Aaron speech update

Good speech session tonight with Austin -- she thinks she has him attempting to say "more" as he signs it, and she was really pleased with all of the animal sounds. He also made as snake sound, but with his tongue sticking out, so she wants us to encourage him to tuck his tongue behind his teeth. She also noticed a nice variety of babbling sounds that are new. So progress, just slow progress. He was wired and really active, just running everywhere and jumping on me over and over.

I signed permission for the developmental assessment, which will be done by Emily in Austin's office. Our plan, depending on the assessment, is for Emily to work on sign language with Aaron.

What sport?

After dropping Raha off at football practice (tonight was the first night in full uniform and tackling), Luke said, "I have to practice basketball. Now there's footballs with the basket, and you have to kick it all the way in the basket." Huh?

Mr. Pitiful

Charlie and Ollie had fleas when we came back from vacation. Charlie itched a spot on his rear until it was raw, and then it became infected, and then.....the dreaded shot, collar, and twice-per-day antibiotics. After two days he's acting a little more like himself, but he's still mad about the collar. Before this evening he hid in his kennel because he felt so awful.

Aaron's favorite treat

Aaron LOVES catfood and dogfood. When I took this picture he was eating it by the handful while Rich and I were clearly not supervising closely enough. Gotta be more nutritious than oreos.

Speech updates & Raha's cell phone

Aaron has a couple of new fun sounds and words: woof! meow! and whoooo! for a firetruck. This is a huge increase in his vocabulary. In the last couple of weeks he's been much more willing to imitate sounds when we prompt him. On Monday we're signing off on a developmental assessment, with the goal of having another therapist come in to work with him on sign language. His vocabulary and comfort with signs far outpace verbal language so our goal is to have him communicate any way we can since he's so frustrated.

Aaron's new hobby is nose picking. He tried to offer me a booger (to put it in my mouth instead of his). Generous boy.

I picked up a cell phone for Raha on Friday - a first for him. I was happy with him last night when we went to the St. Joe's picnic. We were accidentally separated and he called me right away, and stayed on the phone with me until we found each other. I've been really pleased with the good judgement he's demonstrating -- tolerant of Luke ("He never stops asking questions, does he?"), willing to help, bringing me money laying loose in the house. He isn't as active as I expected and doesn't seem to have much stamina, so I hope that will develop since our family doesn't spend as much time sitting around or watching T.V. as it seems like he's used to doing. We'll see - definitely a good start.

Luke & Mckenna's math assessment

Jenny Williams invited Luke to take part in a math readiness assessment for k-2 students with McKenna on Thursday. The group doing the assessment, KY Center for Mathematics, was developing assessment protocols for young students.

Here's the conversation Luke and McKenna had on the way down to the Brown Hotel:
McK: I'm SO tired.
Luke: I'm as tired as the Earth!
McK: I'm as tired as Heaven!
Luke (singing): This old man, he played seven, he played knick-knack up to heaven.....

The assessment was pretty interesting, and I took notes during it, so this is a summary:

• count from 1 up to 32
• count from 97 (Luke not sure what to do, but at home counts to 100)
• count by 10s (didn't know)
• use fingers to show numbers
• identify the numbers the teacher showed him
• count backwards from 10
• count backwards from 15 (Luke said, "I'm not sure about that")
• read numbers from cards (did easily until 3 digit numbers, then said, "Ooo, I don't know what that one is")
• identify cards as they're put on a table and then sequence from lowest to highest, using 1-10
• identify cards as they're put on a table and then sequence from lowest to highest, using 12 - 20. This one was interesting, because he misidentified many of these, mixing up 12 and 20, 13 and 30, 14 and 40, etc. The teacher later told me that this is a very common error with young learners.
• the teacher said, "Let's try some more cards!" Luke replied, "I think I'm tired of cards."
• pick out 15 chips from a pile
• add blue and red chips mentally after seeing them briefly. He had 2 +4 = 6, then two near misses with 5 + 3 = "maybe it's 9" and 8 + 4 = 12

I'll get a copy of the assessment after it's scored, but the teacher said that he did really well. They also gave us goodie bag with a wonderful book of ideas for math activities with young kids. Fun day!

Luke eating Asparagus

Luke watching Rich cut his asparugus: Don't cut it! I can't eat that many!