He's A Demanding Little Thing, And I Love It

After that seminar we attended last week, we came home and reprogrammed Micah's talker completely. We added more than a dozen more buttons, and even more words, and it's so overwhelmingly confusing to all of us that we figured it'd be forever before he learned to use it. Again.

We'd contemplated hiding half the keys to make things easier for him, but he's a little techie and grasps things so much quicker than my old and tired mind does that we figured we'd give it a week or so and see how he does with it first.

We showed him how to use buttons to make words that he would have to read, and couldn't, like "I" and "want" and "is" and other things that may or may not have a descriptive picture to help him. He was all sorts of interested when we showed him the new things, but his attention span for learning new things is clearly not the same attention span he has for watching videos. It was fun, but he had a life to get back to.

Over the weekend, we'd show him how to ask for things. "I want a sandwich" was typed in, and he was just frustrated because I wasted time on "I want a" when clearly the only operative word in that sentence was "sandwich."

And then today, just out of the blue, he said, "I do I need milk." There's a lot we could say about this sentence, including the fact that it's completely incorrect, gramatically. My guess is that he accidentally pushed "do" and then started over without clearing. And I love the fact that he doesn't ask for milk, but demands it. There is no wanting, mind you. He needs milk. But the most amazing thing about that sentence is that he produced it all on his own.

Communication is an amazing thing. I never thought my heart would leap for joy when a computerized voice demanded things of me, but that day has come. That computerized voice is my 8 year old son, finally able to communicate with me in full sentences. I may be a biased mom, but I find him to be nothing short of genius. And I will look foward to hearing everything that has been swirling in his head for the past 8 years.

I have no idea how our contact information was shared with the people who hosted that seminar last week, but I have very strong suspicions that God had a mighty finger in it. And we are so grateful for what we've learned, and how it'll allow our son to grow beyond our feeble imaginations.