Ella continues to make progress, very steady now, but as always, slow. She is speaking so much more even though I can’t really say that she talks yet. She can make so many more sounds. She loves to hum and sing although usually, none of the words are quite there. It is just so obvious that she knows what she is talking about. There are so many little things that point to great progress. For example, tonight she was willing to talk on the phone. Usually when she holds the phone she is distracted by the buttons so I put it on speaker phone and put it out of reach. But, she knew it was there and gave a few sentences worth of babble. Her intonation is great. The only thing that is missing is diction. Also, Ella is walking much better. She is sturdy on her feet when walking while holding on with one hand. She’s much sturdier when she is being held by the right hand. Now the recommended strategy is to put a hand/arm in front of her chest and NOT to hold her hands. That forces her to get used to using her hands for balance and also to touch things with the right hand as she walks by. Her balance and upper body strength are still not good enough for her to walk completely independently. The other problem is that she probably knows that if she were to fall she’d have no chance of getting up. Ella had her yearly CT scan and appointment with Dr. Black (neurosurgeon) about 3 weeks ago. He was pleased and said that everything is okay and the ventricles are smaller. That’s a good sign meaning that now her cerbral spinal fluid is draining out at the right amount the shunt setting (lowest) is correct for her. I felt that I didn’t need the scan to know that things are relatively okay. All the signs are there. Finally Ella is making substantial progress. That is not to say that the development gap with her peers isn’t widening (I see how fast Netta is growing/developing), but for Ella is seems sometimes like nothing short of a miracle.