Surgery dates and family visits!

So, we got a call yesterday from Dell Children's Hospital and they have Mia scheduled for her lip surgery on November 10th.  It's so so so much sooner than I was expecting - not that mid November is a whole lot sooner than the end of November, but still.  My knee-jerk reaction was "NOOOOOOO!"  I LOVE her little wide smile and precious little face and can't imagine her looking any different.  Also, the thought handing her over for a three and a half hour surgery just stops my heart.  She's so little and so incredibly dear to us!!!  Knowing that this is in her best interest and that she would WANT us to do it if she could tell us so doesn't even make the thought of it any easier!!!!  The only positive that I can think of (besides of course that after surgery our first big hurdle will be behind us) is that we won't have to mess with the DAM NAM anymore.  Hooray!!!

On a more chipper note, my sister Nikki and her little family got in safe from Germany and arrived at our house Monday afternoon.  Sara and Sofia immediately wanted to hold "baby Mia" as they call her.  They are (usually) super sweet and gentle with her and it's so fun to see them together!  We've gone to parks and gone swimming and all sorts of fun things so far.  The first thing the girls wanted to do was to hold "baby Mia".

Monday:

 Sofia won "Eenie Meenie Miney Moe" and got to hold baby Mia first.  :)

Then it was Sara's turn - big smile!  :)

Next, they had to try on their Halloween costumes.

and then Sara had to hold "baby Mia" again

Nik and Claes went to run some errands and the girls and I went to the park across the corner from our house.  Sara and Sofia had a great time playing on the play ground equipment and digging in the ground with sticks.  They even found a little snail shell that we brought home.  Unfortunately our outing was cut short when Sofia got attacked by a horde of fire ants.  Sadness!!!!  She has bites all over her feet and a few on her hands.  It was truly one of the saddest things ever!  :(

 after baths, Sara and Mia chilled on the couch and watched a cartoon

when it was time to feed baby Mia, Sara and Fia both wanted to help and did a great job!

they built a boat and here's Fia sitting in it and rowing with the little blue sticks

Tuesday:

 Sarah holds baby Mia again before we head to Costco for lunch and some US shopping

Sara REALLY loves to hold baby Mia - even standing up, which we aren't quite sure will ever happen again... lol

Sara and Sofia love for baby Mia to be in her swing - this time Sara decided baby Mia needed some toys

so pretty much ALL of her toys ended up in the swing with her

Wednesday:

Sara checking out and comparing HER toes with baby Mia's toes  ;)

all three girls playing in my pop up school bus and having a grand time

then we went to Gatti Land Pizza place for lunch.  the girls thought that watching TV on the big screen while they ate was super cool.  here's the whole Lindgren family

Then we went to pick out pumpkins at a place by Zeus's work:

Sara quickly found her pumpkin

after some searching, Fia found hers too

Sara helped Fia carry her pumpkin to the wagon because it was SO big and heavy!

Sara and Sofia posing

When I asked Sara to hold Mia, Sofia insisted on "holding baby Mia's legs"

Mia and mama

my little cutie patootie

Mia on a pumpkin - being propped from behind with another pumpkin  ;)

one group shot before leaving

It was SO HOT outside - in the 90's so we didn't stay too long picking out pumpkins.  Sara picked out a little pumpkin for baby Mia and then we drove home to go to the playground and pool across the corner from my house.  Mia passed out on the couch while we were getting ready to go. 

she's started trying to suck her thumb and I love how in this pic she's got her fingers curled around her nose

Sofia and Sara had a blast splashing around in the kiddie pool while Nik and I chatted and laughed with Mia as we watched them

Papa taking a break from studying to play with Mia while Nik cooked us a DELICIOUS dinner of artichoke pasta - YUM!!! 

what???  you think "I" did all that drooling???  lol

Mia chilling in her bath - cracks me up because she locks her knees and it pins her in there  lol

Thursday:

Mia all bundled up in the DARLING cap and mittens Auntie Nikki got her

Uh, yeah.  Yesterday it was in the 90's and we were sweating like crazy, and today it was in the low 60's and breezy in the morning and we've had the windows open all day in the house.  Crazy Texas weather!!!

Sara and Fia climbing at the park under mama's supervision

Sara - far left, arms folded - was NOT thrilled to wait for her mom to finish pushing Fia on the swings before she could have a turn - lol

when it was Sara's turn, cool Aunt Darcie pushed her REALLY high and showed her how we use to push and run underneath when her mom and I were little - she loved it!  :)

Mia slept through the trip to the park

cute mama Nikki playing with her sweet Sara and Sofia

I'm going to kill my husband...

