Maria can't sit still

Maria seems to have made a big jump in her vision. The way she responds to objects and people is different and I can't really explain why. I think that's a big part of why she's so motivated to move around.

Cathy and I were talking about Maria's sitting (or lack thereof) last night. We've come to the conclusion that Maria is actively fighting learning to sit. It's not that she can't; she won't. Sitting is passive and she wants to be active. Rolling, army crawl, and standing are much more interesting to her. We need to find the right motivation to show her sitting is good.

She had lost interest in standing for a while, but lately she's back to it. She also keeps trying to move her feet and walk, though that's quite a ways off. I was wondering this morning if, as her vision improves, she is more aware of people and the way we get around. Hydrocephalic kids often have trouble with gross motor skills and perform better if they have a younger sibling they can imitate (shh - don't tell Manolis since he still wants another baby). Maria may be observing us walking and is trying to imitate.

But, since every silver lining has a cloud, there is one problem with her standing. She is standing on her tiptoes rather than flat-footed, which is not good. At rest we've been noticing she is pointing her toes rather than keeping her ankle bent. We may need to start keeping the AFOs on her for periods during the day rather than just at night. But since they interfere with crawling and other activities, it's a tricky balancing act of too much vs. too little.

She's getting better at drinking through a straw. She seems to be a bit bored with the open cup and doesn't drink from it as well as she used to, and I suspect the lack of control is part of the problem. We have a sippy cup with a built-in straw that she is able to get a little fluid out of and it seems like the best drinking skill to be pushing since it combines independence with good oral-motor skills. She still gets all but a couple ounces a day from the bottle, and bottle feeding doesn't build up the mouth muscles in the right way.

We are concerned with her lack of communication skills, particularly the way she doesn't really seem to even hear voices. There are a couple of words she sort of might possibly kind of understand, but even those tend to be reinforced by actions so I'm not sure it's really the language. The music therapist says she has a couple of kids who can't use normal speech, but they can converse through singing. Music comes from a different part of the brain than normal speech and speech therapists have often been puzzled by the fact that severe stutterers can often sing just fine (anyone remember Mel Tillis?). We are glad she's getting music therapy since it really seems to help, and we like the new music therapist.

Maria sees the craniosacral practitioner Sunday and that will be interesting.