Brag Time

I just have to do it... BRAGGING:) Sophia is so impressive, always. Every little thing is so important and so monumental to us and her progress. We celebrate everything big time. No wonder Sophia loves to clap and raises her hands above her head in excitement all the time. Because all the time, we are clapping and praising her. She gets so proud of herself, too. Sophia makes strides daily. Last year (werid to say) we focused mostly on her health. The goal was getting her healthy and stable. These last few months we are working more with her development. Mind you we still have health issues to overcome like getting the trach out and getting strong enough to eat by mouth; however for now, we are working on her growth and motor skills. After getting her hearing aids we have really been focusing on signing and listening skills. We added two more therapies to the mix and we practice daily with mommy, daddy and nurse. As of today, Sophia can now sign milk, more and baby on command and we are working are on mommy and daddy. Since she is nonverbal, for the present time, Sophia communicates a lot by hand movement and facial expressions. She is a character let me tell you. Without saying anything, she says a lot. She likes to play pattycake, peekaboo, loves clapping and waving hi and bye bye. She is getting very good at copy-cating things we show her like popping her mouth or sticking out her tongue. Imitation is very key to learning to communicate and to communicate through sign. We still have hopes that once the trach comes out Sophia has to capability to learn spoke language but for now this is very important to us. By Sophia showing us she is capable and willing to learn and retain these signs and play skills she is showing us so much about her future. I remember in a very chilling and heartbreaking sit down with a doctor at the being of Sophia's life and them telling us an MRI showed white matter lose and what that might mean for Sophia's future. I just want to say now and loud and proud, you (in modern medicine) can only tell me know so much and you can never tell me what kind of person my baby (any baby) will become in her life. Only Sophia can show us what is can do! She is doing exactly that, showing the world daily just how wonderful she is and I couldn't be more proud!