She beat me to it

I only just now got home and Cathy has already managed to update.

I wanted to add that I, for one, am less bummed about the news from Monday. The bad news came from a doctor who has seen Maria ONE time. She also ignores the fact that a substantial part of Maria's developmental problems are vision and hearing related. Those are both improving so it seems logical that she will start developing at an accelerated pace. It occured to me that maybe the reason her other neurological skills are building so slowly is that her brain is concentrating on reparing the vision and hearing problems.

I'm not blinding myself to the possible badness down the road. I'm still very concerned by how slowly Maria develops new skills, but she's made fools of the doctors before ("She'll be completely blind her whole life", "She'll never drink from a bottle"). Mild-to-severe learning disabilities are common with hydrocephalus. That doesn't mean she can't live a normal life that includes regular school, college, and a career.