Liam and His Hat

I have only wonderful updates on my sweet Liam, and I'm so delighted to share them. The combination of him having his pilot cap and attending his new school has made for leaps and bounds progress for him.

The biggest, most important, thing I need to say is a huge THANK YOU to my friend, Kadee. She worked tirelessly to create this cap for Liam. She, another friend, and I are working on tweeking it a little bit to make it adjustable for each individual child's needs. For Liam, having this cap is an important key to keeping his hearing aids in. In addition to the cap, the time he's spending at school being required to keep his hearing aids in is leading to great things.

1. Liam has learned to try to engage others in seeking their attention. When he is in his high chair, he has discovered that he can make a silly face to cause us to laugh. He's so proud of himself!

2. He has begun to experiment with sound. I have a stainless steel mixing bowl that he has basically adopted as his own. Initially, he just liked it because I showed him how to spin a ball in it. He noticed that he could hear the ball spinning (it was a hard plastic ball with tiny beads inside it that rattle) in the bowl and began going out of his way to clang it against the bowl. While he was wearing his hearing aids because he had his cap on, he noticed that different items make varying sounds against the edge of his bowl. He goes out of his way to find other items to clang against the edges. So far he's tried a wooden hammer from our block set, a Thomas the Tank Engine toy, a chocolate bar wrapper (which he was less than impressed with), a shoe, and some silverware.

3. Liam has noticed that sound comes out of the television. The other day he was having speech services here at the house and Rachel turned on Dora the Explorer behind him. He was so distracted by the sudden sound he was hearing that he just couldn't focus any further on his speech lesson. I never thought I'd be so delighted to see my child distracted by the television.

4. He has clearly been practicing in the sound booth at school. Part of the conditioning for hearing tests is to have a child hold a piece of a ring stacker to his ear and wait for the sound. When he hears the sound, he puts the ring on the stacker. This, of course, leads to great applause. Liam now walks around the house holding toys to his ear apparently waiting for the sound to happen.

So, we're making progress. It's not even slow progress, but sudden and rapid. We love this child more than life itself and are so thrilled to see wonderful things happening for him. It's as though he's suddenly woken up to the world around him.