I'm going to kill my husband!  Today we met for lunch and I got Mia to laugh so I pulled out my phone to have him get it on video.  Well, she was doing some of the cutest laughs, and when the video was timed out my husband flipped shut my phone - not realizing you have to hit SAVE before closing the phone.  AHHHH!  Needless to say, Mia was done laughing when we tried again.  Sadness!  I'm sure she'll do it again though soon, and our new goal is to get it on video.  :)

Also, as of today, Mia grabs her feet and puts her toes in her mouth...even when she's in the tub!  lol  Got pics of her eating her toes today on the couch and will post them later... right now I'm too incredibly tired and heading to bed. 

Before I head off, here's my latest effort at photo editing.  Got rid of the slobber marks on Zeus's shirt and highlighted Mia's Longhorn outfit.  Hopefully it will still fit tomorrow for game day!

such a tiny little Mia!!!

Groups and Photo Phun with Photo Shop

So, besides being a member of the Cleft Lip/Cleft Palate group on babycenter.com, I also joined a group recently called Fun Flick Mommies.  They have different "challenges" to do, with step by step instructions to fool around and have fun with digital photographs. 

This recent challenge was to change a photo to black and white and then add back in some of the color sections.  I chose some recent pics of Mia in her sassy seasonal outfits.  :)  Kinda hard to tell that they were changed to black and white first since the outfits in both photos are actually black and white themselves.  I'll have to look through my other 5 bajillion photos of Mia I might want to play with.

Here are the originals, and then the "challenge" version.

I added back in her skin and the little red heart.

I added back in her skin and the pink stripes on her leg warmers - oh, and the word BOO!

I'll keep on playing with different photos in different styles and then post them on here if I come up with anything that's worth sharing.  ;)

Progress, growling and dang cute outfits!

Okay, so I'm the first to admit that the growling on the previous post was a pretty lame example of Mia's incredible growling ability.  Unfortunately it was the only available video I had access to at the time, so I gave in to peer pressure and posted it for all those asking for a video of her growling.  lol  Well, I got another one and you can definitely hear her growing in THIS one, though the picture quality isn't as good because I haven't been able to get my nice little video camera to work.  Luckily my archaic, forever old, huge digital camera has a picture mode so I was able to capture this:



As for progress,  Zeus and Mia and I went to an informational Cleft Conference this past Saturday for families with cleft affected children.  During it they were going over the different treatment options they do, and suddenly a picture of this GORGEOUS child popped up for an example of the NAM device.

That's our little Mia!

We grabbed the camera out of the diaper bag and took a picture of the power point screen as quick as we could - hence the bad quality.  What a surprise to see her sweet little face peering at us from the "big screen"!  I guess they really ARE pleased with her progress.  Yay Mia!!!  They even announced that she was "the cute little skeleton in the audience," as she wore her Halloween costume (the flyer encouraged the kids to wear Halloween costumes and they had a little party for the older kiddos during the presentation).  Hello, like I'd pass up ANY chance to have Mia wear her costume...!  ;) 

unfortunately we forgot the bow at home - sadness!

our tired little skeleton, wiped out after the conference

We had another NAM adjustment appointment on Tuesday of this week.  While we were there I asked them for a copy of the power point slide that they showed of Mia so that we could have a better copy.  They didn't have it, but had taken the pictures so they printed them out for us side by side.  Check out the difference:

my little cutie patootie!

 look how much the NAM has helped to pull down her little lip - quite the difference, and will help so much to have everything in place before she has her lip surgery

In fact, the doctor said that it looked ready to go, so she was going to talk to surgery and get it scheduled.  Wow! 

While we were there, the ladies in the office went CRAZY over her cute little outfit. :) All the office workers always check in with us when we are there to see how her progress is coming along and to fuss over her cute little outfits. Since it's October, I figured it was time to break out some of the darling Halloween hand-me-downs. It's been SO fun. They thought it was so cute that one even asked to take a pic with her cell phone and they got out the fancy camera and had us go to the photo room to take a pic to hang on the board. Too funny! Here's the little outfit she wore:

 my little fashion plate - Boo!

man how I love this little girl!!!

Rolling over, growling and surgery videos

My little girl rolls over now, and I've got video to prove it.  :)  I'm not sure how to edit them so, sorry they are long, but she rolls right at the beginning of this one. 



And she grrrrrrrowls.  Be on your toes cause she growls right at the beginning.  :)  I'm thinking that she likes the feel of it in her little throat.  Silly girl!  It's been tricky to catch, and I have better ones, but my video recorder seems to be on the fritz currently and I can't get anything off it.  Sadness!  :(



Also, two days ago we got our first giggle.  It is SO cute!!!  We haven't been able to catch it on video yet besides on my cell phone, and for some reason it uploads without sound to the computer.  We'll keep trying though!

