Happy Second Birthday Aiden!!

We had a fabulous birthday party for Aiden yesterday (not quite the extravaganza that it was last year - but fun nonetheless!). And, he could actually HEAR us sing Happy Birthday to him :> Now that's a cool birthday present. Aiden's Grandma and Grandpa traveled for more than 4 hours back and forth from Ottawa just to have dinner with us, and Aiden's Nanny joined us as well. We cooked Aiden's favourite dinner (ham, Tater Tots and asparagus), and Daddy made one of his famous birthday cakes in the shape of a train. Poor little Aiden has a bit of a cold, so there aren't many smiles from him in the pictures :<

I actually can't beleive that it's been as long as it has since I made my last posting. My apologies to those of you who check here often hoping to hear news of our little man (Hi Shirley!!). Aiden continues to do amazingly well with his implant. As you can see from the last picture in the series above (with Nanny and Noah) we are still having the same frusterations as always with keeping his behind the ear microphone actually behind his ear. So, it dangles around by his neck like this picture shows most of the time. At first that really bothered me - but now I guess we're getting used to it. We have ordered a longer wire from Cochlear through CHEO, so our next step is to try having him wear the microphone on his sholder, as many other people have suggested. I'll keep you posted on how that goes!

In terms of his actual hearing and speaking - he is really making amazing strides. The way that things usually progress with a child after implant activation is that the first 4 months or so are spent really just listening and taking in all the new auditory information. After 4 months they start to imitate some new sounds. Think of it this way: a newborn baby hears about 3 months in utero - and 6 months or so in the world before they start making intelligable sounds. Well, Aiden (in his typical fashion!) is just 6 weeks post activation - and is already making an amazing amount of new sounds.

For some time now, he has imiated the airplane (ahh, ahh, ahh) sound. But now he REALLY clearly says "meow" for a cat and "bye" when someone leaves and he's waving. He also says, "ma ma ma" (but I don't think he actually means "mom" yet). He also is very good at imitating sound patterns. Plus, his therapist and I think he makes a train sound ("ooh ooh ooh") and a monkey sound ("ee ee ee"). Pretty impressive I think! Also, I think that Aiden really LIKES wearing his implant. Whenever it is off (bath time, bed time, in the car) he points to his ear like he is missing something. Also, when the magnet falls off - he comes and finds me. Plus, when he sees the implant when it is off, he will always bring it to me and hand it over like he's saying, "come on mom, let's get this thing on!"

Also, as an aside, now that he can hear, Aiden's sign language skills seem to have improved! He clearly does the sign for cat, milk and sleep. Very cute :> I'm trying to get him to sign "all done" for when he's finished his meal instead of throwing it on the floor...

Other than that, we couldn't be happier with his progress!!! I can't even imagine what kind of a posting we might be making a year from now on his third birthday!!!