She can pull to stand! Praise God! She just did it 3 times without my help, it's a big struggle, but she can do it! On that note, we hope you have a happy weekend!!!

One More Thing

We went to LA today to see an orthopaedic surgeon because Mia walks and stands on the inside of her feet. She has been doing this for awhile and her physical therapist has always told us that as she builds muscle strength in her legs and ankles, she won't do this anymore. Well, since there are so many other things going on with Mia, we thought it would be good just to get an expert to look at her feet and make sure she's ok. We saw him today and he checked her out and confirmed what our physical therapist has been telling us, she doesn't need braces on her feet...but...yup, one more thing...he was concerned about her hips and after getting an xray told us she needs a hip brace. The good news is she only has to sleep in it, the bad news is she has to sleep in it. Apparently, they are not comfortable and kids don't particularily like them. :( So, your hip is a ball and joint, her ball isn't fitting properly into the joint, it's slipping slightly out of it and that's because her muscles are weak there. The chances of this correcting on its own are 85%. With her wearing the hip brace it gets moved up to 98%. So, we will do this for 3-4 months and then recheck to see her progress. Pray for an easy transition to sleeping in this brace and pray for more leg strength.

I asked him what kind of shoes are better for her, structured or soft, and he said the best shoe is no shoe. They have done studies and found no benefit to either type of shoe, he said they are strictly cosmetic and you should only wear them if necessary. In fact, they've studied kids from Africa who have grown up never wearing a shoe at all and their feet are better formed and have less problems then ours. Interesting huh?!

On a side note, Mia has stopped talking altogether, she no longer says mama or baba, so will you please pray that we would get those sounds back. Thanks!

The Nursery

So, we finally decided we are ready to put Mia in the nursery at church. We don't have any surgeries for awhile and we are done with the exams under anesthesia, so it seems like she is ready to be around kids, she might get sick occassionally, but that's what happens when little kids are together.

So, we went to first service and stopped in to the "crawlers" group. Technically Mia is too old for the crawlers, but developmentally she's not ready for the "toddler" group since they are walking. The staff was ok with that, so we settled her in and then left. She was very happy to be playing in the nursery, they have cool toys and lots of barnyard animals, she loves the animals. They gave us a pager and said they would beep us if they had any problems. I was slightly teary eyed as we left because this is a big step for me, the mommy, I'm sure it's not such a big deal for Mia. Brad reassured me it was gonna be ok and off to church we went. I'd say we had been there only 10 minutes or so when our pager buzzed us, and off I went to find out what was wrong with my baby. Was she scared? Hurt? What could it be? Well not at all what I was expecting, she had just thrown up all over herself and on the floor, the nursery staff was frantic, does she have the flu? I tried to reassure them that she wasn't anywhere near sick when I dropped her off, but I'm not sure why she threw up. I felt horrible! Our first nursery experience! I guess it's one for the baby book. So, we will try again next week. :)

***update*** so, Mia is definitely not sick, she's been fine all day long, the only thing I can think of is that we fed her just before church and maybe her tummy was just a little too full. :(

Mia is doing very well with me stretching her. Right now it is pretty simple and not too painful for her because we are on a tiny number, but that's good because I want her to get used to it and be comfortable with me stretching her. So, I'm encouraged that it should go smoothly for the next couple of months. Thank you for praying!

We are on our way home from LA. Everything went great at our doctor visit and we now get to start stretching Mia. Her surgeon wants to ease her into it, so we will stay on the same size for about 2 weeks. If this is too much information, then just ignore, but the tool is a given diameter, we are starting at 7mm, and every time we go up, it will be by 1mm. The goal is to get her to about 13mm, and you usually go up 1mm each week, but he's taking it a bit slower with her. So, it should take us a couple of months to get there. You can actually feel her muscles working a bit when you insert the tool, so that is a good sign, pray that she learns how to control those muscles.

Yesterday at therapy, Mia pulled to stand all by herself 1 time! Praise God, how awesome is that. Her therapist was so impressed with how much improvement there was over the last 4 days. Keep praying for more leg strength. It's so neat to see her progress and how she keeps doing better and better.