Surgery Date Change - Surgery in TWO days!!!

We got a call yesterday from Shriner's that they had a cancellation for surgery this week and wanted to bump Mia's surgery up a week, so we are heading out first thing in the morning for a three hour drive to Houston for Mia's pre-op appointment at 10 am tomorrow and then have to be at the hospital at 5:45 am the next day (Thursday) to check into the hospital for Mia's surgery first thing that morning.

I'm glad it will be over soon, but the hours in the waiting room as she undergoes surgery loom largely in my mind and I am also so worried about recovery! Mia was babbling away so happily in the back seat of the car yesterday as we ran errands and when I thought about how sad she's going to be when she comes out of surgery and not understanding why she hurts, I almost lost it. I remember how sad she was after her lip surgery and how we walked the halls nonstop with her in our arms until they felt as if they would fall off, at which point we realized we'd brought the stroller with us and switched to that. I think we pushed her in that stroller or held her in our arms for most of that first day and again for the nest few days.

Please keep Mia and her surgeons and nurses in your thoughts and prayers and send all the good karma our way that you can! We pray for a perfect surgery outcome and a speedy recovery for your sweet little Mia.

Off to pack for our three day stay in Houston - sure hope I don't forget anything critical! Stroller is already going into the pile.

I just have to post a few photos of my happy girl to cheer me up before I go pack.

Never can get her to sit in the cart correctly, even when the seat belt is done up tight!

Don't even THINK about touching my cookie mama!

Leggo my eggo!

Drinking from the BIG cup!

Shopping's always more fun with a friend! :)

Hmmm... what is this?!?! Can I try?

My little Sleeping Beauty.

My future mountain climber.

Ahhhhhh!!!! This bottle is good!

Surgery? What's that? I'm not sure I like the sound of it...

Wonder, thy name is Mia

I must say that it is so fun seeing the world through the eyes of your child and the simple things they find wonder in. Case in point:

Fascination - thy name is an "outtie" belly button.

I guess we have been neglecting having Mia have enough time around the house without her clothes on because she's just BARELY noticed her belly button over the past few weeks. Now that she knows it's there, she'll lift her shirt to look at it, and even push the top of her diaper down in search of it if the diaper happens to be covering it. Silly girl!

A few other things Mia's finally started doing are pointing and climbing things. She'll point to us in the mirror and she'll point to touch things. It's so fun! She's also a little monkey and seems to have no fear, which is frightening! She loves climbing up on the Love Sac (a HUGE bean bag that we have). From there she'll either look out the window if the blinds are open, or climb over the arm of the couch (which is pushed up against it) and across the couch. She can reach some of the things on the wall behind the couch, so those are going to have to be taken down soon. The scary part is that she likes to head off things head first, so I'm always paranoid that she's going to break her neck!

She's standing all the time now as well. She's even started pushing up from the ground yesterday - before it was from the bean bag or a push toy, etc. She will stand there with this huge grin on her face, making excited baby noises that make us smile. Unfortunately, she still won't take any steps and even more horrifying is that she'll be standing there and sometimes will fling herself forward towards Zeus or I and it doesn't matter if we're watching or not! The good thing is, that now that she's all excited about standing up, she's more likely to hang onto our fingers to walk around. Tonight we went over to Zeus's sister's house to work on her car, and Mia walked all the way across the sidewalk in front of the house and down the side and then up and down the drive way quite a few times. Yay Mia! We're hoping she'll be walking soon! (I know, I know, you're thinking, "Famous last words," right?!?)  lol  We'll take our chances.

Some other cute pics of Mia from the week:

Looking through the photos on papa's phone with him as he reminds her who everyone is.

Ohh!!! Opening a care package from Great Uncle Harold and Great Auntie Charlotte. Fun!!!  Mia LOVES reaching inside something to take things out.

A book!  I LOVE books!

Walking the halls at papa's work when we came to visit him.

Chilling with papa and doing her, "Awe, cute baby!" pose.  :)  Such talent!

