Mommy Voice

Mikaela has really been doing well with her GI stuff! She is picky towards new tastes, but gratefully she has been keeping things down very well. (The past three weeks anyway!) Even tonight, she spit up a bit with a burp, but overall, I am very happy.

The past few days, since she signed her first sign, my mommy voice has been telling me something. It seems to me that she really isn't getting much speech with her hearing aids. Yes, she hears sound when we talk, but it seems to me that her word discrimination would be very poor - if you could test it at this time. :-) I think she hears vowels, but I am doubtful that she hears many consonants. I realize that I have no formal training in this area and I could be entirely wrong, but it is just my mommy voice.

The only sounds she makes is "aaaah" and the nasal sound "ng". We have been saying 'b' to her and of course ma ma and da da since the day she got her hearing aids. She has never once even accidentally babbled these sounds. I think one time she was making the 'ng' sound and she opened her mouth to teethe on something and it sounded like 'ma'. I know I am supposed to "take it" and celebrate it, but I am pretty certain it was a fluke.

So for her sake, I am really going to ramp up my ASL. I told Juliana tonight that we have to sign everything we say, so Mikaela can be part of the conversation. This will really shed a light on how much I need to learn! But hey...it's a second language for crying out loud. No one learns it over night. Too bad Rosetta Stone doesn't have a program! I'd buy it! :-)