Joe's ears

i know i know. still no pictures. they are still on my camera and not on the computer. And boy oh boy- my boys are cuter than ever (at least i think so!) and I can't wait to share pictures with you! I still have to make room on the hard drive :(. (You can blame this on my husband, I have decided. My computer was formally his, and he is a graphic designer. Therefore, he has lots and lots and lots of stuff still on the hard drive of this computer. He took up all the room, and I'm pretty certain he doesn't need a lot of it anymore. So, yes, it's his fault!) John- you need to make room for me, pretty please! :)

So, I wanted to give you all an update on Joe's ears, speech, etc. Especially for family that have been praying for him. Most of you probably didn't even know anything was going on, but now you will.

Let me start by saying, GOD IS GOOD! Joe turned 2 in November, so he is 26 months old. He still isn't talking a lot. Actually, let me correct myself, he IS talking a lot, just not very clearly. He doesn't have a lot of words yet, at least not that most people would understand. John and I know what he is saying a good bit of the time. Anyways, this made us worried about his hearing. We knew that he could hear, because he follows command and seems to understand a lot of what we say, so we thought he could possibly have fluid affecting his hearing. So Monday of this week he had a hearing test and good news... His hearing is perfect! Praise the Lord! So, Wednesday we saw a speech pathologist to have his speech evaluated to see if he needs therapy. Joe and I played with her for over an hour and she asked me a lot of questions about his speech and his response to speech. Good news again- she didn't seemed worried about him and she did not recommend therapy. She said his cognitive speech (i think that's what she called it), meaning the speech that he understands, is well above his age. (he scored on the level of a 36 month old) His expressive speech (what he verbalizes) scored low- on the level of a 19 month old. She said it was very obvious that he is really trying, so she was confident that he would pick things up on his own. She gave me some activities to do with him at home, that will hopefully help him begin to pick up more words and eventually say them correctly.

I can already tell a difference! In 3 to 4 months, if his vocabulary is not growing, she wants us to call back, and she will set us up with some short term speech therapy.

Thank you, family and friends, who were praying for our little Joe. We are confident that our smart little guy will be talking- with more real words :) - in no time!

I have a new prayer request though! My mom's aunt passed away a couple of days ago, so there is a lot of hurting and heart ache going on in my family right now. Please pray that our God of comfort, hope, and peace will bring healing to my hurting family over the next few days, weeks, and months. Praise Jesus that she is sitting with Him right now, in no pain. I'm sure there is no place she would rather be!

Also, I get the honor to sing at her funeral on Monday, which will be hard. Please pray for my nerves, as this feels like a HUGE responsibility in the midst of this hard circumstance. Thank you all!

Have a GREAT weekend!!