Standing and Signing Wonder

I almost feel a little silly about being so excited about this at Mia's age, but yes, at 13 months old, I'm ecstatic to report that Mia is finally pushing herself up to standing and then standing on her own. I know, I know, so months ago standards, but this is a big thing for my little girl who does NOT like anyone to try and get her to stand up OR hold onto her hands to try and get her to walk. I'm not sure if this makes me a bad mom or not, but I figured that she was pretty much refusing to do either of those things, so I decided to just leave her alone with it and let her do it when she's ready. I'm not sure why she has this aversion to having someone try and hold on to her and help her do these things - maybe related to all the cleft appointments and having that "dam NAM" inserted and re-inserted in her little mouth multiple times a day as well as the many doctor appointments. 


Either way, though we still tried to do those things from time to time, we decided to let her have control over this aspect of her development.  :) Well, as I expected, she just finally decided to do it on her own one day - and that day was yesterday. The funniest thing about this new phenomenon of pushing up to standing and then standing unassisted is the huge look of wonder and excitement on her face. Her grin stretches from ear to ear and she does this excited breathing and cooing noise that totally cracks me up. She's SO proud of herself when she does it, and it's just so fun to see!


I watched my friend Jenn's kids yesterday, and that's where the infamous "first stand" occurred.

Of course, I've not been able to get a good video of it yet, and the one video I was able to snap of her doing it was the one time she actually plopped down almost immediately instead of standing like she had before. For two or three times prior, I would hold my breath, thinking she would plop down any second, but she'd just stay standing for what seemed like forever! Also, it's from the back, so you don't get a view of the adorable expression on her face when she does it. It is seriously SO freaking adorable!!!

As always, she's got something in her mouth, and barely stood THIS time before plopping right down. Argh!

Here's Mia crawling around through Jenn's cute kids while they watch a movie.

Not only did she stand for the first time yesterday, she also did her first unsolicited 'sign'. I've been using the baby sign language for "hungry" (putting your fingers on one hand towards your mouth). I ask her if she's hungry as I make the sign and over the past month she'll sometimes put her hand to her mouth when I ask. Well, yesterday she didn't take her afternoon nap at my friend's house and I had a quick errand to run on the way home. She was overdue for her bottle and as I was going down the isle to check out, she did the sign for hungry when she caught my eye. I signed back to her that I knew that she was "hungry" and got out some goldfish crackers for her and told her we were heading home to get her some food. I was so proud of her, but at the same time felt kind of like a bad mommy, to have a sweet little hungry baby who was trying to let me know that she would please like some food. Sweet baby.

And now, for a few of my favorite photos from the past week or so.

Mom.. I'm telling you. I"M HUNGRY...

...guess I'll have to take matters into my own hands and feed myself this pot.

What do you mean, my pig tails are crooked?!?!?

Are you sure mom??? They don't look even to you???

Oh well, that's okay mom, good thing I'm just naturally adorable.  :)

Paulina snuggling Mia before her nap time. She sings the sweetest song in Spanish to Mia and Mia LOVES it. Next week is our last week watching her and I'm already feeling the beginning of withdrawal.We sure are going to miss you Miss Paulina!  :(

Mia looking through photos on Papa's phone as he reminds her who everybody is. She's loving her "Mia and papa" time!

I'm on the Love Sac!!! I climbed on it all by myself!!! I'm SO proud!!!  :)

Mia's sweet little face - man I love this baby girl! We ate lunch at Subway and Mia was a big fan of my Meatball sub and Paulina's chocolate chip cookies. Yum!

Next time this month, we'll finally have Mia's palate surgery over and done with. We are so ready to have it behind us, but it sure does make us nervous when we think about it rapidly approaching. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as she undergoes palate repair surgery on August 25th. I've heard a lot lately on how hard it is to get them to eat after surgery and am concerned about not only the surgery, but also the recovery for my precious little baby girl.

Mia's definitely growing up so fast and is such a little sweetie pie. We love her SO much and are so very thankful and grateful to have her as part of our little family!

Illegal Drugs and Death Defying

Catchy title, eh?  :)  I heard some where that if sugar were discovered today, with it's effects on the body and addictive nature it, would be considered an illegal drug. I laughed when I first heard that and thought it was ridiculous. Well, today when we ran to make a deposit at the bank, Paulina was holding Mia and grabbed each of them a sucker. A tiny little sucker. I thought, no problem. Sucker. Tiny. Mia will probably drool all over, but as long as it's light colored, sure. Entertain her until we get her home for her nap. No problem. Paulina picked out bubble gum pink for Mia and watermelon green for herself.

