear him. (Dang! We need a mirror!) He also thinks that if I don't acknowledge him the split second he says my name that I must not hear him, so he repeats it at blood-curdling volumes, until I can turn to him. I'm rambling a little. This summer has been a roller-coaster. My nerves feel shot from his screaming my name, though it's getting a little better.

He's changing socially. We were at a birthday party with all hearing kids, kids he's known since infancy. Another guest, another little boy, ran up to Ellis, hi! what's your name? Ellis didn't know what he said. How much do I step in to intervene? Do I translate for E? Let it go and watch him slip into isolated play? Do I go through the conversation for the bazillionth time? oh, hi. His name is Ellis. He can't hear you, so we talk with our hands. can you say 'hi' like this? Some kids get into it. Some feel awkward and back away. Bless the little British kid at the park the other day who made fast friends with E despite his curious quality.

How do I balance it all? As a mother I want to protect him from all this. I want to make a world that fits him perfectly. I don't want to have to teach him how to negotiate through languages and worlds. I wish I had more to offer him. Yet at the same time, he's doing a pretty good job. Sometimes, I just have to stop and let go. Let him run ahead, trusting that he'll turn around. After all, I am not in control. The God who gave me Ellis also has Ellis perfectly in His arms.

Yesterday we went down to the children's hospital (CHOP) again for Ellis's two year evaluation and mapping. Today marks two years since his activation of his cochlear implant. He wears a Cochlear Freedom on his right ear.

Ellis is interesting. I think we all expected him to really get into his implant, but he hasn't so much. He's not an auditorally-inclined person. I really wasn't sure what to expect at his appointments, because compared to some CI kids who have had implant(s) as long as he has, he might not be doing as much as they are. I will say, though, personally, we don't "need" him to be doing that, you know? He's bilingual. And he rocks ASL. So, for having a deaf child, we're doing pretty well in the language-as-a-whole category. I don't feel defeated or discouraged because he's not indistinguishable from a hearing child.

We met with his former speech therapist, who has switched to part-time following the advent of her cute baby. It was so great to see her again!! Ellis was excited to play with Rebecca again. He often asks for her if he sees that we're heading towards center city. She was mostly in eval. mode. Receptively he's doing really great. Right on target. Expressively, though, well, put it this way: if he doesn't sign, too, I have no idea what he's saying. She's hoping to squeeze him in for a few sessions to help him with articulation.

After lunch, we saw Ellis's audiologist again. Ellis has had mixed experience in the hearing booth, so I'm usually a little nervous. He's never been a fan of the conditioned play (where they hold a block to their ear and then put it in the bucket when they hear something). So this time we tried to do it like a big boy, just raise your hand if you hear something. He loved that! The audiologist got a pretty good idea of what he's hearing with his implant. We talked some and he fiddled with the programming on the implant.

I've been nervous, because Ellis doesn't always want to wear his CI, which is fine, mostly. On the one hand, if he's been listening for awhile and he's tired, that's fine. But to just kind of not wear it, like not wanting to wear shoes, I'm a little more reticent, because consistent stimulation will provide him with the most benefit. So we do a lot of off and on and off and on. He's cool at school, but not so much at home, etc. I wasn't sure what they would say when we went in to his evaluation.

I must say, that we've got to be the luckiest bi-bi family in this country. Seriously, I love our hospital! I love our peeps!! I was explaining to the audiologist that Ellis is making progress, but he's no CI wunderkind or anything. But the audiologist was so encouraging: Ellis is the measure of his own success, and he's doing great! In other words, don't compare him to other kids, he's learning in his own way, in his own time, and that's great success for him. He's definitely getting great auditory benefit from the CI. I'm so happy that our both Ellis's school and his team of hearing professionals see Ellis as a whole Deaf person with a variety of skills, talents, and successes.

