A little sweetness for the day, in photos

I am SO behind on the blog lately and so many fun things have happened lately that I really want to post about. I've been struggling with getting taxes done with salaries and houses in more than one state as well as a horribly non-profitable rental of my old home as well as trying to itemize our bazillion dollar expenditures on medical bills this last year.  I severely dislike, to the nth degree, taxes. I have also been struggling with other things as well as a baby who is now a crawler and into EVERYTHING.  I'm just tired, and tired of being tired.  Bah.

Last night Mia went down to bed at 8:30 pm, woke up at 10:30 pm (just as I was falling asleep) and took forever to get back down, and then again at 5 am before waking up for the day at 8 am.  This is NOT commom for my little one who usually sleeps wonderfully through the night.  I figured either her ear infection was coming back or she was teething.  I was right.  Today her second front tooth on the top came through.  It's on the cleft section of her gumline and her other one that came in there was a little rougher than normal as well.  We now officially have 4 teeth - 2 middle ones on top and 2 middle ones on bottom.  Luckily, it doesn't look as "rodent-y" as it sounds.  lol  Way to celebrate turning 9 months old Mia!

However, even with all the ups and downs of motherhood and being a stay-at-home mom, my little Mia still makes me smile every day.  Today I peeked in on her during her morning nap and just had to grab some quick photos on my cell phone.  I sent them to my family, and my sister Tiff said something to the effect of, "These need to go on the blog."  I agree.  :)

I guess it was a little too bright in her room for nap time...

...so my little cutie-patootie problem solver made do.  :)

As I was feverishly working on taxes the other day, I noticed that Mia was being suspiciously quiet as she was playing down by my feet. I scooped her up only to find my mortgage payment booklet being happily munched on.

Guess that's Mia's version of helping me with taxes. lol

Man I love this little munchkin!

St. Paddy's day and the weekend

Just a quick post because Mia and I have been under the weather this weekend, but still managed to have some fun.


Wednesday night Mia had a really hard time falling asleep and once she finally fell asleep, she'd wake up SCREAMING.  This is SO not like her and I had the horrible feeling that we may have another ear infection on our hands.  She woke up Thursday morning with a fever and by then I was pretty sure about the ear infection.  We were suppose to have a play date, but had to call and cancel and head into the doctor instead.  Luckily we were able to get the only available appointment left for the day.  I gave Mia a dose of baby fever reducer / pain killer and got her dressed and ready for the day.  Since it was St. Patrick's Day, she wore her green.  She was a big hit at the doctor's office in her green.  :)

Who me?

No pinching me - I'm in green!!!! 

What?!?!  A doctor visit and NO shots you say?!?!  Unbelievably wonderful!!!

Yay!!!!  No shots!!!  Definitely clap-worthy!!!

Poor thing woke up from her nap with gucky eyes after her doctor appointment.  I was worried that it had turned into conjunctivitis or pink eye, but luckily it was a one-time thing thank goodness!!!

Stripped her down to cool off the fever, but had to leave the drool bib on my little slobber-monster.  lol

Luckily, the medicine helped her feel SO much better!  Besides an antibiotic, we also got some ear drops that helped with the pain.  Thank you modern medicine for helping my sweet baby feel better so quickly!!!  Because she was feeling better, we were able to go to a concert for part of SXSW (South by Southwest concert series).  Luckily the noise reduction headphones that I ordered online on Tuesday came in the mail Monday morning so we were able to take Mia to the concert and not have the loud music bother her. 

Thankfully after the initial event of putting the headphones on Mia, they didn't seem to bother her at all.  The weather was perfect - warm with a light breeze and the bands were wonderful.  We got to sit outside and listen to the bands Bowling for Soup and Blue October with our good friends Carlos, Eunice, Chrissy and even Zeus's sister Bertha made it in time from out of town.  Such a fun night!

Mia in her noise reducers.  :)  They worked great, but kind of smooshed her cheeks and made her look like a hound dog.  lol

The bands played against the backdrop of downtown Austin.  Lovely!

Zeus took Mia up by the band for a little bit and contrary to the look on her face, she had a good time.  :)

SADNESS of sadnesses!!!

My Flip video recorder will no longer download to my computer!!!!  Sadness of sadnesses!!!  We have all these cute videos on there that we can't download and have this recorder that records wonderful quality videos but we can't access them!!!  I'm in the depths of despair.  :(


My only recourse to be able to post a crawling video was to use my cell phone to video tape the clip off the little viewing window on the Flip recorder.  Horrible quality from the cell phone, but you can kind of see her crawling.  Sadness!!!

Fuzzy, but our only solution for now.  I'm SO bummed!!!!

Here are some other videos I had on my phone from the last couple of months of my little mobile turkey:

Mia calling for ga-ga-gama to come back and visit soon after her visit in January to help out when I had surgery.  Lucky for us we are headed THERE next week for a visit - hooray!!!

Clapping baby! 

Sorry it's so dark, our living room has horrible lighting.  The Flip camera would still take a bright, great quality video - totally not the case with my cell phone.

This is how a video from the Flip looked in comparison.  I love this video from January of Mia giving her papa "loves" and snuggles!!!