Thank you Paulina for the little pink ball on a stick!

Wow, this is amazingly delicious! (Notice the crazy baby hair.)

Don't even THINK about taking away my tasty treat.

Yum! (Notice the string of drool and wet drooly shirt.)

Sucker gals heading to the car - doesn't Mia look like a pro.  lol

Yeah, she LOVED it! This is what was left of the sucker at the point that Mia decided the slobbery stick was equally delicious and popped the whole thing in her mouth!

Such a harmless looking little thing...

...and then she skipped her two hour afternoon nap and was up for six hours straight through until bedtime.

I totally get why it would be considered an illegal drug.  lol

Also, now I am worried for Mia's life. I can no longer leave her in the baby-proofed living room while I run to the bathroom for two seconds. This death-defying act happened last night:

Someone climbed onto the top of the coffee table. Dang it!

She was trying to grab her little butterfly thing that attaches to the top of her car seat. It was on the coffee table and she grabbed hold of the side and pulled herself right up. Oh my! I was equal parts excited and horrified at witnessing this newest trick of hers.

Though she was very proud of her new-found skill, she was equal part sad that she was now STUCK up on the coffee table.

Silly Mia.

(Now I feel the need to explain the coffee table and Mia's hair. The coffee table is missing the drawer because it was just glued on and fell off a few months ago. We were going to glue it back on, but 1) we didn't have any wood glue and 2) Mia decided she loved climbing under the table and peeking out of the whole, so we've decided to leave it a little ghetto for now in the name of "it really doesn't matter and the baby loves it".  :)  Now to address the hair. Earlier in the day (see above sucker photos) she had it in a little Pebbles-like pony tail. Mia had mac and cheese for dinner. Mia likes to rub her fingers through her hair, and the occasional food-covered fingers through her hair. Mac and cheese has greasy butter in it, which made itself into said hair. Put both those things together and you have an intense case of crazy hair.)

On a side note, I had a doctor appointment with my OB as my six month post surgery follow up from having my large fibroid removed via C-section. We got the health clearance to start trying for baby number two, if we so choose. Oh my! I know I've mentioned this before, but I LOVE my OB. I took her Mia's one year birthday announcement thing and she loved it. :)  I seriously will be super sad if she ever moves somewhere else or we move someone else. She and her nurse were bummed that I didn't have Mia with me - they love seeing her and hearing about her progress as well, but it was her nap time so I left her home with Zeus. I also stopped by the NICU to drop off Mia's one year birthday announcement as well. I was so happy that one of our NICU nurses was there as well as one of the nurses that took care of me when I had Mia. I think it's great that they remember us and seem to love us as much as we love them, and they also love hearing about Mia and how she's doing. Between family and friends and our wonderful doctors and nurses, Mia sure does have a huge team on our side that love and are interested in how Mia's doing. Lucky, lucky us!  :)

Surgery Date

Yesterday I called Shriner's and left a message to let them know that Mia's weight was 17 lbs 6 oz at her one year check up. I wondered if they'd want to wait until she's older and 18 lbs to do the surgery or if they'd go ahead and do it since she's close and already a year old. I was a little worried that waiting longer for palate surgery could result in speech delay, but also want her as healthy and strong as possible prior to surgery.


I got the call back from Shriner's today and we have our surgery date. The doctor feels that she's close enough to 18 lbs to go ahead with the surgery.  We will go in on Wednesday, August 24th for her clinic and pre-op appointment, surgery will be the next day and will head back home on Friday. The nurse said to be sure and try and pack on as much weight as we can and to keep her as healthy as possible. If she gets sick, they won't do the surgery and it will have to be rescheduled. She'll be the second surgery of the day so it will be interesting to see how she does with the pre-surgery no food and liquids thing now that she's a little earlier and more vocal about things. They will be doing a little baby girl's lip repair surgery right before Mia has her palate done. I was so looking forward to having this surgery over with, but now that we have a date and a count-down, I feel sick and anxious about having my sweet baby have surgery again and having her be in pain. I'm so glad it can be done when she's young enough that she shouldn't remember it when she's older.


So now the count down begins. 35 days until palate surgery.

One year update

Oh my goodness, a year already!

My sweet little Mia.