We spent the afternoon at CHOP today. Ellis had his one year evaluation and mapping for his cochlear implant. The past few times he's been in the hearing booth, he's HATED it, like cried and crawled all over me. Today he was much better, and even cooperated a teeny tiny bit. But not enough to get a really good audiogram. It was progress, though. His audiologist wasn't too worried, though. He worked with him in the CI tuning room and was able to fine-tune the program a bit more. He's been using the ADRO (Adaptive Dynamic Range Optimization) program comfortably for several months now, and we're sticking with it.

Ellis then had the official speech evaluation with Awesome Therapist who we see every week. E was really tired, though. She was able to get him through the questions pretty quickly, and combined with what she knows from weekly therapy, evaluated him at approximately 18-24 mos in terms of age level auditory-verbal language skills. He's 37 mo, but has only had auditory access for 12 mos, so not bad. He's not a CI wunderkind, but he's doing pretty good. And we're happy with that and proud of all he's done. I do think his therapist/audiologist/and us! would all like to see him a bit better, because we know he CAN; he has the auditory access and the intellectual capability. The question is, does he want to? haha! We think that he'll let it all simmer for awhile and then one day when we think he'll never do it, he'll come out with it like he's been doing it all his life. That's sort of his learning pattern. Not like anyone else I know or anything...*cough* his father *cough*.

I was really proud of E. That was a long day of listening, and he worked hard! He fell asleep in the car almost instantly. Yes, He Who Does Not Nap. That's how tired he was, AND he stayed asleep when Daddy carried him up, lay him on the couch, and washed his face. poor boy.

There's a lot of work ahead of us, but at the same time, if you take a step back and see what he IS doing, none of it he could quite so easily or at all without his implant. That's kind of cool.

After settling into his CI for quite some time, Ellis has been taking it off and pulling it apart recently. Mostly, it seems, because he's bored and/or a bit ornery (as he is with a lot of things--understandably getting used to a new baby and getting through some developmental angst [my new term for "disequilibrium"]). All that pulling apart did a number on the coil (the wire that goes from teh external processor to his head and that holds the magnet), and wouldn't ya know, we are well into the long weekend with Cochlear's office closed when I finally figure out that it was the coil and not battery issues. (So a few days of trying to figure out what was wrong, combined with crazy schedules and just trying to keep track of the CI since E kept throwing it around. *gah*)

So first thing Monday morning, I called for a new coil, and it didn't arrive until this afternoon. So it's been about 5 or 6 days with no CI. (Just don't even bring up the spare right now.) I was frustrated, because that's a long time to go when you're trying to get into the CI groove, but hey, we sign, so no language was lost in the process.

In fact, it was kind of an interesting week in terms of language development. We've really been encouraging Ellis to use more words together to say what he means, speaking and signing. In the past day or so, Ellis started using ASL sentences that were as long as 6 or more words to tell me what was going on. One of my favorites was: GRANDDAD BATH UPSTAIRS SHOWER (complete with sound effect) WET *pause* HAIRCUT ALL-DONE. He periodically reminds us that his haircut is all done. His last haircut was around two months ago. I guess the thought of water squirting on the head reminded him of his haircut.

I feel like Ellis made a jump in expressive language this weekend. I don't know if it was being reduced to one language, or if it was just coincidental (he was gearing up for a developmental spurt--I can always tell from the insomnia).

When the new coil came, I was worried that he would totally reject wearing the CI. I asked him if he wanted to wear it, and he said yes, and tried to put it on himself. But I forgot to turn it down from when he had worn it last on its highest setting. It's been over 5 days since he heard any sound, so when I put it on, he shrieked and cried a little. I grabbed the coil off his head as fast as I could. I felt SO BAD, I just about died. We waited awhile, and I asked him again, and he said yea, so we did it nice and slow. He spent the rest of the evening constantly vocalizing. I think he may have liked having it back.

Sometimes when I turn on something for E to watch, I just hit the mute button. It's one of the perks of having a deaf kid. I usually don't hit mute when he has his CI on, but today I wasn't thinking and when annoying children's TV music came on, I hit mute out of instinct. Purely self-preservation. He came up to me a few minutes later and signed MUSIC HEAR. He's recently been showing interest in having the volume on, and this was the first time he's asked for it.

