Obviously...

Monday was the longest day I have ever heard Max's voice.

He started early, and kept talking for four hours.  He only needed breaks about once an hour, and then wanted right back in his chair for his new talker.

This is going to be a long one, with loads of photos.  But, I try to get photos of his words so we remember just how amazing this trial has been!

He started right off, by telling me that I needed to turn off the "baby show", Caillou.  He always gets annoyed when Caillou is on instead of one of his cartoons.


Then there was this.


I share this, because he seems to sometimes just explore the different words.  It's so fun to see his experimenting.

He got back on course while I was talking to Steve on the phone.


He asked me what we were doing that afternoon.


While I was talking to my mom on the phone, he asked her "Want to know what I did?"...and of course she did.

"I just hung out.  I watched TV. Dad and I read a book."

He then needed my attention.


He often says WEAR for WHERE, and HEAR for HERE.


He was ready for a break.

Towards the end of the afternoon, I was doing some dishes in the kitchen, out of his sight.  He kept calling me over by saying, My Mom, Come.  I told him I was doing the dishes, and I could hear him and see him.


He thought doing work was for the birds...time to end that work and just hang out instead.


Today, he had music therapy.  Mrs. Laura wanted to see him use his new talker to see if he wanted to have some input into therapy, or had anything to say about the music in general.  He talked to her throughout therapy, and I tried to capture a few of the great interactions.  He is so quick to clear the display that I miss some of them.

We started by having him choose and instrument.  He chose the guitar and drums. And Laura started in with his choice of the song of the week, Adele's Rolling In The Deep.  She was nearly to the chorus when he spoke up.


We both had to crack up! Yeah Mrs. Laura...pipe down!  ;)

He asked for the guitar again, after some talking.  Laura started in with Here Comes The Sun, one of his new favorites, and gave him a tomato shaker to play while she played.  He immediately started crying, quite hard.  Through his crying, he came up with this.


He didn't want to play that stinky tomato.  He hadn't had his chance to play the guitar with his own fingers.  Once he got that out and got to strum the guitar, he was much happier.


I was able to step away once he stopped crying, to call check my calendar and send an email about another appointment that was supposed to be happening, but hadn't showed up yet.  I could tell he thought I needed to be nearby, because he started getting upset again.  By the time I made it over to him again, he finished saying this.


His last request was for the keyboard.  Mrs. Laura put it on his tray and they played together.  He kept saying "b", so she would play the B note for him.  At one point he said


So I turned the sound up, thinking "increases" meant he couldn't hear the sound.
But was quickly reprimanded...




They played for a bit, and she asked if he liked playing the keyboard.


What cheek!

She told Max he did strong work today, and she loved hearing him talk.


We have to turn the ECO2 in tomorrow...and I'm already wishing we had his here.  But, it will take time, for funding to go through, and hopefully no denials, or appeals to fight.  It would be a miracle, though, if it does go through the first time.  So, let's hope for that miracle...because I have sure gotten used to hearing my boy's beautiful mind for the first time in his 8 1/2 years.