Man, so I'm a few weeks late, but here's our one year update on our little June bug Mia. We can't believe she's already a year old!!! My how the time has flown and how quickly she's grown. She's such a sweetie and we love her so much! It seriously boggles the mind that we have a daughter. And she's one! Oh my!


So, now that she's getting so wiggly and rolly and fights the posed photos, I'm quite relieved that the monthly photos are done for a few months. I may do an 18 month photo shoot before only doing one each year. Sadness - my baby's growing up, so it's kind of a happy/sad thing. Paulina helped me take Mia's photos today and it was SO helpful to have another set of hands to help try to distract my little munchkin.  lol

Getting so big!!!

Hello! I'm the birthday girl!  :)  It says so right here on my shirt.

I'm SO not laying still for this - I'm outta here!

I seriously cannot get enough of her sweet little face!

Her silly little cheezer face makes me laugh.

Mia's one year stats:

• length - 28 1/2 inches, which puts her in the 25th percentile for height
• weight - 17 lbs 6 oz, which puts her in the 6th percentile for weight
• head - 46.6 cm, which pus her in the 90th percentile for head circumference  lol

Mia's still a dainty little thing. At her one year check up we were hoping to weigh in at the coveted 18 pounds so we could go ahead with palate surgery. Well, we still aren't there yet. The doctor thinks that based on her growth curve so far, that she won't break 18 pounds until around 15 months.  Sigh!  I need to call Shriner's tomorrow and see what they have to say. I'm worried that the longer the palate surgery is delayed the more her speech may be affected. I'm not sure if they'll want to go ahead with surgery or wait until she hits that 18 pounds. The doctor is still not worried about her height and weight, as she's still within her growth curve. However, I'm thinking I may pick up some higher calorie formula and maybe some Ensure to help her get some extra calories.

At one year of age, Mia:

• pulls up and walks along the furniture but is not a walker yet
• still doesn't like her hands held, which makes the walking practice null and void
• has mastered the pincer grip and uses it (much to our chagrin) on people as well as food
• she gives great two armed tight hugs that make us melt
• she still loves books, stories and snuggles
• loves food with flavor and is pretty good at trying new things
• pulls her head back to check out what's coming at her on the spoon during feedings
• smiles at nearly everyone now and still goes to new people
• loves to pull out all of her toys
• loves to climb on mommy, the love sac (bean bag) and the couch
• has started bopping her head to music
• loves to be outside and going for walks or bike rides
• is a people watcher for sure and likes to be able to see what's going on
• loves to take her socks and shoes off and often chews on them
• pulls bows out of her hair the minute they are put in now
• "Mowgli" bear crawls when she's in a dress or other outfit that catches her knees
• loves to pull all the Tupperware out of the cabinets and play in the pots cabinet
• loves to smile and laugh and investigate things
• goes down for naps and bed so very easily after a quick snuggle and song
• almost always wakes up happy

At one year old, Mia loves to eat most baby food flavors except green beans and is eating a lot of table food including, so far, cheerios, any cereal that's soggy with milk, macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, toasted cheese sandwiches, strawberries, peaches, arroz con leche, bananas, egg salad, tuna salad, chicken salad, toasted cheese and turkey sandwiches, sweet potatoes, squash, pudding, yogurt, cheese pizza, ice cream, ice cream sandwiches, goldfish crackers, chocolate birthday cake, chicken, noodles, sausage and ground beef (though she seems to chew the flavor out of the meat and then spit it out - lol)  She does NOT like green bean baby food or tomatoes so far.


And a few more Mia-isms in photos.  :)

Has enough hair for pigtails!

...sort of!!!  :) 

microscopic up-close proof of pigtails  :)

LOVES the baby in the reflection - and loves to check out mommy in the reflection as well!  :)

Loves her blankie - found it in the laundry basket and pulled it through one of the holes to snuggle with.  :)

Loves books and reading stories.

Loves to be pulled around the house in the laundry basket.

Finally has enough hair for mommy to do something OTHER than pigtails.  lol

Found the Velcro on her shoes and is a pro at using her pincer fingers to peel it open and take her shoes off!

Still puts EVERYTHING in her mouth!

Loves to explore new places.

...and peek through holes.

and snuggle her papa.

Mom, we really need to get one of these - they are SUPER cool!

And finally, Mia adores and is equally adored by her family!  :)