Later he was watching a little bit of Finding Nemo and you know the part where Nemo is in the tank at the dentist's office and the other fish are having an induction ceremony for him. As he approaches the group, the other fish chant "aaah, ooh. aah, eee, ah. Oh, oh, oh" or something like that. Ellis was trying to imitate their little chant.

I thought this was kind of cool, because the sound he's already getting from the CI is not a natural sound plus the sound from the TV is not a natural sound, so it's like natural sound twice removed, and it's sound that's not in person. I know when I've been learning other languages, I always have more difficulty understanding them on TV rather than spoken in person.

Overall, E is continuing to do much, much better wearing his CI. It's kind of a relief not to have to do the little dance several times a day. In fact, he actually offered his ear to me the other day after he actually tried to put it on himself.

Because he's been better about wearing it and thus having the consistent exposure, it allows the freedom to have some down time, too. On a Saturday we might have deaf day, which is good for us, too. We sign more and visually communicate more as a whole family and that feels good. He seems to be enjoying the listening and talking, but he's not a chatterbox kid. If he doesn't have something to say, he doesn't say it, and that's his personality and totally fine by me.

E's been doing really well about wearing the CI. Much better. He's worn it without taking it off all day almost every day for the past couple of weeks. (Except for the bit yesterday when he wouldn't wear his hat and CI at the same time--and the hat stayed, of course, it's all about fashion). It's nice not to have to search the house multiple times a day to find the stashed CI. Overall in life, E seems a bit more settled. I think coming out of a phase of disequilibrium.

I can see improvement in his speech/listening, too, no doubt thanks to better CI wearing habits. I've realized that I have had to come to peace with speech therapy etc. We were so conflicted about the CI and so protective of his signing, that it's taken us a long time to really accept speech therapy on a certain emotional level. E continues to do well with ASL, and I feel like I can relax a little about it. He's in an environment where his ASL will be nurtured and will continue to grow, and I don't need to be so tense about every little language choice. It also helps me to encourage him more in his speech/listening, since he has the tools to do well, in terms of both equipment and cognitive skills.

Anyway, so a couple of my favorites that are new-ish:

* When we're driving around (which we do a lot) I usually point out the traffic lights and holler from the front "Red! Stop" "wait, wait, wait" "green! go!" Sometimes I sign, too, if it's convenient (and esp if the CI got hurled across the car). Lately we've been hearing him chime in from the back, too. "ee! op!" "bee, bee" (he still says "bee" for "wait) and then a gasp of excitement when it changes (every time! I love this kid!) and "EEE! OOH!" He's taken to enacting this out with his cars, too. Very cute.

* and finally I am referred to as "mah-ee" instead of "bee". Woohoo!! Daddy has been "yayee" for a long time. But I finally got a "ma-ee." He labels us and what belongs to us all the time. Like going around the table: Ellis's plate (he says like a cross between "el" or "uh" for his name), Yayee, Ma-ee's plate, etc. He's really internalized Ma-ee, too, because the other night he came stumbling into our room and when I picked him up, he said, half-asleep "ma-ee" and signed "mommy". *melt*

* about a month ago he nailed "sh" and "s", too. yay! that makes all 6 ling sounds that he says.

I probably should add that we have a new speech therapist from the county who will be coming to the house, in addition to Totally Awesome Fabulous Speech Therapist. The other therapist was not going to work for us. She wasn't a bad person or anything. And E liked her just fine. But I felt like the sessions were anemic; they could've been so much more. I couldn't see her plan or trajectory and kept feeling like I wanted to take over. It wasn't worth the distance we were traveling. Thankfully, the go-to person for deaf EI/Preschool in our county pulled some strings for me to get this other person, whose has plenty of CI experience and is current with resources. I feel like I can ask a question and get good response--I have confidence that she knows the territory. And she signs. I like her, and she'll work for us. And she'll be coming to the house. SO NICE!

