Pumpkin Farm

We went out to the Pumpkin Farm in Snohomish on Saturday. It was foggy and cold in the valley, but the sun came out and made it into a beautiful day. Simon wore his new boots, and started kicking the pumpkins like they were soccer balls. Uh-oh! There was also a small petting zoo area, where Simon got to pet a couple of rabbits. He also sat on a tractor, and saw a cow, some donkeys, and pigs. On the way home, he ate his first hot dog bun. Wasn't so excited about the hot dog. His culinary preferences now include bread, cheese, ham, smoothies, and raisins.

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Ocean Shores

We took Simon to Ocean Shores for the weekend. It rained the whole day on Saturday, but then the clouds parted and we had some blue skies Sunday morning, before we came home. Simon's friend, Allison, was there, along with her parents, Karen and David. We got together several times so the kids could play on the beach, and also went to the Ocean Shores Interpretive Center and had fun swimming in the pool. Simon loved digging in the sand (which is a big improvement over his time in Hawaii), and decided that he liked eating it, too. Allison shared a lot of her Cheerios with him, which made his day.

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CI - 3 Months

Simon has had his Cochlear Implant for three months now. He seems to be growing more and more receptive to both speech and sign, and is starting to express himself more using both methods. He's starting to copy our gestures a lot more, and continues to have an identifiable word every once in a while, in the midst of his babbling.

He went in for his three month check-up, and did very well on the hearing tests. He demonstrated hearing in the 20-25 decibel range, across all of the frequencies. That's very exciting, as it means that he is most likely hearing all of the speech sounds around him.

Tara continues to take Simon to therapy and Family Conversations, and does a lot of signing and speech practice with him. I read a lot of stories with him, and we watch Signing Time together just about every night - two of Simon's favorite things. He loves books, and is fascinated by the videos of children signing.

Here's a video of a kid named Drew, who's had his implants for three years - very fun to see how well he speaks and hears.