Maria's hitting the bottle

Maria continues to drink from the bottle quite well. The NG tube has been out for 5-6 days now! She doesn't seem to like straight cow's milk, but likes mixtures of cow with either rice or soy milk. She sucks it down likes she's done this her whole life. Let's just hope she keeps it up.

Without the tube we can finally give her some quality tummy time so she can start developing those crawling muscles. She's also sitting up better. She can't sit unassisted yet, but she requires a lot less help. Her head control is better as well. I noticed that her new car seat is tilted more forward than the old and her head flops forward a bit when I accellerate, but she brings her head up straight on her own. Like they say, don't focus on where she is on the development chart, focus on whether or not she's improving.

Maria's hearing still seems to be improving. I, for one, am pretty casual about how often I put her hearing aids in. I'm not saying she doesn't need them, but until they are treating her for the level of hearing she has now rather than the loss measured nearly six months ago, I'll remain skeptical of the audiologist's recommendations. They just don't seem to understand that this is not sensoneural deafness (the "typical" form of deafness, which doesn't improve) but auditory neuropathy (which sometimes does get better). We definitely have to take the hearing aids out in crowded, noisy environments because she gets so fussy. She's also learned how to pull them out by pulling on the strings, so that makes it challenging.

The pediatrician is concerned about her leg development, something about her feet being pointed down too much and if we don't fix it she'll have to wear braces when she's older. Cathy's and my reaction was pretty much just to roll our eyes. On the list of the stuff that's wrong with Maria, this rates about 512th. One of the therapists said it was far too early to be worried about something like this, her feet are only slightly off, and that once she starts walking it will likely correct itself. The problem with going to so many doctors is that they are just looking for stuff to fix and if you look hard enough you'll find something.

She has her followup with the neurologist and neurosurgeon next week. She'll get another BAER (hearing test that tests brain function) but that's not scheduled yet. The otoneurologist wants to schedule an MRI to plan for the cochlear implant, but again as long as her hearing continues to improve we don't see any reason for something that radical. I think there's one or two other things but I can't think of them right now.

Maria's dad has gone back to his home on Crete rather than continuing to waste money staying in Athens waiting on the bureaucracy to get him his visa. This has all taken so long that some of the paperwork is going to expire and have to be redone. He's, of course, torn up by all this but we hope we can get him here soon.

We have many pictures and videos from her birthday that I'll try and get on the site over the next few days.