growing up and hearing things.

Lorelei is growing before our very eyes. In the past week, she has started pulling up to stand, taking steps while holding onto furniture, transferring from once piece of furniture to another, looking underneath the couch to find objects that have rolled under there (or just to find out what's there in general), getting her own toys out of the toy bin, insisting on eating whatever we are eating (even if what is on her tray IS what we're eating -- she wants it from our plates and from a spoon just like we're having, thankyouverymuch), pounding on the piano keys instead of just watching while one of us plays, and in general growing up faster than we can believe it.

Here are a few slightly old photos that haven't made a blog post yet.

Lorelei also went to a hearing appointment yesterday. She hasn't started babbling yet at all (she makes vowel sounds, cooing noises, squeals and giggles, and of course plenty of whiny complaints, but no "consonant babbling" which should have started a few months ago) so our pediatrician recommended we get her hearing tested "just to be sure" that wasn't the reason for the delay. He said that, if it seemed normal, we shouldn't be at all concerned for several more months, but that if she had a hearing deficit we would be better knowing sooner rather than later.

Here's a description of our appointment at the NIU audiology clinic taken from a recent email I sent to family:

Lorelei and I sat in a small room with multiple TV screens and speakers all around it, and a viewing window so the audiologists (who were in another "control booth" type room) could see us. They spoke into a microphone in their room ("Lorelei! Bop bop bop!") and played various tones and turned on different speakers so it sounded like they were in different parts of the room. They would also flash images up on the screen for Lorelei to see (not sure if it was for reinforcement?). Lorelei was VERY good for a long time, turning to look for the sounds. After a while, she got bored and started trying to grab the chair where we were sitting, so then one of the audiologists came and sat in the room and spun a sparkly pinwheel for her. That worked for a long time, too, and then Lorelei got bored with that, so we stopped the testing (probably 20 minutes?). They then came in and put little headphone like probes into her ears to test her middle ear function. She was pretty patient for that (they gave me a spinning, light-up toy to show her and she was fascinated enough that she mostly ignored the poking in her ears).

After all that, they said that everything looked normal to them. They said she responded well to the various noises/tones, was obviously responding to her name, and the middle ear function was "perfect." So the reason for her delayed speaking does not seem to be anything hearing related, which is somewhat reassuring -- just hard for this overly talkative mama to relate to!