Sshhh...

Sshh!! Ssshh is important. No, no, don’t be quiet. Just listen. Listen to a child that could not hear say, “Sshh…” But rather, when Rena says it its more like “thhshhshhshhshh.” She’s trying and she is almost there.

Vicki and I noticed her mimicking us over the weekend. When we play with her with her little baby we pretend to put the doll to sleep and we say, “Sshhh, she’s sleeping” and we hold our fingers over our lips as we shush everyone. Rena and Sophi do the same the difference being that Rena comes very close to making the sound. I was with the girls for their speech therapy today and had Rena showing off. Our therapist is thrilled with how quickly she is coming along. Add to this that we asked Rena today vocally to find her baby doll, no signs, no hints, just the sound of the words and she went for it! She heard it; she recognized it; she responded to it. How Awesome!

And no, don’t worry about Sophia. She’s coming right along too. Remember, her program is set a little lower than Rena’s in terms of intensity so she’s not getting quite as much. Regardless, we are sure now that Soph is turning to her name when we call her. The other little thing is something that Vicki and I discovered while we were giving them both a bath tonight. Sophi and Rena both love birds and especially ducks (ducks in books, ducks on T.V., pictures of ducks, ducks in the bathtub). We play auditory games with the ducks too. “Sophi, the duck goes quack, quack, quack, etc.” In the bathtub tonight Sophi let out a series of loud guttural sounds. She kept doing it over and over again and I started to laugh. I told Vicki that she sounded like a barking seal. We couldn’t figure it out. I was on my way to get her a bucket of fish when Vicki put it together, “Jeff, I think she’s quacking…” She was absolutely right. Every time Soph would pick up the ducky she’d bop it around to the rhythm of her seal barks. Now, granted she doesn’t have the sound quite right but she has put it together that the duck makes a sound and does so in a particular pattern. In other words, she’s been listening.

So there you have it, Rena’s first “Shush” and Sophi’s first “Quack!” What a hoot!!