Two months and new NAM

So, I'm two months old now... what's the big deal?  :) 

Why are mommy and daddy crying, taking lots of pictures, snuggling me like crazy, and telling me to stop growing up???  :)

We absolutely cannot believe that our little girl is two months old already!!!  At her 2 month check up at the end of August, Mia weighed 9 lbs 10 oz and was 22 3/4 inches long.  That puts her in the 25th percentile in weight and in the 75th percentile in length.  She is SO long!  I swear we keep feeding her, but she doesn't get chunkier, only longer!  lol

Mia has found her "social smile" over the past few weeks and has also started cooing.  She LOVES to be talked to and will stare at you and smile and coo like crazy and it is SO fun!

This pic is my cell phone wall paper and makes me smile every time I open my phone!

I also love this smiley one.  I am so going to miss this little smile when she has her lip revision surgery, though I wonder what her new little smile will look like.  It's so dang cute to me that part of me wants to keep it like that forever, but I know she'd hate me when she grew up.  (Hmmm... oh wait, don't all kids hate their parents at one point or another as they grow up... hmmm...)

Getting kisses from papa and cooing.

Talking with mama and getting kisses.

She rolls from her back to her side and we wonder how long it will be before she makes it all the way over!

She's gaining more and more control of her neck muscles and is getting good at holding her little head up. (Though she still tends to resemble a little bobble-head doll at times when she does it! lol)

As she gains more control of her hands, she often reaches up and touches our faces or mouth.  Yesterday, she decided to start helping hold the bottle and loves to help her papa and I hold it now.  lol

Here are her two month pictures with her Mia Rose blankie and stuffed giraffe.

Mia notices things and reaches for them now.  I think she likes the spotted pattern on her giraffe.

Oops, realized her one month pic was in a onesie, so we pulled off her cute shorts for this one.  :)

...and hanging in gma Lina's rocking chair.

Mia and I had our first "awake" Skype session with her cousins in Germany.  Sara and Sofia were so cute!  They sang Mia songs and wanted to go to Texas "now please" to see us!  :)  Nikki said they talked about "Baby Mia" the whole rest of the evening, and that the next day Sofia even wanted to see "Baby Mia" again.  They are coming to visit for two weeks at the end of November and we can NOT wait!!!

Here's a photo we snapped of them during our fun chat session.  Such gorgeous girls - all three!  Can't wait to see them in person!  They sang a ton of songs for Mia and were just too incredibly cute!

The new NAM

Mia got her new NAM last week.  The new NAM (nasal alveolar molding) device is the last stage she'll go through will appliances before she has her lip revision surgery. 

When I saw the new NAM, I was NOT a huge fan at first.  It's a lot more "stuff" to look at on her little face and I think it's a bit more shocking for others to see.  Now, however, I'm totally use to it and I just see my sweet little girl, but I must admit (ashamed though I am) that my first thought was, "I can't take my sweet little girl to Utah to show all my friends looking like this!"  :(  I hope that doesn't make me sound like a horrid mommy or a terribly shallow person!  I just thought it that first second and immediately felt absolutely terrible and horrible that it even crossed my mind!  Once I stepped back emotionally to analyze that sad knee-jerk reaction, I realized that my worry was that all they would see what this huge device out the front of her little nose and mouth and not her beautiful, adorable, wonderfully cute little face.  I've since gotten over that little lapse in human nature and am SO excited at the thought of heading up to visit family and friends next week!  I can not WAIT to introduce Mia to all my wonderful friends and to show her off to my family again now that she's a month older and has gotten so social!  :)

But I digress... here's the pics of the new NAM and how they created it.  It's her doctor's new creation and we have a love/hate relationship with it that I'll tell you about in a second.

Heading to the doctor's office - last day with the old NAM!  We were SO excited because the acrylic lip piece kept falling down and she would shriek when I had to put it back on.  (Her cute little outfit got TONS of attention, as did the little bow that mommy glued (yes, glued with Elmer's glue) her head.)

New NAM on the left, old NAM on the right.

When I first saw the new NAM on the left, I wondered how on earth they were going to make it work with those long wires sticking out the front.  I was also worried that in the process of making it that Mia was somehow going to get poked by the wires.  Thankfully she didn't!

The doctor would put it in her mouth, mark it, then bend it with special pliers, put it back in her mouth, and them mark it and bend it again.

They added a little crossbar covered in acrylic to hold her lip/gum area down, as well as acrylic balls to start shaping her nostrils.

View from the front of her new NAM.  It is SO not a symmetrical piece with how they bent it and put it together (the bar is higher on one side than the other and the little nasal parts come in at different angles), but it places things where they need to be.  Deep breath!  :)  Those of you who know me well can imagine how the OCD part of me has a really hard time not trying to mess with it to make it look more "even" and symmetrical on her cute little face!

Side view of the wires coming out of her mouth, the bar across her lip/gum area, and the little balls that go up into the end of her nostrils.

The little turkey can grab hold of it and yanks it out accidentally sometimes.

Thankfully, the new design doesn't seem to bother or phase my smiley little laid back "Mia bug" at all! lol

As I said, I'm not a huge fan of the way it looks, but it is SO much easier to put in and Mia doesn't scream anymore when I have to put it on so I totally love that part of it! Also, because of the way that it's made, it doesn't slip down. However, because of the way it's made, Mia can hook her little fingers in it and yank it out. The good news is that it should do the final shaping she'll need to have done to get her ready for surgery and then hopefully we won't have to use it anymore. Each week we'll go in and they will add acrylic to the lip bar to continue to push it back down into place, and also to the nasal prongs to continue to push up and shape her little nose and nostrils.  They think she'll have it for about two more months and then surgery. 

Please keep us in your thoughts prayers as surgery rapidly approaches!  We'll be sure to let everyone know once we get our surgery date set.

Hugs!