Hope

I just wanted to post a little about my daughter, who's been taking great strides developmentally these last months.
She has become more interactive, turning when I speak to her, responding intentionally to instructions, taking turns, playing "games" with us. She has become more responsive to her environment, less dependent on the same repeated episodes of Sesame Street. She wants to be outside all day (even on days like today, stiflingly hot and humid). She is curious about what mommy is doing in the bathroom, and even showers with me daily. She has been babbling. She tries to grab food away from me and is actually eating again, after a year of turning her head at the offer of any kind of food but milk. She has tried new foods and voluntarily put them in her mouth. We had begun to believe that she would need her feeding tube the rest of her life, but other possibilities are peeking over the horizon.

All of these changes are occurring in a time when she has very little in the way of therapy, which has led us to look back over the last few years, when she was in therapies several days a week. How much of her progress was actually a result of her therapy? She seems to make progress when she decides she's ready to do something new or more difficult, not when an adult tries to force it on her. She decided she wants to eat, so she'll eat. My guess is that she will decide to talk when she's good and ready.
(I should say that we do believe that some of her therapies have helped us by showing us new ways to approach her, letting her initiate activities, and turning it around on her, to show her the possibilities.)

Anyway, we are encouraged! We don't know what the future holds for her, but we know that she will likely exceed our expectations.