When I started teaching my son ASL, learning it as fast as I could teach him, I knew that someday, he would go off to deaf school and come home and teach me signs. I always wondered what that would be like. I'm sure every parent goes through this with their kid starts learning things that the someone else other than the parent teaches them.

Well, today I lived that experience for the first time. Ellis came home with a sign I didn't know (I had seen it, but couldn't remember it): Chocolate. He pointed to the big box of hot chocolate mix that I got at Costco today and asked to partake in its delights. I blame school. They did a unit on the book _The Snowy Day_, which included sampling hot chocolate. We don't normally have chocolate around here, so I just haven't really had occasion to use the sign. But my boy taught me the sign for "chocolate" today. Why couldn't it have been "broccoli"?

It's been six months since Ellis's CI activation. It was actually 6 mos exactly a week ago, but I've been wanting to sit down and write a long, eloquent post, but it's just not going to happen, at least eloquence isn't. So I'll pound out some details just to keep them around.

Last Thurs in his speech therapy session at CHOP, Totally Awesome Therapist declared that Ellis was ready to graduate from Learning to Listen Sounds (like "choo-choo" for train) to actual words. So we're cycling back through a few consonants adding words. So far (in no particular order) we've done B, M, P, H, N, and W (with a variety of vowel combinations), and are now back on B for words.

He has good auditory discrimination (esp pitch and rhythm) and short-term auditory memory. He imitates speech ALL the time.

He has about 40 words expressively and receptively (speech that is, he's hundreds in sign, of course--we lost count over a year ago). It's funny to go through all these stages again, because I feel like we were just here...just in ASL.

Words he says (well, they aren't perfect, but the meaning is there). I'm going to record how he says them, because it's so cute (sorry if this is crazy pedantic, it's partly for my record, too):

stop (a silent "p", sometimes "op")
help (silent "hp")
ow
whee (as in going down a slide; this a Learning to Listen [LTL] sound)
yay (as in yippee!)
eww (as in yucky, dirty)
Mmm (as in yummy/eating; LTL)
pop (says "pop" but it's silent/whispered)
sssh (as in sleep; LTL. Actually he makes this by sort of blowing through his teeth, same with the "s" sound)
no (oh)
yes (yea)
more (mo)
hi (silent "h")
bye
open (oh)
go (oh)
wash (ba; can sometimes get a "wa" out of him, but he's hanging onto that B)
water (ba)
wet (ba; he signs with these, so I know which one it is)
jump (silent "p")
up
Daddy (aa-ee)
Poppy (my FIL, silent "pop")
baby (beebee)
eyes (long i sound)
nose (oh)
all done (ah-ba)
dirty (uh-ee)
hot (silent "ha")
juice (ooooh)
ball (ba)
beepbeep (as in car; LTL)
moo (as in cow; LTL. says "ooooh")
meow (as in cat; LTL. says "ow")
woofwoof (as in dog; LTL. says "woo, woo")
knock-knock (as in door; LTL. says "bah, bah")
choo-choo (as in train; LTL. says "ooo-ooooo")
aaah (as in airplane; LTL)
quack-quack (as in duck; LTL. says "ba, ba")
shoes (oooh)
wait (bee)
please (eee)
wow (bow)
I swear he said "ah-oo" for thank-you the other day, too.

He might not always get the consonant/vowels completely right, but the inflection is usually really close. I'm happy that he's getting the hang of this talking thing and seems to enjoy it. When his CI is on, I see him incorporating talking into his play independent of us, and that's really where a child's learning and internalizing takes place. It's sweet to hear his little voice saying "oo-ooo" over his wooden train track.

Thanks to his totally awesome bilingual classroom, though, he is still progressing marvelously in his signing skills. It's hard for me to sit here and make a list of what he's doing in sign, because by now it's such a natural part of our life. This is where we have conversations.

