Learning Language

Since right before Christmas, Jack has been seeing a speech therapist. This is because he has a hearing loss in both ears. It’s mild in his right ear, and moderate to severe (which is an actual degree on the hearing loss continuum) in the left ear. His hearing aids work well, we think, but speech delays are common. Jack gets to have a meeting once a week with a speech therapist through Early Intervention, which the wonderful state of Pennsylvania pays for.  (Best state in the union.)

A serious meatball. This time last year, when Jack first got his hearing aids. Sitting with his bird.

She basically just plays with him, and shows me techniques to help him produce the sounds associated with words. He’s also learning sign language, to bridge the gap between what he can produce and recognize verbally with what he is capable of understanding. He’s producing more sounds now than he was in December, and associating them with words, not just babbling. Examples include “ba-ba-ba” or “na-na-na” for “banana,” and “na-na” for “no-no”–both words he hears frequently. He started saying “mama” consistently, too.

Every single day for the past three weeks of so, I’ve been so impressed by his progress. Back in December, it didn’t seem like Jack understood a word we said to him. He looked like he was trying to, though. I’d say, get your book, and he’d look at me like he knew I was asking him to do something, but he had no idea what. Now I ask him with the sign, and he totally gets it.

Jack knows the signs for:
Monkey
Ball
Car
Shoes
Socks
More
Banana
Milk
All done!
Bear
Dog (his favorite word)
Boat (I only showed him this one once, and he remembered the next time I asked him to get his boat! [Boat meaning ark from his Aunt and Uncle!!])
Book
Bird
Cat

There are more that he’s done, but those are the words he has mastered. (We call them words, even though they are really the signs for the words. They have just as much meaning as the verbal word.)

So, that’s that. He will steadily keep learning more signs, I think. We don’t really have to push him to learn what he clearly wants to learn.

If you would like to learn signs along with Jack (a-hem, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins) check out this website. We also frequently find ourselves just googling the word we want to show him followed by “asl” as in “elephant asl” and we click on the first website that shows the sign with a video, usually this site. Enjoy!

Tags: early intervention, hearing loss, sign language

Jack after his nap

Jack is a little bit obsessed with taking his clothes off. Luckily he hasn’t figured out how to unsnap his onesie, so he has no access to his diaper and what lies beneath, for now anyway. I am fully expecting to walk into his room one day to find him completely unclothed.

Tags: clothes

For Future Reference

When it’s too quiet, and Jack is out of view, it probably means that he is playing with eggshells.

Cute, but gross.

Or maybe it means that he is using his newly developed problem solving skills to figure out the problem of how to reach those Christmas decorations on the table.

If he’s out of view, but he’s not quiet, this has most likely happened:

Look at that hand reaching out for help while I take a picture! Sorry, Jack.

And, although it may look like Jack is helpfully trimming the tree in this picture from our Christmas card this year, he’s actually picking ornaments off the tree, wondering why we got a tree inside the house and covered it with toys.

What is that saying? Oh yeah, toddlers are the spice of life.

(Disclaimer: Jack was not harmed in any of these photos, nor was he before or after they were taken. His hands were washed of egg, his step stool was moved to a safe and obscure location, he wasn’t really stuck under the table, he just didn’t know how to get out, and all the breakable ornaments were kept on the top half of the tree.)

Back in November

We went to Scranton/Clarks Summit for Thanksgiving this, meaning last, year. It was our first extended visit to those hills since before Jack was born, and maybe even before we were married. So we drove around downtown Scranton, and the weird spots in Clarks Summit we frequented in our childhood, like Gerrity’s for some reason. We also took a trip to the Steamtown Mall, where we used to wander. It was very dead in there even though it was Black Friday, which was kind of depressing.

We did get to see the new home of the sign that used to welcome drivers off of 81 (I think) into Scranton. It was either moved because the city decided simply to update, or because people kept pulling their cars to the side of the highway to pose with it. Now it is safely tucked outside of Boscovs, festooned with Father Christmas and his elf, to draw Office superfans to the mall to buy trinkets from the recently opened Dunder Mifflin Paper Company store, which we did not visit, but saw signs for all over the mall.

Also, appropriately enough, Jack learned the sign for train while we were there. And we had a lovely Thanksgiving.

Why is Jack crying?

Look closely. Can you see why Jack’s crying?

That’s it…left hand…

That’s right, a chunk of ice.

And he just won’t. put. it. down.

Sometimes babies are irrational. Let’s hear it for moms and dads!

Cousins Came to Visit

A few weeks back we were graced with the presence of one niece and one nephew, who came over for the day to get babysat. I’m pretty sure it was one of the best days of Jack’s life. It was great to spend time with some of my favorite people, too! Here are the highlights:

I guess my nephew was rubbing stuffed toys in Jack’s face, and Jack liked it for some reason.

