Click on the comic to enlarge. My dad put this comic together using some classic Molly faces.

Amazing that I have a few moments to give you an update. Molly has been with her grandparents over the last couple days. It has been nice to give Stephen some special attention.

From my last update, I mentioned that Stephen was responding to more than we ever expected. We wondered if Stephen could ever get by with just hearing aids. As time has gone on, we have seen little evidence that this could ever happen. Stephen stopped his baby babble at 6 months—meaning he is not getting enough in for speech. He does use his vocal cords though, when his pacifier is not in. He has continued to respond, inconsistently, to some sounds of a high pitch. All of that said, we are still moving ahead with implant surgery and have it scheduled for late November, on Stephen’s birthday. Perfect gift!

I took Stephen to the hospital in Charlottesville on Thursday morning for a scheduled CT scan and ABR. While under general anesthesia, the ENT checked Stephen’s ears and found fluid behind his ears. They decided to put tubes in for preventative measures before surgery.

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Miss Molly’s progress:
- Molly is saying some 5 to 6 word sentences now. For example "See me riding on horse’s back" (as she gets on Mike’s back). She is using "me, I, I’m, mine, you" now too.

- Molly has memorized some of her well known books and she fills in the blanks when we stop reading. She will usually recite the next few sentences on the page (not exactly word for word, but close).

- Molly will tell us about the sequence of her day. For example when she wakes up she will come find me and tell me "Molly wake up, opened eyes, opened door, see Molly, see Daddy". She will do this with everything now.- Uses the words "today, tomorrow". Not sure if she completely understands them yet.

- More confidence in language has come from a game that Molly and her daddy play before bedtime. Molly will say "Pretend you are a ________" (a particular animal) to Mike and he will act out the animal. This has forced her to think and speak on her own. This has also given her an interest in learning a ton of new animals,bugs, etc. We have been reading her animal encyclopedia lately. Recently she has been asking Mike to "Pretend you are a______"

(particular profession). So Mike has been acting out for example what a doctor, nurse, teacher, preacher, cashier, farmer, etc. would do. This has helped with her creative role play during the day. She loves to pretend that she is a waitress taking our order or a cashier scanning our grocery items.

Molly's confidence level is growing----enough to sing little into the karaoke microphone.