rollin', rollin', rollin'

Maryam spent TONS of time on her tummy today! And the best part is, it was voluntarily! She rolled on to her tummy all by herself 7 times today! How great is that? Of course, she's always chasing a toy when she's doing it, but still! She's motivated to get moving! Dona came this morning and we concentrated on tummy time. We had Maryam up on her hands and knees and trying to get her to stay that way. Dona was shocked by Maryam's leg strength, Maryam fought the whole time. BUT, we won. We managed to keep Maryam up on her hands and knees for a few minutes. And then we did more exercises with the exercise ball. Maryam really enjoys the exercise ball, she smiles and hits it. I can't tell if she likes the way it feels on her hand or the sounds it makes when she hits it.
Also, Maryam started making more sounds. She's moved on from "Mama Mama Mama" to "Bay Bay Bay", "Day Day Day" and the most pleasant of them all "Dada Dada Dada!"
Her oral feedings are still very much a challenge, BUT, she's letting me put a bottle with water into her mouth. She just sort of munches down on it and I think she's getting a few drops of water. I give it to her when I know that she's thirsty. Her G-tube feedings are completely different than they were just a week ago. It use to take us an hour to an hour and a half to feed her 6 ozs of her old formula. Now that we've switched her to the PediaSure, we're able to get 7 ounces of that with 2 extra ozs of water all in about 20 minutes! Its CRAZY!
I've had to turn her oxygen up a couple times a day for the past week or so. It seems when she plays really hard she starts breathing equally hard. Once I turn up her levels she seems to "catch" her breath and I'm able to turn it down again. I wish I had an O2 monitor! That would make my life SO much easier.