Growing!

Mia weighed in today at 21 pounds 11 ounces! Thank you God! It's so exciting seeing her moving in the right direction. We know that as she gets stronger, walking will get better. We are still about the same as last week, but we keep working on it. :)

5 Steps!

Mia took 5 steps, all on her own tonight! It was so cute and awesome. I had her on the bench and I asked her to stand up and come towards me...I was really close at first, so it was only about 1 or 2 steps, but I thought, hey, let's see what she'll do if I back her up. So I did and she was great...really wobbly, but correcting herself as she went, I think she could have taken more, but when she got to me, she was reaching out for me to catch her and fell into my arms...how exciting and awesome is that! Praise God!!!!

Mia weighed in at 21 pounds 7 ounces today, yay! Praise God! So excited that she's finally moved up the scale. Hopefully we'll be able to retain the weight and keep moving forward. We have started giving her more corn oil with each meal, so that small change might be making the difference. And I have noticed her occasionally eating better, not consistently, but at least once a day she does eat better. So yay, we'll take it!

Away

I got to go away this weekend to a woman's retreat with our church. Daddy was a brave soul and took care of Mia while I got away (he did get a little help from Grampa and Nana), but I do commend him because I signed him up to take Mia to a birthday party on Saturday with people he had no clue who they were. Anyway, they had a great time and here are some pictures to prove it...no, those are not fake nails or fingernail polish...you have to look very close, they are heart stickers. :)




Today we went to LA to see Mia's intestinal surgeon. He is super pleased with how everything looks and now we don't have to see him quite so often, which is a huge praise because the less driving to LA, the better!

Since we went to LA Mia didn't get weighed, so I'll do that tomorrow and post how she's doing.

LA Again

Yesterday Mia and I made our first trip to LA alone. We went for a family funeral and I didn't know how we'd do, but surprisingly, the trip went really well. I had bought a holder to attach to the back of the car seat for the portable DVD player...that was a life saver. After watching several Baby Einstein movies and too many to count Elmo's world, we safely arrived and she was happier than ever. On the way home she napped part of the way and watched DVD's the rest of the way. I'm not sure how parents survived before DVD players, but it was huge for us. My hat goes off to single parents who do this all the time because it was a long day to say the least, but I'm grateful that everything went well and it was really nice to see family who we hadn't seen in awhile, many of them pray for Mia all the time and so they got to see her for the first time. Funerals aren't easy, but we rejoice that my cousin is in heaven and we'll get to see him again some day.

Happy St Patty's Day!

Our first official "Piggy Tails". We think she's pretty cute.

Holding

So Mia weighed in at 21 pounds 3 ounces again. It is this wall we just cannot seem to break through. I am happy that we didn't lose weight, but I'd love to move forward, so pray for wisdom and good eating.

Best News Ever!

So we finally heard back about Mia's EEG results and they were NORMAL! Praise God, there was nothing abnormal about them. The last time there were some slight abnormal parts, but this time everything was fine. So we are going to decrease her Keppra (antiseizure medicine). Pray that it would go smoothly. This is huge, it would be awesome to eventually not be on this medicine, this is a big first step. Thank you God!!!!

Today we went to LA to see Mia's current skull doctor, one from Children's Hospital LA. We initially saw him after her surgery because there was talk of maybe another surgery and we wanted a second opinion. Well, we ultimately decided not to do that and today he told us that he thought we made a very good decision, her head looks great, you can't even notice the tiny drop down that is left, her hairs covers it. So, the plan is to see him once a year and then at the age of 5 or 6 decide if she needs any minor cosmetic surgery. It made us happy to see how he agreed that her head looks great now. He said there is still time for more skull growth and by the time she is 5 or 6, the tiny drop down might be completely gone. Anyway, Praise God for such an awesome report! Plus we like when we don't have to see doctors quite so frequently.

Here's looking forward to springing forward tomorrow.

Peanut and More...