This looks like a win-win to me: free ride + someone small enough to push in your car.

Coloring is the last thing we all did together, before the littler ones took naps–willingly, I might add. They were tired out, I guess. I’m so glad Jack has such great cousins!

You’re a good man, Charlie Brown

I’m not the biggest fan of candy, ghosts, or scary masks, but I enjoy Halloween. Especially when I am passing out candy with the one and only Charlie Brown.

We went through fifty dollars worth of candy, about 400 pieces, in less than an hour. Charlie Brown particularly enjoyed the kids that came right up to his doorstep, wearing crazy costumes. [That basically combined two of his favorite things: kids, and costumes (which are like life sized puppets).] Jack, a-hem, Charlie, was so delighted that when he wasn’t standing at his post against the railing, he was trying to reach out and touch the Trick-or-Treaters.

And everybody knows who Charlie Brown is. We heard so many adults with accents exclaiming, “Charlie Brown,” and people were even quoting It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Halloween is fun.

And before we put Charlie to bed, we washed the eye liner off his forehead in a nice, warm, Halloween bath.

Steve Jobs

I’m pretty unexpectedly sad to hear that Steve Jobs died yesterday. I think the world is a better, more efficient, brighter place because of him.

Out of his ambition, foresight, and ultimately his joie de vivre came the laptop I’m writing this on, with all of its little conveniences. iPhones, iTunes, iPods, iPads, and even Pixar wouldn’t exist without this visionary man. Thinking about how many times I’ve cried watching a Pixar movie, because those movies are profound, I am glad that this man was alive. He completely flipped the way we interact with technology–it’s not something that works apart from us, he created a kind of technology that’s an extension of us.

I know it sounds borderline silly and melodramatic, but he was a man created in God’s image–his gifts were given to him by his creator, and my hope is that he somehow realized that before his death. Maybe he had read this article by Josh Harris before yesterday.

And let’s not forget that the story of Steve Jobs is a story of adoption. What if Steve Job’s biological parents had made a different choice?

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away.”

I hope that the life and death of Steve Jobs causes people to think about their Creator, and the characteristics He embodies. And I hope that it saves the life of the world’s next great inventor, perhaps waiting right now to be born to an uncertain mother. I can’t help myself: iHope.

This Was the Week When…

Jack decided that walking is superior to crawling.

I don’t know what was so special about this week. He took his first steps back in July, and we’ve been cheering on his attempts ever since. Then we got him new shoes about a month ago, and for whatever reason they seemed to make him want to walk more. But he still preferred to crawl.

Then out of nowhere this week, he’s crossing entire rooms and voyaging down hallways without touching anything (but air). And he has this super giddy happy grin the entire time. (My theory is that he realized that he could hold on to toys better if he walked instead of crawled. He’s practical like that.)

Oh, he also got 2 molars out of nowhere. We didn’t even realize he was teething, but that would explain the weird waking up at 2am when we’re sleeping in a non-soundproof cabin with 4 other people. Really cool, Jack. He’s definitely working on more, too. He’s all drool and swollen gums. Babies are tough. Don’t mess with them.

Last Chance! Beach Trip

Before the weekend of the hurricane, which shut down the entire Jersey Shore, we decided to squeeze all we could out of the dwindling summer and go to the beach for a day. We invited Jack’s aunt and a few uncles to come along, and graciously had our trip upgraded from a simple day at the beach to a weekend-long vacation.

I had been very sick earlier in the week, with some sort of nasty sore throat that gave me a fever and everything. It’s miserable being sick. Especially when you still have to do stuff all day long (i.e. take care of 13 month old). But I got over it. And then I started packing for the beach.

Jack playing his favorite game, "put stuff into some sort of container."

We went to Ocean Grove, NJ, a nostalgic family favorite. The two days we were there had absolutely beautiful weather–blue skies and a nice breeze and all that. Jack didn’t really like it that much, but as long as we got him to take a nap he did alright. He did start to enjoy the water on the second day, and of course he found the sand to be delicious. Sometimes he even served it up on a little muscle shell. Our aspiring chef.

The waves were especially enjoyable on the second day, which turned into a stormy day the moment we packed up the car to drive home. Good for us, eh? My only complaint was the copious amount of jelly fish. Cliff had plenty of fun putting them on his head to prove to me that they didn’t sting, but they still creeped the heck out of me. Sick.

Cliff ended up delightfully brown, and I ended up a little more brownish beige, and slightly red in some places, but I didn’t get too burnt (and for me, that is seriously something to celebrate with the utmost fanfare).