I'm so proud of Mia!

Aside from Mia continuing to recover SO well from her pneumonia, I've been working with her with taking a preemie pacifier. She has a really stiff jaw and very low tongue muscle tone (I couldn't even see if she HAD one until she was a few months old - that's how tight her jaw is).

Jessica, her night nurse while at Sunrise Children's Hospital in Las Vegas, sent us 4 preemie pacifiers in the mail last week, so I've been working trying to get them in Mia's mouth. They are so tiny - maybe a little thicker than a pencil - and it would take quite a bit of effort to pop it in there. WELL... ever since I got the paci in the very first time, Mia started chomping on it!! Sure she's not sucking on it, but she's working her jaw muscles and she's opening her mouth much more!! I took a bit of a break with the paci because I didn't want to aggravate when she was already going through enough with being sick.

I starting working with her again a day or two ago and noticed that when the paci isn't in her mouth, she opens it a LOT more and she's moving her tongue around as if she's sucking!! I've also noticed that she seems to be swallowing a lot more - she hardly has any oral secretions (and the meds should make her secretions increase)! Just now I was suctioning her mouth to see if there was anything in there and she was opening her mouth quite a bit and even was sticking her tongue out!!! I'm SO proud of my baby!! =)

Mia has improved so much - she looks better now than she did even a month ago which makes us wonder if she's been sick for a while. Her coloring looks great, her face isn't swollen which makes her nose look bigger!! You could hardly see her nose before from all the puffiness, so this is a good thing! =)

Robert has this little hand-held computer (Nokia Tablet) that he put cartoons and movies on for Mercedes, but Mia now loves watching Mickey Mouse and the gang, too! Right now she's watching Donald Duck. =)

Robert finally got a start date for his new job! First day class will be September 3rd. Robert will be an instructor for Air Force ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) at Sacramento State University! We're, of course, not exactly sure how it'll work out with him working and living there most of the week and coming back down to visit with us, but at least Sacramento is a whole lot closer than Las Vegas is! We'll do whatever we need to do to make this work! =)

Keep praying for our family and our little Mia. Mercedes is such a happy girl and loves to visit Mia at the hospital! She's able to visit Mia this time, so she's happy! This morning she was planning on what to bring to the hospital and she decided she was going to bring her train track set to set up in the lobby. I don't know how great of an idea that is, but that's what she wanted!! haha

We'll keep you updated as often as we can...

Rachael