Mia, two years and three months

Every day Mia steals a bigger piece of my heart. Just when I think she has it all, she does something so endearing, I can feel my love for her grow even larger. She is just so sweet, so funny, and so smart. I'm always saying to her, "Mommy loves a silly girl" or "Mommy loves a smart girl" to encourage those behaviors in her. Some Mia moments from the past couple weeks:

• She is all about her big girl underwear these days. Although we don't have many accidents, we still use diapers at nap time and for bed, and Mia does not like it. She does not want to wear her diaper anymore. She's big now. So we've compromised by putting her underwear over top of her diapers, and this makes her happy.
• Bedtime has become a circus. I attribute it to her awareness that it's still light outside, because she has always done well with her routine until this past month or so. We still do her bath, brush her teeth and dry her hair, read two books and rock a little. But now, once I put her in her bed, it still may be almost an hour before she falls asleep. At first she was hollering for us the entire time, but now she's starting to understand that she can read in bed or play for awhile until she winds down. I know what you're thinking: move her bedtime to later. Well, we tried that, and it still took an hour or even an hour and a half for her to wind down. So we'll keep plugging away at it.
• While the potty training is going well, we've had some "trying" moments. The few times she has had an accident, she freaked out and didn't want us to change her. I've tried to reassure her that she doesn't need to be embarrassed, that it's okay, that we'll make it there next time, etc. but she screams, flails around, and is basically hysterical for like 20 minutes or so. It's awful because we have to clean her up, so we're wrestling with a hysterical child, trying to get poopy and pee-pee covered clothes off her. One time I was trying to clean the poop off her and she stuck both of her hands in her butt crack, screaming at me to leave her alone. So then she escapes me and takes off running, her poo-covered hands causing mass destruction in their wake. I really don't know what to do in those situations.
• Two other times she has peed on purpose. On Memorial Day we were outside playing at Aunt Pat's and I noticed she was holding herself. I took her to the potty and she freaked out, I guess because I interrupted her playing. I put her on the potty but she arched her back, pushed herself off the toilet, and screamed over and over. I finally gave up and went to get a diaper. When I walked back in she was standing on the bath mat, peeing. I told her that was bad, that we didn't pee on bath mats, only on potties. I try not to associate potty training with punishment, but that was deliberate. The next night she did something similar, taking off her diaper in her bed and peeing on her sheet, blanket and pillow because she didn't want to go to bed. What do I do there?? I actually didn't say anything, I was so furious. I just got her out, changed her and cleaned her up, put her back in bed and left.
• Most of the time though, she is very funny and often has me in deep belly laughs. She answers her play telephone, very rapidly saying, "This is Mia Robbins. Can't talk right now, I'm eating dinner. Talk to you later. Okay? Bye bye. This is Mia Robbins."
• She makes up her own songs to the tune of Frere Jacques. There is "I like Cheerios", "I have crayons", and my favorite, "I love Mommy".
• She remembers who gave her which outfits. So as I put on her clothes in the morning she may say, "Baby Macee gave me this shirt" or "This was Chloe's".
• Mia is really into characters right now. We didn't let her watch much TV before she was two, so she's just now getting into movies and TV characters. She loves Shrek, Ariel, Woody and "Buzz Buzz", and her FAVORITE is Jake Sully from Avatar. No, she hasn't seen the whole movie, but enough that she loves Jake Sully.
• She is still very into her babies, and is always carrying one around with her. Last night I went in to check on her after she was in bed and she had spread out a small receiving blanket and was laying Elmo on it. She wrapped him up, pulled him to her and started shushing him really softly. Then she handed him to me and said, "Hold Elmo Mommy, he's crying." So I held him to me and she starts using this really soothing voice, "It's okay Elmo. Mommy hold you. Here, have a bottle" and she put her sippy cup up to his mouth. Oh, she is adorable.
• She continues to be a little fish in the water. She can swim all the way across the pool and back using her cube, and is doing really well with her seated diving. She scares me because she goes under whether we're looking directly at her or not. I can look away for a fraction of a second and I hear her say "1, 2, 3 go!" and she pushes herself under, looking up at me with a big toothy grin from underwater. I've had nightmares that she drowns with a big smile on her face. She's so fearless!
• Mia is afraid of thunder and lightening, and woke up to the storms this morning. When storms are around, she only wants her daddy to soothe her. Mike slept with her on the couch for a few hours this morning. When they got up, Mia crept into my bedroom. She walked over to the bed and said in her little high-pitched voice, "C'mon Mommy. Get up. Hold my hand. C'mon, let's get up" and she took her little hand in mine and led me to her little breakfast table and chairs. We sat there together and had breakfast and watched Mickey Mouse.

