Emma Updates

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August 2004 Archived Emma Updates

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Monday August 23, 2004-EMMA TALKING!!! AUDIO CLIP! In this clip, Emma says "Mama, Dada, Landon, Bubble, Purple, Uh oh!, and Bye Bye." She also repeats some of the 'Ling Six Sounds' such as "mmmm, ahhhhhh" and "shhhhhh." You will also notice she can tell the difference in the "P" sound in "Purple" and the "B" sound in "Bubble" (two very sounds with similar consonant and accent patterns).

I have added a page of Emma Audio Clips to the website. It is amazing to hear the progress she has made in her speech!

Saturday August 14, 2004-Mozart!!! Emma loves listening to Mozart! Since Emma was born, we have always played Baby Mozart in her room. After diagnosis, we could not bring ourselves to stop playing it (probably a part of the denial in grieving). Well, I am glad we didn't! Emma now loves to read or look at a book in her floor before bed and turn up her CD Player to hear the music. You can tell when she hears music because an instant smile comes over her face and she gets this look like she is really listening close to something. Emma is also saying "mama" and "dada" in relation to Amy and I. We had heard Emma say this before (back around when she was 10-11 months old) but we have not heard it since. She started doing this tonight!!! While driving to church tonight, we were at a stop light and Emma saw a bird. She started pointing to it on the sidewalk and saying "Bir! Bir!" Amy and looked at each other in total amazement! It seems the last two weeks, Emma has shown amazing strides in her hearing and speech. You can now say "kiss" to her and she will pucker up! She also seems to hear really well in noise (much better than we expected). Every day has been Christmas morning around here for the past two weeks! Emma seems to do more and amaze us each and every day. Her brother seems to like teaching her sign (which we are trying to keep to a minimum until we are further along with listening skills). He is very intuitive. If there is a problem, we can count on Landon to solve it. He is 4 going on 14 when it comes to handling problems or challenges. I hope to post some video of the kids dancing to music and Emma listening to her Mozart soon!

Monday August 9, 2004-It has become very apparent that Emma hears AND LOVES music. We went to get the car washed yesterday and while waiting outside for the car to be ready, they were playing music. Emma pointed to her ear, hopped out of the chair, started dancing and clapping her hands! She is beginning to repeat a lot more. she has said her first multi-syllable word today ("purple"). I did not believe it when Amy told me but she proved it to me and it was perfectly clear! She also likes to say "uh oh" all the time as well! She is doing so much better than we expected. Her AV Therapist, Melissa, also says she is doing excellent! Six months ago, we could never even imagine our daughter hearing music and dancing. When I read back over some of the journal entries from late 2003 early 2004, it is amazing how far we have come! It is hard to imagine where we will be a year from now with Emma's progress.

Sunday August 1, 2004-I was reading Emma a book Friday night. As we finished, Emma just sat there like she was thinking about something. Suddenly she put her finger to her ear to tell me that she could hear something. Then she started clapping like she was applauding something! It turned out to be the Mozart playing on her CD Player. she heard it, wanted to hear it louder and started dancing with her stuffed dog. We both had tears of joy running down our faces. We had always wondered if she would hear music and I guess no that answer has been confirmed. We were so overjoyed. Emma now says "cow" "uh oh" just as clear as anyone. We know what to do when we hear her say "uh oh." It typically means that she has broken or spilled something. We are so amazed at the progress she is making.