Well it took me only ten days after Lizard emailed me about this site to get around to signing up I've been on a major hibernate-and-do-nothing kick for about a month, which is not a good thing when you are freelance...

OK, quick summary.

The bad news:
* Maria loves to pull apart her hearing aids into small, child-choking pieces
* Her height and weight have plateaued for months (but the good news is that now that we give her more food her appetite has increased)
* She has had swollen eyelids for about six weeks now and after seeing several doctors it was finally diagnosed as chalazion. There are these glands in the eye which produce oil. If they get blocked, they swell (and even burst) and it's not a good thing. So it's a little like hydrocephalus (except for the bursting part). She's not responding to treatment so probably next week they get to knock her out and lance the swellings.
* The PT has decided it is time for AFOs

The good news:
* She's much better at sitting and can generally manage to sit in a high chair at a restaurant if she's not too tired
* She loves spicy food (being a New Mexico girl, she BETTER love spicy food)
* She's getting pretty decent at picking up pieces of food to eat and can handle chunky food
* We got her in a study on kids with cortical vision impairment and auditory neuropathy
* Her dad FINALLY got his permanent status and work permit. This was just in time to be an extra in the new Jamie Foxx movie they are filming in Mesa. He's had one scene where Foxx hands him something and he salutes, so he might actually be visible in the final movie.
* Her BAERs continue to show steady improvement in auditory brainstem response. Also, she has started waking up to loud noises, which she NEVER used to do.

And, most important, Maria has her very own music video, produced right about the time the old forums went down. Check out her page at http://cyjon.net/maria.php and it's the one uploaded July 16.