Fertility update

Mike and I met with our reproductive endocrinologist last week to discuss less expensive options than increasing the shot dosage, which we discussed last time. Considering we have been able to get pregnant twice with no medication assistance, and twice with Clomid, we were extremely disappointed that the extreme (and expensive) measures we took in March and April did not result in a pregnancy. We thought we'd at least get pregnant then have to worry about keeping it, as we did before. He informed us that there is a drug we can use called Femara, which is similar to Clomid but does not negatively effect the uterine lining and gets out of your system faster than Clomid. That prescription will just cost a couple hundred dollars, so it gives us something to try that's more reasonably priced. We will try this one or more times this year, then we can do the shots again in January if need be, once we get more flex-spending dollars. In addition to the Femara I will take a baby aspirin and my pre-natal vitamins each day, then wear estrogen patches and use progesterone supplements once I ovulate. Please keep saying those prayers for us!

Growing girl

These past few weeks have been crazy. I have had two events at work that have consumed my time and energy. Derby has come and gone. And we have welcomed a new baby girl to our family. Miss Ramsey was born! I was so afraid I would be unable to get up to see her due to the chaos at work, but it turns out she was extremely accommodating and selected to arrive on a day that worked out just perfectly with my work schedule. Miss Mia cannot wait to see Baby Ramsey and asks about her almost every day. Of course she already did the same thing with Cara, so it comes as no surprise.

In addition to all the other exciting happenings, Miss Mia began to express interest in going on the potty. So, what the heck, we added potty training to the mix last week! We started on Monday, taking numerous outfits and pairs of panties to daycare in case of accidents (Mom got her tons of Dora, Tinkerbell, Hello Kitty, etc. panties that she was super excited to wear). She did very well all week with her peeing. She never had an accident, and was very proud to receive a Skittle each time she successfully went pee-pee. But she was very reluctant to poop on the potty and had accidents every day up until Friday. We put on diapers at night and continued the training all weekend. So far, she has had no accidents at all this weekend, including poops. We are so proud of her! It's funny how she's trying to work the system now though. She spreads out her pees so she can get more Skittles. She claims to have to go every 15 minutes or so and then wants a Skittle. She's one smart cookie!

I don't know if she's teething or just has a virus or what, but we've been giving her Motrin almost daily for weeks. If we don't, she gets really fussy and clingy. At one point she told Mike her mouth hurt, but I don't see where there would be any more room for more teeth to come in. Maybe they are just shifting around in her mouth or something. I hate to medicate her like that, but I also don't want her to hurt. I know she's also growing, so maybe that's it too. I've decided not to even buy 3T outfits for her. Her waist is so small I can do 2T shorts and I'll just get 4 T clothes when I need something new!

She has definitely had some funny moments lately. I got a pedicure for Mother's Day and while she was sitting on the potty she noticed my new polish. She pointed down at my feet and said, "Oh Mommy, I really like your toes!" Another night I put new froggy pajamas on her just before bed. I was telling her they were new and she grabbed the shorts from me, held them up and exclaimed, "Oh! They are so cute!" She is so girly!!! She loves to walk around the house in my platform heels, holding her baby in one arm, her purse slung over the other arm, pushing her sunglasses up on top of her head.

She can also be sensitive though. She's like her Mommy and Daddy in that regard. She does not like to be scolded. She tries to distract us if we scold her, by kissing and hugging us and by saying she's sorry very quickly to try and move us on. If it's something more serious and we use a louder tone or punish her, it hurts her feelings and embarrasses her. We have to be sure to reinforce how much we love her after we tell her why she can't do whatever it was that got her scolded in the first place.