I came across these videos on the cleft group I'm a part of.  I thought they were excellent and showed wonderfully what will happen with Mia's lip repair - which it looks like she'll be having at the end of next month.  Here's that video:



The little boy in these video has a unilateral cleft lip and Mia has the double or bilateral cleft, so hers will be a little different, though the same procedure - just doubled.  When we met with the plastic surgeon last week he said that her surgery for her lip repair will take around 3 1/2 hours.  Oh my!  I try not to think about having to hand her over for that long in one short month.  :(

The following video is of the palate surgery which she'll have at between 9-12 months. 



It freaks me out a bit to think about HER having the surgery and HER being the one under anesthesia, but it's also reassuring knowing all they know about these surgeries and how many they've done.

Argh!

Argh! #1.  As I was holding my sweet little cuddly baby girl against my chest this morning and enjoying the wonderful mommy/daughter snuggle-fest moment... she growled!  Argh!  I told Zeus he could no longer reinforce the growling sound by growling back at her because she now growls ALL THE TIME!  lol  Uh, this is why kids need daddy's... to teach them all the things a mommy never would!  :)  We WERE able to catch the growling on video last night, but I've got to figure out how to upload it so that I can post it.

Argh #2.  Mia is getting really, really, REALLY good at pulling off her NAM.  As soon as I put it in, her cute little hands go right for it and grab/pull on it and dislodge it.  I tried taping across it - cheek to cheek across the NAM - but she would get her fingers under the gaps of the tape (the gaps from where the tape goes from the appliance to her cheeks on each side) and still manage to pull it off or pull it out such that it was sitting crookedy and pinching her lip or mouth.  When this happens, it causes her to emit a high pitched squeal of pain that stops our hearts when we hear it!  The worst is when we are driving and she 's in the back seat when it happens.  Not only does it startle us and scare the bajeebers out of us, but we have trouble getting to her quickly from that angle.  Also, in the car we don't have anything to cut the tape with.  I can usually find a way to angle back and rip the tape to get the NAM out, but it pulls on her little skin and sometimes actually pulls skin off and makes her little cheeks bleed - worst thing ever! - so I try not to do that. 

Good news is, that it seems to be doing what it's suppose to be doing as we saw from yesterday's appointment.  Bad news is, the other day she pulled it out three times in an hour!!!  Argh!  It wouldn't be so bad, but it's not like a shoe that you just pop back on and can go on your merry way.  With the NAM, I have to clean her little mouth out with a special sponge and water because the denture cream residue becomes slimy and gooey in her little mouth, as well as pick the remaining denture cream off the NAM and then scrub/rinse every crevice of it before putting it back in.  The process of actually putting it back in is high drama and causes her to cry for the two minutes I have to hold it in for the denture cream to set, so needless to say it's a time consuming and heart wrenching process.

Today I came up with the Darcie Austin Moreno adaptation of the Nasal Alveolar Moulding device,(or DAM NAM as I like to call it) which has successfully kept the NAM in her mouth the entire day.  I'm actually quite impressed with my ingenuity and wonder why I didn't come up with it before hand.  Unfortunately it is extremely, and I mean EXTREMELY, unattractive and odd-looking as you can see below.

Pobrecita with the DAM NAM.

Fortunately it doesn't seem to bother her, and it makes it so there are no upper edges for her little fingers to curl under so she can't grab onto anything to pull it down.  Unfortunately, she now resembles a nose-less creature from some sort of bizarre sci-fi show.  *SADNESS!!!* 

Now we REALLY get looks out in public!  I keep telling myself that it IS helping and that we only have to do this for another month and a half... we only have to do this for another month and a half...

In the "good news" arena, have I mentioned before that I love craigslist?  I rarely buy anything new anymore.  I always watch craigslist for it and usually can find the item in great shape for about half the original price.  Woooo whoooo!  Yesterday I sold my old shower curtain and towel set from my Utah house (Zeus didn't like it cause it was too "girly").

 Goodbye cute bathroom set that had been sitting in the closet for 6 months.  I will miss you terribly.  :)

It sold for $40 - yay!  I was able to use $25 of my profit to buy...

 ...a Bumbo seat and tray for Mia for $25!

I've been wanting one for a while to help her with sitting up and neck control.  Thank you craigslist for helping me clean out my closet AND save/make money!  Not only did I NOT have to spend $50 to get a new Bumbo and tray, but by selling the bath stuff ON craigslist and buying the Bumbo set FROM craigslist, I have a $15 surplus AND a cleaner closet AND a Bumbo seat for Mia to chill in!  SCORE!

How do I love thee, craigslist?  Let me count the ways...