Noa's newest sign is "book" - and books are her new favorite toy! What is especially nice is that she is demonstrating an appreciation for touch/feel books, not just books that make noise. We've had this Feely Bug book forever (we actually have six or seven copies because its the best touch/feel book - all the items are different and weird and fun), but Noa has shown only a passing interest. She liked the feeling of turning pages, but never cared for the bugs. As you see, that's pretty much changed.

This is all a part of Noa's increased tolarance for, and interest in, new tactile imput.

In other news, and dispite this very charming video, it's been a tough weekend for Noa. While she is big on asking for the books, she has also recently gotten into this thing where she just signs "more more more more" forever, but never tells us more what. Sometimes she also does this strange jiggling thing with her hands, but we're sure means something to her, but we can't figure out what. I've got everyone on high alert - looking for an answer and we're all trying everything we can think of!

Noa's frustration has led to a lot of whinning a some very high pitched screaming recently - she doesn't even want to use the signs she has at this point, so it's extremely challenging. Usually these periods of extreme frustration are followed by a jump in communication, but that usually doesn't happen until we figure out what it is she is trying to tell us... oh, this is when it would be soooo great to have some support with the sign language!

Noa's Rockin' Birthday!

Well, believe it or not Noa turned 4 this week - and thanks to lots of family and friends and her fav rocker, Uncle Rock, she brought in year four in grand Noa-style!

Noa is a Party Girl with a capital P. Unlike a lot of kids with vision issues, Noa loves big loud parties - especially if they include live music, the opportunity to play along and plenty of fun dance partners. She was thrilled to have her best grown-up play-friends Melissa, Jess and Reshmi on hand, all of whom took turns dancing with her (as did mommy, daddy, Grammy, Aunt Pate & pretty much anybody else she could grab a hold of). It was truly a party of all her favorite things.

I have to say that we were really impressed that even as the party swelled (hey, wow, all those people who rsvp'd really DID show up!), Noa kept going without a single meltdown. She seemed to be in her element, and I couldn't help but think about the communication evaluation we'd recently had and how the evaluated really impressed upon us the idea of getting Noa into more situations that allowed her to interact normally developing kids her own age... that just seems right on.

As the photo on the right shows, we had quite a crowd on hand. But even as afternoon gave way to evening, Noa kept going: notice the blurr in the front of the photo? That's me and Noa - she is a blurr in nearly every photo. See Uncle Rock's guitar far right? He's still going strong too! (Mommy on the other hand is very grateful that Melissa stepped in shortly after this so she could catch her breath).

For about an hour after everyone left, Noa sat on the couch playing and periodically breaking into fits of laughter. Finally she said she was tired, but even in bed she stayed awake for quite awhile - pressing the play button on her music box and drumming along on the bed... in fact, Ben fell asleep before she did!

It was just terrific to see Noa so incredibly happy. In case you haven't noticed from previous entries, this is a kid who works really hard -- and it felt really great to give her the gift of friends and music and motion!

AND thanks to everyone for the gifts! So many! Noa reaches out for new people (especially ones with hands that feel strong enough to swing her), but she is bit more reserved reaching out for new toys, so we've been opening them slowly - just a couple of new toys a day - so that she can really check them all out. I'm happy to report that she is loving everything, which is a great step forward for her! It used to take a week or two for her to warm up to a new thing - but she took right to some items (the music kit with the triangle & cymbals) and quickly warmed up to some others (a big funky pink textured ball).

We all came away from Noa's birthday feeling very lucky indeed!

Stacking

Sorry folks, the world beyond the Land of Noa had me a bit distracted this week. But I wanted to post the video that mentioned last weekend.

What is cool about this for me is the fact that Noa is attempting to stack one block on top of the next. Sure, she isn't bound and determined to do it... but she's got the idea and that's huge!

In other news, Noa's birthday is coming up in about a week. It's hard to believe she is nearly four!! We're also coming up on the three-month anniversary of Noa's stem cell infusion (which is when we're supposed to send a report to Duke on her progress). She's really come a long way in these few months - and we can't help but feel that the stem cells have played some role in it all.