She is doing amazing in her swim lessons. She is pretty fearless and is jumping in like a pro, turning around under water and swimming back to the side of the pool. Now we just play around a lot, with me throwing her up in the air, letting her go under and pulling her up as she makes her way back up to the top. Last week she even swam all the way across the pool by herself with just the cube on her back. She's getting there! I want to feel confident that if she fell in, she could at least get herself enough air to hold her until we could get to her.

Birthday Part Deux

This morning Mia announced to her Mamaw that it was her birthday. At Walmart she told everyone it was her birthday, she had Mamaw get cupcakes to celebrate, and when they got home, we all sang "Happy Birthday" to her. When we got into bed tonight she was softly singing happy birthday to herself. I asked her if she had a wonderful birthday and she said she did. She makes me smile.

She gets funnier by the day. Last week she went up to her Nana and said, "You need to change my diaper." Then she goes and grabs a diaper, climbs up on the bed and lays down waiting for Sue!

On another day, Mike was playing with Mia's hair. She said, "Don't touch-a my hair. It's so pretty." She pops off stuff like this all the time!

She's expressing a little more interest in going on the potty. She told us three times today she needed to go, and actually went two of the three.

She's all about her boo-boos these days, and thinks she needs a band-aid for everything. I've started carrying them in my purse because they can be a great distraction for her. Like at the store yesterday, it was way past nap time and she was getting fussy at checkout. I cut off that melt-down really quickly by reminding her of a small scrape she had gotten on her belly earlier and asking if she needed a caterpillar band-aid for it. Instant smile. Score for Mommy.

Silly Mia

I haven't written in ages, not because there hasn't been much going on though. Our laptop wasn't working for awhile, so that hindered things. Also, we were trying again for another baby. It's hard not to share every detail of that process, because it's so all-consuming. So I end up not blogging at all.

I began 100 IU Follistim shots in my stomach on March 19. I went in every couple days for an ultrasound. My eggs "ripened" quickly so the following Thursday, March 25, I was given a trigger shot, then the next day we went in for artificial insemination (Mike's sperm was cleansed and inserted via catheter). I had four eggs ready to be fertilized. The purpose of doing the shots and getting so many eggs ready is that, with my history of miscarriages, if I lose one or two, I will still have one or two left. I began progesterone supplements, in addition to the daily prenatals and baby aspirin. Fourteen days later I took a pregnancy test and it was negative. I began bleeding that day, and an ultrasound showed my uterine lining had been too thin to support a pregnancy.

Of course I was devastated, but somewhat relieved to have a possible reason for my trouble. Clomid thins the uterine lining, so if my lining is thin anyway, then that could have been the reason I lost the previous two pregnancies. The doc said next time I will wear an estrogen patch and we'll increase my Follistim dosage to 150 IU and do the shots a few more days to thicken the lining. Of course that will increase my likelihood of multiples. Also, it will increase the cost. This last round was over $1000, so who knows how much more this one will be. So right now we're waiting until I get past some upcoming events at work and trying to determine when we can do it financially.

Thank God I have Mia! She is amazing - funny, smart and truly the light of my life. She makes me belly laugh over and over each week. When she sees how hard I'm laughing it eggs her on and she just acts even more silly, talking in voices and making dramatic gestures with her head and hands - but she's able to keep a straight face. I swear, once she's old enough I'm getting her into acting classes!

The other day she wanted a drink of my coffee. I told her coffee was yucky and she wouldn't like it. She tilts her head to the side, shaking it as though I have no clue and says in a very serious, knowing whisper, "I like it. Coffee's so good." She also does silly things like put her jacket on Grace and talk about how pretty she is. The other day I put pigtails in Mia's hair. She looked at herself in the mirror and says, "Oh...I have two pigtails! I look soooo pretty." But her tone and mannerisms are almost tongue-in-cheek!

She's very opinionated about her wardrobe, particularly about her shoes, and often wants to wear her brown dress shoes, regardless of the outfit. She likes to pick out her clothes and put them on herself. She actually does very well a lot of the time. Of course she takes them off almost as soon as we get them on her. We still put onesies on her as often as we can, because she also thinks it's fun to take off her diaper, particularly when she poops. She thinks she's being a big helper, bringing us her poopy diaper to throw away.

