Ba Ba Ba

We have another talker in the house. He says, Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba...we aren't quite sure what it means, but we sure love how it sounds.

More Speech Please!

Mia has just started to blossom with her speech, it is amazing! Her Great Grandma Ginny (who went to be with the Lord a few years ago) had sewn this neat pocket ABC chart for Laura, when she was a little kid. There is something that represents each pocket in the chart, so for A, there is an apple and for B, a boy. Mia loves this toy and will spend hours going through the alphabet. And whenever we are in the car, we have to go through the alphabet and she tells me what each letter is. I've seen so much improvement already, she went from saying "oy" to "boy". Her "mouse" is so good and so are so many other words she says. It is so neat to see her speech continuing to improve. We are able to understand her so much better and she will smile when she says something and I actually am able to repeat what she says. We still have a ways to go, but the progress is so encouraging. So, thank you for praying!!!! We are grateful!!! Praise God!!!!!

So we've been very busy with family, which is great, but it doesn't leave much time for blogging. :) So a quick update, Mia is doing well, her speech continues to improve, almost daily, it's amazing. A miracle. She loves to go outside and is so distraught when we go back in. Today after speech therapy, Grandma promised her a walk in the neighborhood. She was so excited and I said that maybe Calvin and I would join them on the walk. Well, they started off ahead of us as I got Calvin ready for the walk, we then caught up to them at the end of the block. When Mia saw us she was so upset, there were quite a few words that came out of her mouth and I understood the gist of it as she said...blah blah blah, Mama, blah blah, Alvin, blah blah blah...and pointed "home" for us. She didn't want to share her walk with us, she wanted us to go home. She eventually was ok with it, but it made me smile, the girl knows what she wants.

Calvin is doing great too, he now can get quite a few places by rolling, but still prefers being held. If I walk into the room he gives me a huge smile and of course then fusses and gets upset if I walk away without getting him. He tried cantaloupe the other night and loved it. And today we had some success with mushed bananas.

Happy 7 Months Calvin! (1 day early...)

I can't believe Calvin will be 7 months tomorrow. He's changed so much in the past month it's been neat to watch. He now rolls over consistently and can almost sit on his own. I can see him so desperately wanting to crawl when something is out of reach, I know that will happen fairly soon. He screeches less these days and babbles much more, that is a very nice change! He loves to be in his jumper or in his walker, I think he just really likes to be upright mostly. He's learning how to eat finger foods, absolutely hates any type of mushy food (I did try a few on him). One of his favorite things to eat is toasted bread. He's tried apple, carrot, banana, rice crackers, and bread...He likes to eat, so I don't think we'll have any problems with him later on.

So, this month we made some major changes with his sleeping routines. Our nights were getting worse and worse, he went from sleeping 5-6 hour stretches back to 1-2. It was almost worse than when he was a baby, if that's even possible. I kept thinking he would sort it out, but he didn't. After talking with our new pediatrician and reading many sleep books, we decided to change a few things. We started a bedtime routine where it didn't end in me nursing him to sleep. So now he gets a bottle and nursing time an hour before bed, then 20 minutes before bed we go into his room and calm things down, he gets a diaper change, a tiny massage, and a little bit of holding while we sing quietly to him and tell him it's night time. He's then put in his crib totally awake with a blue blankie and he'll fall right to sleep. He cried the first few nights we did it, but now he doesn't cry at all, just falls straight to sleep AND he sleeps so much better at night, we are back to our 5-6 hour stretches. We then did some changes for nap time, but he just can't seem to sleep past 30-45 minutes, so we are working on a nap routine now and also trying to get his naps on a consistent schedule. We are hoping that things will change in a few weeks here.

The little guy keeps getting bigger, the last time I checked he was 16 pounds 8 ounces, I'm sure he is heavier now. Anyway, here are a few pictures of our cutie pie.

Madera

Yesterday we ventured to Children's Hospital Madera. We are becoming very familiar with all the Children's Hospitals in our region. The GI doctor who follows Mia has moved from UCLA up there to head their GI division. So, up to Madera we went. The first thing I LOVED about Children's Hospital Madera is that the parking is FREE! Every time we go to UCLA we pay them $11 and that can add up quickly. Even Children's Hospital LA doesn't charge us that much for parking...but that's another story for another day. It was like driving into Disneyland when we got there. The hospital kind of looks castleish and there are all of these bushes sculpted into animals and shapes. It was really neat. The second thing I really liked about Madera was there wasn't any traffic to deal with on the way there. It took the exact amount of time it said it was going to take to get there, that was nice. Overall, my first impressions were very nice.

