New tricks

Maria had her physical therapy evaluation yesterday and met or exceeded most of her goals. Even with the traveling and being sick she has made real progress the last few weeks. She's finally over that cold she had.

Maria has some stuffed toys which, when you squeeze them, vibrate and play music. She loves them but can't squeeze hard enough to activate them herself. Yesterday she accidentally rolled onto one and activated it. She was very still while it played then once it stopped she started squirming around until she managed to start it, then was very still again. She did this several times. It was obvious that she realized she had made this thing work and was able to figure out how to do it again. She's doing more of that cause-and-effect stuff lately.

It's still hard to tell whether the new hearing aids help. They certainly don't hurt and they stay in even if she thrashes around. She's been more vocal since getting them, and I *think* she seems more aware of voices. I'm a biased observer so I try not to read too much into some of the things I see. The audiologist did say that she was responding to sounds as low as 60 decibels and maybe as low as 45. The speech therapist pointed out that is a critical range because 60 decibels is the average level of conversation.

Maria continues to get credit card applications in the mail. I think Cathy should send one in. They ask for date of birth and occupation ("baby") so it's not like she'd be defrauding them. And if Maria actually gets one, well it's never too early to start building credit :)