Tuesday, August 24, 2010

laughing video

I have been trying to post a video for about a week now and just can't get it to work. I am trying a shorter one just to see if it will go through............

Monday, August 23, 2010

Communication

August 2010
At almost 14 months Amelia is trying hard to communicate with us by watching our hands and trying to imitate our signs. I made a list of the ones I have actually seen her do and there are about 20 of them by now. Of course there is “eat, more, milk, mom, dad, up and hat”, but she’s signing so many more now, such as “flower, bird, cat, dog, fan, cold and butterfly”. Usually the signs are just random, which means she is “babbling” with her hands, but she is beginning to do more than just imitate and has signed “eat” or “milk” when she’s hungry. The easiest way to teach her more signs is when she is sitting in her highchair and we have both hands free to show her a picture or a toy and make the sign for her. She is very attentive and will sit for quite a while for these “lessons”. We have covered just about all the farm and zoo animals now and many toys and clothes, probably about 30 more signs. She loves it when I play “where is …?” with her and hide an object for her to look for. It’s such fun to see her brain develop in this way and I hope that we can keep a step ahead of her in learning sign language.
Amelia also seems to realize that we have to squeeze her bottles for her when she drinks, so she let’s know when we’ve stopped squeezing by growling at us. Or sometimes she’ll touch our hand to get our attention. It works!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

new things

Sorry for the long overdue update!

Amelia had her post surgery follow-up about 3 weeks ago and her doctor was very happy with the way her palate has healed. She still has a small opening at her gum line which we didn't realize will be there until she gets a bone graft at 6 or 7 years old. She will need that to help her adult teeth come in properly. We were disappointed to find out that she will have a hole in her palate for that long but I'm sure she will figure out how to deal with it and it won't slow her down at all. She is trying all kinds of new foods and very little comes out of her nose now.

Omi took Amelia to her physical therapy appt last week and that went very well. The therapist hadn't seen Amelia since before her surgery and was suprised at how far she has come. In those couple months Amelia has learned how to crawl, pulls herself up to standing, "cruises" along furniture and sits unassisted for long periods of time. The next step is walking......yikes! It may take her a little longer to fiqure that out since she is most likely missing the balance nerves in her ears but she is a very determined little girl and will get it eventually. The therapist said that her development at about the level of a 10 month old and for everything that she has been through so far that is pretty amazing.

Amelia is figuring out how to communicate with sign language and has really taken off with it. We counted ~ 30 signs that she seems to understand and tries to imitate. She is very engaged when we play with her and will now bring us toys that she wants to play with. She especially enjoys chunky puzzles, playing with magnets on the fridge and books. She is very curious and is into everything!