AN AALIYAH UPDATE

Aaliyah continues to amaze us as well as her therapists and doctors with her developmental milestones. She is such a chatter box and has the memory of an elephant. As far as speech and language development are concerned she is still above average (as in above average for a fully hearing child). We are so pleased that this is one less hurdle that she has to cross.

However we are noticing more and more how terrible her directional hearing is. If we are not talking to her on her good side, chances are she will not respond or will respond inappropriatly. This is frustrating for both her as well as whoever is trying to communicate with her.

Wearing her hearing aid over the past few months has become a bit of a struggle. The band itself is quite thick, and quite hot to wear. She now tells me "no hearing aid" when we try to put it on her. We have started to add bows etc to it to make it seem more pretty to her, to encourage her to wear it more often. I lose track at the amount of times per day I find it lying in some random spot in our house and chase her down to put it on again.

She also seems to think that Hadassah's headbands are hearing aids. It is so hard for me to watch her little face look confused as to why her sister doesnt have to wear a hearing aid but she does. It really breaks my heart.

Aaliyah and Hadassah have such a special bond, I am so grateful for that. They light up when they see one another. We have seen very little jealously on Aaliyah's behalf. For that we are truly thankful.

In the next month or so Aaliyah will be attending more of her six monthly reviews. I am interested to see how they all pan out.

Stay tuned for tomorrows post about her surgery

xxx