rockin' and rollin' maya

on sunday, august 31st maya did her first roll from back to stomach without anyone's help. i don't seem to have time to write much these days since i'm busy with work, home and maya but i just had to write this major milestone down for everyone to hear about it.

my focus has been filled with mostly maya these days. it's almost six months now since she was born and i'm loving every minute of this adventure. time seems to go by so fast and i keep looking at the days fly by and wondering at every session of our physical therapy whether or not she is "on time". i imagine that if she didn't have down syndrome maybe this wouldn't be such a big deal to me. every day that goes by i work with her on one level or the other to improve her gross motor skills and her speech/communication skills.

for the last few weeks we have been working intently on "rolling" since she has mastered her head control and is doing pretty well on sitting as well. every wednesday we have pt (physical therapy) and to be honest i could not see much improvement with the rolling. well on sunday it all clicked for her. there they were (her dad and maya) just laying on the bed while i did my morning showering...and she rolled without a hitch. the whole day i just wanted her to reenact the event so i could record it in my video camera. i couldn't help but feel so proud of her and her accomplishment. of course i hadn't thought of the fact that once you get onto your belly, how the heck do you get out of it?

it's funny how one tiny roll can lead to worry, because the rest of the day we just were watching as maya flopped over on her belly, and eventually became tired of holding her head in the up position. the amazing thing is that i really didn't worry to much about it because maya is really a tough nut. usually she will let you know if she doesn't like something. and sure enough soon after her head flopped down on the surface she would give a loud "growl" to let us know she was ready to flip over.

only three days later...at her therapy session, the therapist was showing her how to rock back over from her belly to her back again. i had been trying to show her myself, but when the therapist did it, maybe it all just clicked in for maya. in less than 12 hours from her pt, maya was able to roll from back to belly and rock herself from belly to back again. it was so amazing to see this! i really couldn't believe it at first, but she had done it, all on her own!

i'm writing this down mostly for myself, because i don't want to forget this amazing thing that happened in my life. i keep saying this over and over again but maya amazes me every day. and i feel so blessed to have her be mine.