This is one of my favorites from the end of February when I was trying to take her 8 month photos and all she wanted to do was play with the giraffe, which she thought was SO funny.

WE HAVE A CRAWLER!!!

For the last couple of days when Mia is sitting up, she'll "walk" her hands forward so that she's in a crawling position.  Then, instead of continuing to move her arms forward, she'll move her legs forward and then belly plant and push up again to "inchworm" herself forward.  Tonight she was super fussy (I'm hoping she's not getting sick because this is SO not like her).  I had been snuggling her, but needed to do some stuff in the laundry room really quickly so I put her down on the floor in the hallway in front of the open door to the laundry room.  She was NOT happy about that and starting fussing.  I looked back to comfort her and she was crawling and complaining and crying the whole time, poor thing!  It was so cute and so sad all at the same time.  At first I was SO excited that she was crawling and it looked so darling.  Then I began to realize that this has opened up a whole new world and started to panic.  OH MY!!!

Got it on video - yay!  Thankfully the video camera battery was charged because papa was in night class and missed it.  Sadness!  I'll upload the crawling video tomorrow after our play date.  We are meeting up with another cleft mommy tomorrow morning for the first time and we are SO EXCITED!!!  Next week we are going to meet another mommy who is currently pregnant with a little girl who will be born with a bilateral cleft like Mia's.  It's so nice be able to meet other cleft families!

Photo Download Overload

Today, after spending an hour or two proof-reading my husband's paper that was due for his night class tonight, I decided to download photos from my camera and phone and unearthed some fun memories from the last little while.  You know what that means?  Photo download overload upload to the blog!  lol

Now that Mia's got forward momentum down, I have to really keep a sharp eye on her because when she sees something she wants, she can now get to it and sit up and reach for it, as well as get herself into place she either shouldn't be or doesn't WANT to be in.  Case in point from this morning:

Mia flossing with the power chord to my laptop.

Sadness - figuring out she can't sit up against the table without bonking her head.

Not thrilled with the outcome of backing herself under the table either.  Luckily mommy rescued her!

My silly little turkey and her crazy poses!  lol  Luckily, she enjoyed playing in the laundry basket with her toys so that mama could safely get some things done in the living room without having to keep QUITE such a constant eye on her.  :)

Then later today when I was under the gun and reading through Zeus's paper, Mia decided she was STARVING and tired.  I wanted her to eat before she went down for her afternoon nap, but I had a half hour to finish Zeus's paper and get it printed up for him as he dashed from work to home to grab his paper and head to school.  Well, I gave her some puff snacks but after that she was still hungry for her bottle.  I quickly made a bottle and put on a different nipple than we usually use on it.  This one we got in Houston from Shriner's and I think it's a Dr. Brown's nipple.  It has a "Y-cut" in it so that when Mia attempts to "suck" at it (because of the cleft she still can't create suction), the pressure of her sucking motions opens up the "Y-cut" so that milk comes out.  I'd been thinking about trying it as she's recently started holding the bottle when I feed her.  I thought it would come in handy on road trips, but hadn't tried it yet.  Well, it worked!  I was partly happy and partly sad!  It was so hard to have her next to me holding her own bottle while I frantically worked on finishing the paper.  I wanted her in my arms, snuggling as I fed her!  Zeus came home and snatched her up to finish the last ounce of the bottle while I finished up looking over his paper, but she did so good on her own.  Of course, I had to pause and take a few photos.  :)

A little half-smile for the camera during her self-feeding.

Seriously mom, must you always be snapping photos?!?!

This is serious business!!!

I also broke out the 9-12 and 12 month size clothes box.  (Thanks to those of you who have passed on hand-me downs!)  Well, inside were two little bathing suits I'd gotten on clearance last year for her for this year.  They are SO CUTE that I had to get them out and try them on her, which of course resulted in... photos!

LOVE this one!  It's so soft and I'm loving the large polka dots and the bows on the shoulders!

I love the little criss-cross back and "ruffle bum" of the back as well!!!

I think Papa loved the cute ballerina tu-tu swimsuit best!  :)

Then, there were the photos we took at the kite festival on Sunday.  We went to Mass and then came home to change into shorts before heading downtown to the Austin Kite Festival.  We parked in county parking lot and then waited in line, for what ended up being an hour, for a bus shuttle ride over to Zilker park.  There were TONS of people there and lots and lots of kites. I was surprised at how many kites there were and how few actual kite string entanglements we witnessed!  Thankfully we remembered to take the camera and were able to get some fun photos.

In line for the shuttle with mama - Mia loved all the people and animal watching (and so did mama)!

The shuttles were school buses - Mia's first bus ride ever with papa.  Not the best photo of my little Mia, but DANG does my honey look HOT!  :)

Tons of people and kites - and kites and people of all shapes and sizes!  Hard to see the hundreds of kites in this one though and was really hard to get a good photo of all the kites that were flying!

Ah, there we go!  There's a kite shot.

Our good friend Chrissy met us there and hung out with us.  Good times!

I love Mia's sweet little face in this one!

Well, Mia's up from her nap, so I'd better finish the rest later.  Toodles!