First Word!

Tonight, Derrick and Lindsay came by for a visit and Noah was sitting in Derrick's lap in the recliner. Jamie was sitting beside them on the couch and Noah turned to Jamie, reached for him and said, "Da-ah?" He kind of dragged it out into two syllables and it sounded like a question. We all jerked our heads toward him in shock! Jamie was so happy that Noah said "da" before he said "ma".  But I'm just so happy that he said something. It's such a HUGE thing that he was looking right at Jamie because that lets us know that he knows exactly what it means and that cognitively he knew what he was doing.  We know that Noah knows what a lot of words mean based on the excercises and things that we do to work on his speech... but I still worry about his cognitive development since he doesn't verbalize anything.  So this was so HUGE for him!!!  Noah's speech therapist wants us to make a huge deal and get really excited (which we do anyway) when he makes ANY sounds so that it will encourage communication so of course when he said "da" we all freaked out and started clapping and saying "yaaaayyyy!"  Noah had the hugest grin on his face! :) Hopefully it won't be long before we hear it again!

He has said "ball" a couple of times in the past when he's been playing with a ball but like I said it's only happened twice and the last time he said ball was several months ago. So technically this isn't his first word but I'm going to count it because I hope that he'll continue saying it more frequently than he has "ball".