So, we met with a dietician and she suggested some other studies for Mia to have done, one of them being an emptying study. Maybe she's not emptying food out of her tummy at the rate we all do and so that's why she doesn't always have a desire to eat much. And we are also going to look for some silent reflux at the same time of the next study. Hopefully we'll do these in the next couple of weeks, but we are waiting to hear back from them.

After that, we did Mia's anal study to see if she could feel pressure down below. Praise God for great news, she can!!! And the GI doctor said that the amount she feels, she should be able to potty train. She is slightly less sensitive than you and I are, but it's not enough that she won't be able to potty train. That was such great news. Now the question is to figure out why she only goes a little bit at a time so frequently. He had some concerns about her sphincter being very narrow and so he wanted to discuss it with her GI surgeon at UCLA. We need to schedule an appt to see him soon anyway, so we can discuss that with him also.



After that, we came home and got to spend some time with Tim, Rachel and Joy. The two cousins (Mia and Joy) had so much fun together. After dinner, they were chasing each other up and down the hallway screaming. It was neat to see them get along so well.

Encouraged

I am always so humbled and encouraged when I hear of people who continue to pray for Mia. It's been almost 3 years now and people all over continue to lift her up in prayer. Today at church, one of our ushers told Brad how he has started a prayer journal that lists everyone he prays for and the first person on the list is Mia. He says that his prayer for her is complete healing. It made me teary to think of how faithful others are to pray for her. God has used her in an amazing way and I know that He will continue to do so, I believe that He can still heal her completely, nothing is impossible with God. I'm so glad we've been able to blog this journey because sometimes I wonder, did that really happen, and then I look back at Mia's journey and I am so amazed at how far she has come.

Forever grateful to all of you who pray and to a Father in heaven who hears those prayers and has graciously answered yes to many of them.

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling...

We have a roller who is very proud of himself as he moves throughout the room. Of course he doesn't like getting stuck under the couch. This happened once and hopefully he's learned from it. He also has started to enjoy his walker as it gets him places too.

I found out that Mia gets teary every time they go out to play because they go down the same ramp that I pick her up at and when they are getting their jackets on she says, "mama, mama", and they have to tell her "not now, in a little bit.". Makes my mama heart a little sad.

I also found out that several boys really like Mia, one in particular who was also in her previous class at her other school. He gets so excited when we get to school and says, Mia! Apparently he tries to hold her hand at school, Daddy's a bit concerned. :)

We've switched to a new pediatrician and I'm very happy so far. We saw her regarding Mia's breathing treatments and she'd like to try a few different things first before doing more breathing treatments since it looks like her cough is allergy related, not asthma. We are holding off doing anything because we are seeing an allergist Monday and she would like to hear his opinion also.

Mia continues to speak more and more, thank you God. She can now say "out" very clearly. And I notice her saying the correct consonant at ends of words, like "hat or boot", which she used to leave off. We are working on beginning consonant sounds too, but she's improving which is so wonderful!

Getting Bigger

Mia and Calvin both got weighed today. Mia is now just a few ounces shy of 25 pounds, which is a number we have never seen before! Praise God! I guess the boost in calories with a little bit of cream is what she needs right now. Calvin weighed in at 16 pounds 5 ounces. Calvin has started rolling. Of course he won't do it for the camera, but at other times he rolls all over the place. And he's pretty close to sitting on his own, but still not quite there.

Mia's speech has been getting so much better, thank you God! I hear her pronunciation getting closer with so many different words, we've still got a ways to go, but I know your prayers are working, so thank you for praying for her speech! Please keep praying!

I scheduled Mia for an appointment to see a local allergist, we have her on these breathing treatments per her pediatrician's request. Her pediatrician says it is an allergy problem, so it hit me that maybe she should see an allergist to see if that's the best treatment for her. So that will be happening in the next few weeks.

We were in LA today seeing Mia's Orthopaedist. He's been monitoring her feet and hips. She had an xray of her hips done and there hasn't been any change since the last one a year ago. Basically her bones aren't completely in the sockets because her muscles are weak. His hope is that as she gets stronger, the muscles will pull in the bone appropriately. If that doesn't happen, then there is a potential for surgery down the road to correct it. We are just going to wait and see. Same with her feet, as she gets stronger, the hope is that their positioning will self correct. Again, we just have to wait and see.

Lisa's friend Rachel (from England) was in LA for work and so after our visit we had lunch with her. It was really nice to catch up on our short visit.