She goes on the potty on occasion, but still doesn't have much interest. We don't push it at all. I'll ask her if she wants to go with me when I go, and if she does great, if not, I don't mention it again. To be honest, I'm not really looking forward to all that butt wiping when she is potty trained!

Mia is doing great with her counting. She can count to 15, but for some reason always skips right past 5! It makes us laugh because no matter how much we try to get her to add in 5 she just ignores us. It's almost like she realizes we want her to say it and thinks she's funny by skipping it. She's a handful! She knows her colors and knows many of them in Spanish as well as English. They are learning to spell their colors in the songs they sing, but I'm not sure she gets what she's doing when she spells them.

We've started thinking about where we want to send her to school and we're very intrigued by Highlands Latin School. We've contacted them for more information and want to go on a tour. Their curriculum is based on traditional Latin education. It's also a Christian school and they teach classical music, art, literature and Greek. They have grades K-12, are in the 99th percentile in testing and 100% of their high school graduates receive at least one academic scholarship. Oh, and they only go to school 4 days a week and they're cheaper than Catholic schools. What???!!! So we're going to check them out.

I have tons of pictures to post, but I can't find my cord to connect to the computer. Hopefully I'll find it before her next birthday!

Transitions

Miss Mia has transitioned to her new daycare room with ease. She loves her friends, her teachers and all the fun activities they do each day. They have a theme for the week (e.g. the ocean) and then all their artwork, songs, books, colors, games, numbers, etc. tie to that theme. She is having a blast! They sent home flashcards for us to use as practice for the things they are learning at school. They are laminated pieces of construction paper shaped like crayons in various colors. On one side they have the English and Spanish name of the color and on the back they have created a song to teach the kids how to spell the color. The songs are to the tune of familiar songs like Bingo and Row Your Boat. Mia loves them, as she does any type of flashcard. She also started going on the big potty in her new room, although she is not yet potty trained. All the kids sit on the potty at the same times each day to get them in the routine. I can’t tell you how happy I am with her daycare. There is no way she would receive this much socialization and education if I were home with her, no matter how much I would enjoy the time with her. I’m grateful everyday that we found a place that makes her so happy and keeps us so reassured.

We’ve had fun with our girl this week. The weather has turned nice on us (finally!) and we took her to the park. She loves to slide and climb the wall on the gym set but she does not like to swing at all, even with Mommy or Daddy. We have also taken walks with her since it’s warmed up and she still enjoys those, although she doesn’t like to sit in the stroller for as long as she used to. She prefers Mommy “hold you”. She also spent some time riding the motorized car she got from Santa. She’s quite the little driver!

Mia had her two-year check-up on Monday and she’s still growing like a weed. She weighs 28.8 pounds (75%), is 36 inches tall (95%) and her head is 19 inches (75%). Her iron is still a little low so we’ll continue to supplement with a daily vitamin, but otherwise she’s doing great.

I had a couple of rough days this week, missing my girl while I’m away from her. She is crazy about her daddy but is kind of a mama’s girl. She likes me to hold her and rock her and is always saying “’Mon Mommy”. She often cries when she has to leave me in the morning. For that matter, she cries outside the door when I go to the bathroom! Something about the expression on her face as Mike carried her to the car the other morning just tore me up inside. I could tell she was on the verge of crying so I quickly shut the door so she could transition into the ride to school, but thinking about the expression on her face made me cry instead. I miss her so much when I’m away from her. She’s growing up so quickly and I want to hold on to every moment. Of course I get tired and overwhelmed as any mother does, but I also see the joy in every day because I know I won’t always have this time with her. I’m already fearful of those days when she’ll be out on her own and no one will be protecting her every moment. I get anxious just thinking about anything happening to her. Mia’s smile lights me up on the inside and I know I worry only because I love her so much. But without question, being her mother is amazing and an incredible blessing greater than I ever could have imagined and well worth a couple days of worry now and then.

Happy 2nd Birthday Mia!

Mia had a wonderful 2nd birthday! The evening prior, we met Granny and Grumpy at Red Robin for dinner and she got her picture taken with Red Robin himself! She also walked around the mall with Granny and Grumpy and threw pennies in the fountain. When we got home that night, I told her the story of her birth, a tradition Mom started with Missy and me. I rocked her to sleep that night, treasuring every moment of her still being my baby girl.

