But there have been a couple things that I wanted to note as milestones. First, Peter can now put his headpieces back on himself! This is huge, as it gives him more control over his technology and how he uses it. He sometimes wears his Naidas (behind the ear processors), but usually my feisty, active, rough housing guy is sporting his Neptunes in pockets on his shirt. The cables are threaded through a buttonhole I made in each side of the collar, so if he knocks the headpiece off, it just dangles. Now he can get it and stick it back on, though usually with the cable pointed up, and his hair extra crazy ;)
Also, Peter has been asking for his ears (or the shirt with the CI's in it) in the morning and after nap! Now, it isn't 100%, and there are still plenty of times during tantrums when he takes his ears off, but in general he is great about wearing them, and I am so happy he is asking for them!
Finally, a glimpse of how much CI kids really can overhear and learn naturally: yesterday we walked to the dog park with my mom, and Peter was walking with me, at least 10 feet back (outside, with freeway and other car noise nearby). My mom told her dog to stop eating grass, that he wasn't a cow. Today, on a hike, Peter looked down at Guiness (my mom's dog), who was eating grass and blocking the trail, and yelled "Not a cow!" At first I was confused, then I realized why he was saying it, and I just laughed! So much speech therapy is focused on auditory memory, so it makes me worried I don't work on that enough, but when he overhears an expression one day and uses it correctly the next it makes me feel like he is on the right track, and will do just fine.
I will leave you with a short clip I filmed before the end of of school. We obviously watched Frozen a few times!