He reads books in ASL now, simple stories, like his favorite, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed (or any of the sequels). He doesn't use classifiers perfectly or anything (even I don't! top on my list of ASL Thing I Need to Finetune), but he's got the basic gist. He uses more descriptive signs all the time, like colors, feelings, fast/slow. One thing that I think is really cute is that in all the pictures he points out the little kid as him, an older male as Daddy, and an older female as Mommy. I think I make a nice Mommy monkey. :-)

He's still in love with his letters. He's nailed a few more handshapes (I and J are big accomplishments). He's SO cute the way he stops, makes the I, and carefully signs "noodle". He's only got one handshape left to grow into, W. He still makes a 4 instead.

And, get this!, he recognizes his printed name!! Can you believe it?! They're doing this at school, recognizing their own and their classmates printed names and fingerspelling them. We were at a parent-teacher meeting, and one teacher showed us this and held up some random kid's name (only letters, no pictures), and E glanced up and did her name sign. We were so surprised! haha!

We have our first meeting to transition him to an IEP in a couple of weeks. He will be turning 3 in June. I'm really not looking forward to this. If you have any advice about making IEPs say what you want them to say, please let me know. I have a couple of books I'm looking through, so that I'll at least know what we're legally entitled to.

So that's Ellis News, the Quick and Dry Edition. I wish I had a fun movie for you, but life is so fleeting around an super, speedy-fast 2.5 yo.

It's probably about time to do another update on how fantastic Ellis is *grin*. I was kind of on hiatus from all deaf blogging for a little while. The comments were starting to get too intense for me, which, to some extent, I allow to happen merely by posting on the world wide web. whatever. Lots of fun things to write about today.

On the CI front, Ellis is making excellent progress. He's just over three months since activation. We still don't have speech therapy with our county straightened out (my current pain in the neck), so we still go to CHOP (the hospital), which is cool, because I heart our speech therapist. And I will probably continue with her as long as possible, even if the stupid county sorts itself out.*

So, to make this totally pedantic. Words (or rather phonemes, in most cases) Ellis says consistently with meaning:
Aaah (for airplane),
Ooo (for "choo"/train),
bye-bye,
Oh (for the letter O, "open", "no", "go", and "home"),
Eee (for the letter "E" and "please),
Mmm (for "more"--and usually nestled in a variety of vowel combinations)
And he is saying "p" very well in the past few days, which is great. It's kind of hard, its being a silent plosive and all.
Lately he's also blowing silently for "s" and "sh". It's in there somewhere.
"B"/'buh' is still sort of default phoneme for whatever word he happens to be trying to say.

He doesn't really babble. They say the newly activated CI kids will go through a babbling process like babies do. But he doesn't really. He's trying to say real things. When he's playing and I'm narrating his world, he tries to copy what we're saying, which we were doing (still do) in sign, as well. Like if I say, "do you want some juice?" he'll say "Oooo" for "juice". And he incorporates his few words/phonemes into his play, saying 'bye-bye' to his toy car, making things fly "aaah", and begging to ride the train, "Ooooo".

The other day, I was sitting behind him, and I said "let's put on your shoes!" and he turned around and said "Ooo" and signed "train"--making the connection between the "ooo" sound in "shoe" and "choo". He's responding to sounds/his name pretty consistently, too. He sometimes will even come if I call from another room. And he will respond to "invisible" sounds, that have no immediate visual connection, like a noisy truck outside a block away. I'm so glad that we have sign, because I can tell him what he's hearing in a language he already understands. I can explain by speaking, too, but it's not going to have the same meaning this early in the auditory game.

The other cool thing is that he's making the separation between English and ASL. He either says it OR he signs it. He doesn't really do both, at least not after he's solidly got the word in his mouth. Sometimes he says it and then will sign it, but for the most part he keeps it separate. I think this is really cool, because it is classic bilingual skills.