I've been super busy and haven't had a chance to blog, but yesterday I went to the doctor and had a check-up with Peanut. Peanut is doing great, we listened to the heartbeat again, which just always awes me. I then got my second round of blood work done. I was told that I won't find out the results until we go back for my next appointment, the first week of April...of which, the specialist will do my ultrasound then. So, please be praying that Peanut is healthy and that we hear lots of good news then.

Mia continues to do really great and loves her Alpha-Bits, I'm excited to try a few more ideas that some of you have shared with me and I'm really hoping that this coming week she weighs more. This morning a local radio station (kduv fm) was doing this thing called "The Family Name Game" where if you have a child with the name they announce, you can call in and talk to them about it. Well, some friends gave us a heads up yesterday that Mia's name was going to be the one for today, so I called in and was so excited when he said he was going to put us on the air. It was fun to just be able to share with others how God continues to heal our little miracle and what a testimony to Him that is. I haven't actually heard it, but they are sending us a copy in a week, so that will be fun to put in the baby book. :)

Praise God for everything He continues to do in Mia's life!!!

I love all the alphabet suggestions, thank you! Whoever knew there were so many pre-made letters out there. I have to say, the Alpha-Bits cereal are still a huge success, she tends to eat a lot more with them and loves finding matching letters. So, I will have to find some more and do some letter things here for her.

Mia got weighed today and she is 21 pounds 3 ounces, so still the same, but I'm really hoping for a change this coming week in the positive direction.

Mia's physical therapist thinks she is really close to walking, but just not quite there. Today she actually wanted to push her shopping cart all around the kitchen, which she usually isn't interested in touching at all. I do see her making progress with her left leg, but I'm not so certain we are "really" close to walking, but I think we are getting there.

Mia has also been "talking" quite a bit more. She can say each of the sounds of her name separately, so we are working on blending those together, it would be awesome if she could say her name. She's also taken a huge interest in learning more signs and is getting a little better at some of them, so we are still encouraging her in that area because it is a form of communication. I like that her new speech therapist has taken a balanced approach to that and works on both signs and sounds with her.

Alpha Bits

I've been looking everywhere for Alpha Bits cereal, but I haven't been able to find it. I figured it would be a big hit with Mia since she likes letters so much. Well, today at school, one of the Aides had found a box at a grocery store and bought it for Mia. She was so excited. So, at lunch we had some Alpha Bits...I've never seen my daughter eat so much. She couldn't get enough of those letters. We also mixed in some normal food, but she was happy to keep munching on those letters. I have no clue if this will be a one time hit or something that she likes more long term, we'll see. By the way, she does like Spaghetti O's that are letters too, if only every food came shaped like a letter? Hmmm....

New Shoes!

Mia's Grandma got her these new shoes yesterday and I couldn't resist a picture, they are too cute...maybe they have them in adult sizes? The girl has style, between her Grandma and her Nana, she's the best dressed kid around. She liked her new shoes, she kept pointing at them and when we went to school today another little girl in class (who also wears such cute shoes all the time) noticed Mia's shoes right away. She liked them. :)

Praise God for Progress!

Mia has been doing so well at therapy with her fine motor skills. Today we looked at some new goals for her since she's mastered her previous ones, well, it looks like she is at her age or ahead of her age in all of her fine motor skills! How awesome is that! Praise God! In fact, in her writing skills, she's at an age of 3 1/2 years, which is awesome. She is still behind on some occupational skills, like taking her pants off, putting shirts on, and zipping, so those are going to be our new goals for the next few months. Her OT was telling me how Mia is just "so smart" and "learns so quickly". It's so encouraging to see her doing so well, thank you God.

I also weighed her today and she is still at 21 pounds 3 ounces, so please continue to pray for weight gain and wisdom with what to feed this girl. Some days are good days and some aren't, so pray that God would give us patience also.

Thanks for being so faithful to pray!!!!