Things are still moving along nicely. The good news is that Logan is beginning to say words; the bad news is that they aren't always nice words. In an effort to get him to use his voice, the speech therapist holds Logan's nose (this forces him to breathe through his mouth and it also causes some discomfort) which prompts him to talk. The therapist just laughs, but I put my head down and insist that I raised him better than that. In Logan's defense, if someone was holding my nose and forcing me to gasp for air, I can't promise that I wouldn't let fly a few choice words myself. He has said a few more appropiate words as well. Sometimes, he speaks in a whisper and it's difficult to make out what he is saying. When he does speak loud enough, his voice is still a little raspy, but I'm sure it will improve as he uses it more. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that he recognizes colors and it seems that he recognizes letters as well. He has written his name(first name) several times; it is shaky looking, but he is writing with his non-dominant hand, so it's not that bad. Besides, his penmanship was terrible before all this. Also, the therapist asked him to write a number of different letters and he managed to write something that could be identified as each letter that he was asked to write. Everyday, it seems that he does something that he wasn't able to do a week or even a few days ago. He is able to stick his tongue out where you can see it and today he was able to move it from side to side; this may sound like no big deal, but it is crucial to his speech and he couldn't do that until recently. He is very aware of what is going around around him as I found out today while we were waiting for the elevator. I was talking to someone from Louisiana and we let the elevator pass us by a few times. The next time the elevator opened, Logan poked me on the arm and pointed to the door; I guess he was ready to go. He is trying different foods(all soft or pureed) and so far he doesn't like any of them. Getting his taste buds back to normal will take a while. The pump surgery is tentatively set for March 2nd. We went for an appointment in another building in the medical center today and for the first time Logan was transported in his wheelchair by the TIRR van, not by ambulance. It went well and the neurosurgeon was pleased with Logan's progress. He made a slight adjustment to his shunt and will probably do so again in a couple of weeks.         More later.