On Mia’s birthday morning, I actually had to be at work before she even got up, so Daddy made breakfast for her and took cookies to school for all her friends to enjoy. Cara called and sang Mia “Happy Birthday” and she got email wishes from her family and friends. That night, Nana, Papa, Mamaw, Papaw and Uncle Chris came over for pizza. Mia got fun toys like puzzles and painting supplies that she just loved! She dove face-first into her ice cream cake and gave us all many laughs! After we got ready for bed and read books, I recapped her day. We talked about all the fun things she did, all her visitors, the toys she got, eating cake, etc. I asked her what her favorite part of her birthday was. She thought about it for a second and said, “Chris.” She loves her uncle!

On Saturday we got her pictures made. She really did not want to sit still, but surprisingly we got a few good shots anyway. That night was Nana and Papa's 60th birthday party. Mia had a great time hanging with her cousin Cara. On Sunday was the girls' own birthday party. Elmo made a special appearance, but was met with mixed reviews. We all played ring around the rosie in the front yard. Afterward Mia invited Elmo in for cake, but Cara was not having that at all. So Elmo said his good-byes. Maybe he'll make a return visit next year.

Last Sunday Mia had her final swim lesson of this session. Uncle Charlie came to watch her and she did a great job of showing off for him. We practiced dropping her into the water and waiting for her to rise to the top. She does a great job with that, so she will head to the advanced classes in March.

Mia started transitioning to the young two-year old room yesterday at daycare. They have an older two-year old room as well, but they try to keep them as close together in age as possible. She will potty train in this room and she is surrounded by many friends from her previous rooms. Of course it's only her second day and I've already received a call from her new teacher. Apparently Mia was trying to impress her new friends today in art class and demonstrated how to paint her mouth.

She loves to wear her grandmas’ glasses and I have pictures of her in each of their glasses at various times. She puts them on and then tries to walk around the house. She lifts her feet up really high because her depth perception is so off. She also takes off all her clothes now, including her diaper, and runs around the house giggling and smacking her bottom, yelling, “booty”. She also refers to her chest as her “booties”.

Mia is into bedtime manipulation if she’s not completely tired, or if our routine is not followed. She has many weapons in her arsenal that can prolong sleep. She has
Scratch my back
Blankie
Milk
Water
Hold you
Rocky

These may be used in conjunction with one another or they may stand alone. When used one at a time, bedtime may go on forever. Daddy is much more susceptible to bedtime manipulation than mommy, so last night we worked as a team and used the clock to guide our trips to her room. We decided to wait 5 minutes in between visits. It was a great technique and after 15 minutes she was asleep.

Mia has a great memory and can associate places and objects with people. For example, when I get off the freeway near Dad’s, Mia will say “Nana and Papa”. When we drive into Anchorage she’ll say “Mamaw” and when we pass Bowman Field she says “Granny”. She knows from the landscape when we’re near their houses. When she plays with her pink purse she’ll say Kelly, because Aunt Kelly got that for her. And last week when I gave her one of her baby pictures to put in her purse, she called it Baby Macee. Macee is Margo’s little girl, and we hung out with them a couple times last month. Over the weekend Mia named one of her dolls Baby Macee and has been carrying around Baby Macee ever since.

Mia has so many cute little sayings and voices now, and I never seem to remember to write everything down before I forget it. But her favorite song of the moment is “Baby Bumblebee”, which she sings in voices like her Papa taught her. She likes to spell and say her name, “M-I-A, Mia” and she counts to four a lot. She also wants to do everything “again”. She has a ticklish spot on her neck that makes her squeal if I kiss it just right. She’ll laugh and scream “no, no Mommy”, putting her finger up by her mouth and wagging it at me. Then as soon as I’m done she’ll tilt her neck toward me and say “again”. It melts my heart when she says, “C’mon Mommy” and takes me to her toy room to play. I can sit in the bean bag and just watch her for hours. She jabbers away and makes me laugh with her silliness. I am so in love with my girl. Happy Birthday Mia!