The CI aside, though, it's fun to see him develop so much in his language skills. For instance, he is currently obsessed with the alphabet. Actually obsessed is understatement. He practically signs letters in his sleep!! Since about 20 months old, he's shown interest in the letters. (thanks to the ASL alphabet placemat that Chris's aunt got him. Thumbs up!!) At first, he only paid attention to some of the handshapes, and as he developed the dexterity to do more of them, he learned more of them. (The letter "Y" and "I" are particularly difficult for little hands.) It's funny, because he wouldn't sign the "Y" handshape words (like "play" or "telephone") until he made some deliberate approximation of the actual handshape.

Anyway, now he's made the connection between the English letter and the ASL handshape. And he never stops!!!! Every sign we have to spell out. All his books. Letters everywhere!!! He won't just draw anymore, he makes us write letters. He even tries to write letters by making tiny strokes on the paper and then signing to us which letter it apparently is. He even thinks numbers are letters, like "3" is "E", "4" is "A". Shapes are letters! (A triangle is "A", a circle is "O".) He now has a nice border around his room of the ASL/English letters. He loves it. Now if only we could get lower case.... Naturally, I'm thrilled at the first stage of literacy.

Ellis is doing a lot better in his adjustment to his 2yo preschool/playgroup class at PSD. He doesn't cry his head off when I leave anymore. He looks a little sad, but is usually happy to go in and play with his best friend.

This is a huge relief to me. Because I was having major separation anxiety. heh, heh. I'm really happy for him to be there. We want him at PSD next year, too, for the start of Official Preschool. I have no idea beyond that. Our plan is to take it year by year. Somehow, though, we want PSD to always be in the equation somewhere. It's really important for him to have Deaf friends and a consistent place in his social life in the Deaf community.

The bilingual step is a delicate dance.

* Speaking of stupid county. We had E's annual review for his IFSP (Individualized Family Service Plan) a few weeks ago. SIX people in our living room!!! The county coordinator, a person from the agency that pays for it, E's teacher of the deaf from PSD, our Deaf mentor from PSD, an ASL interpreter from PSD, and an educational consultant from CHOP (to help us sort out this speech therapy nightmare). Ellis blithely playing with his train in the middle of the floor. All this for a 2yo! Since he'll be 3 next summer, we also have start thinking about transitioning for the IEP (Individualized Education Plan). I'm so not looking forward to that process.

I need to write this before I forget, because I think this little incident was an important little milestone in E's CI journey.

He's 2 1/2 months post-activation. He doesn't respond to his name as much as I'd like, but then he doesn't respond when I wave him down either. He just gets really focused. I think it's a 2yo thing. But he's responding really consistently to environmental sounds. For example, the other day we were playing in my IL's backyard, which is behind a house that sits next to a busy road. Every time a loud truck went down the road, he'd look up. I explained in sign and speaking that he was hearing a truck go by. I thought that it was pretty good, because it was invisible. We couldn't see the trucks.

Anyway, that's not the real story. We have these "learning to listen" sounds, sounds attached to objects to give them meaning, like "quack, quack" for duck or "beep, beep" for car, or "aaaah" for airplane (some make less intuitive sense than others). E has really nailed "aaah" for airplane. Whether his CI is on or not, he always vocalizes "aaah" for airplane.

Well, the other day, I was sitting in a room and on the floor in the doorway was a car and a duck. He was bending down for the car and I said "quack, quack" (he says "ba, ba"). he changed course for the duck. Then I said "beep, beep" and he picked up the car. I was like "wow, E, that's totally cool!" Then I said "go to your room and get your airplane" (except it was a combination of speaking and signing, more like "aaah" YOUR ROOM GO BRING-ME) And he totally got the airplane and brought it to me!

And another cute E story to round off the evening of our happy bilingual life. In school this morning, they read a book about fall (in ASL). I didn't read the whole book, but the teacher showed it to me and said it was really cute that E was enjoying signing "leaf". So at speech therapy later in the afternoon, the therapist showed him a pumpkin, and they did their stuff with a pumpkin. And then he looked at her and signed "leaf"--'cause, you know, pumpkins and leaves go together. *grin*