A couple of tidbits....

1. Neil taught him this one: When we sing "Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba" (to the tune of "Shave and a haircut"), Ben responds with "Ba-ba!" It's too funny.
2. Ben has a friend named Cal, who is about 6 months older. When you ask Cal, "What sound does a horse/cow make?" he makes the appropriate sound. So yesterday, when Ben was having fun making some growling noises, I asked, "What sound does the lion make?" (Coincidentally, we had a book opened to a page with a lion on it.) When he growled, I said, "Very good!" and he picked up on it. So now whenever we ask about the lion, he growls! (Thanks, Cal, for the inspiration!)

Halloween!

Here's Ben dressed as a pumpkin (what else?). Halloween was a lovely day here -- sunny and warm. We took Ben for a walk down the street so that he could see the trick-or-treaters (and also so that we could show him off to the neighbors, who descended on him with much ooohs and aaahs).

On Saturday we went to a birthday party for Ben's friend Jackson, who is just a couple of weeks younger. There was a good crowd of kids there, and Ben had a wonderful time. In fact, he did a great job of hearing and responding to our voices, even in a noisy environment, which was very encouraging! Jackson's parents put on a CD and everyone danced to the music. Ben loved that.

Ben is saying "Mama" and "Dadda" very clearly now, and he's working on "mo-mo" for "more". He's starting to repeat the sounds we make. For example, we were talking about the baby gate, and I said, "Ben talk -- ga-ga-ga-gate." He responded with "ga-ga-ga". He has an "n" babble that he likes to make that sounds like "neng-neng-neng". One of these days I'm going to compile a list of all of his receptive vocabulary. I've been keeping a hearing journal (on paper) ever since his CI was activated, and I have most of his vocabulary recorded there -- it's just a matter of getting it all onto one list. So look for that soon!