Al's progress with hearing (cochlear implants)

I was at Canadian Tire earlier this week and was pushing Alex in a cart. As we were walking down an aisle, I stopped in front of a huge framed mirror so Al could look at his reflection. I stood there staring at my son's reflection and had a major realisation that he is no longer a baby. His legs dangled off the seat and seemed to go forever ending at his shoes which were laced up and seemed so grown up. I've been told by some that Alex is really developing a personality in the last couple months and as I observed his silly faces he was giving himself I realized it too.

On a hearing note, Alex misses his ears when they are not on. Since we don't have the magnet screwed in very tight, the coils often fall off, especially when Alex takes a spill, knocks his head or accidentally catches them with his hands. Whenever they do fall off, he comes running to an adult immediately to have them re-attached. He also covers his ears (the real ears) with his hands and then turns his palm upward to say: No hearing?

He is vocalising a lot, much of the time the same sounds. As you see in the video, he points to stickers on the wall and vocalises because he knows there is a sound associated with them, he just hasn't gotten the hang of it yet. What's awesome is you also hear him say bye to his dad while he is on the tractor. And yes, I did falls on my bum while taping and at the end of the video he did run me over...good times!

Progression

"Bye, bye, bye" as Alex waves his hand in the air. I am officially declaring that Alex's first word is "bye". He does not pronounce it exactly perfect, but it is very close. Also, he knows what it means and he knows he is saying it and repeating after other say it so therefore IT COUNTS haha!
He is trying so hard to imitate sounds, especially lately. We still have not heard many vowel/consonant combinations from him other then "ma ma ma", "ba ba ba" and "ra ra ra" but at least those are present. The best sound in the world is hearing him babble almost like he wants to converse with us.
The other night my husband and I are playing cars with Alex and we are doing the fire truck sound. "weee oouuu weeee oouuu" and although he could not do it perfectly, the intonation was exactly perfect. He had the right timing and it surprised my husband and I so much and when we began to praise Alex he seemed almost proud of himself!

My husband is not often home in the evenings but yesterday he had a day off. While getting Alex ready for bed Mich read to him the story of Pinocchio (in french since that is the language Alex will be speaking first) and Alex pointed at the pages at first and vocalised a bit. He really seemed to enjoy it. I have read to him before and he never even paid 10 seconds of attention but yesterday was different. It was really encouraging to see him interact with his daddy's story.

The teachers in daycare say Alex is even doing some gestures with the songs and follows really well. He seems happy with his ears. He no longer takes them off and chucks them to the ground when he is upset, he has fallen asleep with them on whereas before he would take them off when he was tired.

I'm impatient for the what the future brings but looking at Alex now, he is growing too fast and I keep having to remind myself to cherish these times and to quit thinking ahead. Look how he has grown!