Our Little Puppy

Sorry for the lack of posts! We have been busy moving into our new house, starting speech therapy for Mia, and with Jeremy studying for his boards! Here are some pictures from the halloween weekend. Our little Mia loved dressing up and carried her plastic pumpkin pail for about 3 days after Halloween. She would gather rocks, toys, and even her shoes to put into the pumpkin!

Happy 1st Birthday, Baby Girl!!

My baby is one! This post is a little delayed because we were in Virginia visiting family for a few weeks and Jeremy just started his new job. Life has been eventful in the Chou household!
Here are some pictures from Mia's birthday party and some recent pictures of our big girl walking!

Highs and Lows...

Highs: Mia's walking!!! She's been taking a few steps here and there, but about 3 days ago, she started to take 10 steps. She's been walking across the room and down the hallway, but she still prefers to crawl. She'll only walk around when she's happy and full.

Lows: Mia's allergic to milk and peanuts and possibly eggs. I just couldn't help but cry on the way home from the doctors office. I know that this is not a life threatening diagnosis and that this is just another thing we'll have to adjust to, but I was just sad for Mia and overwhelmed. I've had students in the past who have had severe peanut allergies and it felt like it affected every aspect of their life. They couldn't participate in classroom birthday parties when parents brought cupcakes in, they couldn't go eat at certain restaurants...I know Mia will have to one day deal with issues surrounding her cleft and I just didn't want there to be another thing for her to deal with.

These will be the things that will make her stronger. She'll have to learn to be more vocal and learn how to one day answer questions about her food allergies and her cleft to those around her. We want to raise her to be someone who is strong, stands up for herself, and knows that she is amazingly unique, wonderful, adored, and beautiful!

There is a chance that she may grow out of these allergies which is something we are desperately praying for. In the mean time I will have to adjust my cooking and baking and find Mia a super cool lunchbox to take her food around in. =) If you have any yummy dairy free, nut free recipes, please feel free to send them our way!

Happy 11 months, Baby Mia!!!

Well, I guess she's not a baby anymore! She's 11 months old today!! Some times I find myself becoming a little bit sad about the fact that she's growing up so fast and becoming so independent. Jeremy and I talk constantly about the fact that our love for her just grows and grows everyday. Everyday her beautiful and humorous personality shines and we can't help but smile and laugh all throughout the day.



















Here are some new and exciting things about this amazing little girl:
-Stands all by herself and has been taking 1-2 steps here an there.
-LOVES her stuffed animals...she smothers them with her kisses!
-Her favorite activity is taking things out: taking daddy's socks out of his sock drawer, taking ALL 100 ziplock bags out of the box, taking all the books out of the basket. She does know how to put things back yet. We clearly know where she's been in the house by the piles she leaves.
-Starting to vocalize words. She bangs her highchair table and yells "MO!MO!MO!" when she obviously wants more food.
-Loves to sit on the counter and brush her teeth!
-LOVES to read books. She'll pull a book towards me and backwards park her cute little behind into my nap so that I can read her the SAME book over and over again.
-Loves looking at pictures of animals. I think we're going to have to get her a dog. She LOVES animals and she squeals whenever she sees one.

There are many more quirky things she does, but we can't believe how fast she's growing and how amazing she is!

My Baby...The light of my life!!

I wake up to this beautiful baby every morning! I love every moment of being her mommy. I can't believe that she's 10 months old tomorrow and we're planning her first birthday already! Here are some new and amazing things about Mia:

-She LOVES that pink blankey. Even when I take her out of her crib in the morning, she reaches for her blankey and carries it around for the first 20 minutes of the day. It's the first thing she looks for when I lay her down for a nap or for the night.
-She has an amazingly bright and happy personality. She only whines when she is hungry or tired...Just like mommy.
-Her new favorite foods: Lentils, whole wheat orzo, sweet potato and blueberry pancakes with applesauce spread on it...She still LOVES avocado and picks out all the avocado pieces on her plate.
-She loves to play hide and seek and follow me around the house looking for me.
-She LOVES music & dancing especially Justin Bieber, hip hop music, and gospel music.
-Knows exactly where in my purse I keep her snack cup. If I put my purse on the ground, she rummages until she finds her cup!
-Crawls and cruises EVERYWHERE! We call her spider man!
-Can stand without holding on to anything for about 20 seconds!!!
-Loves to clap and imitate us.
-Such a chatterbox: she babbles and talks ALL day long.
-Has separation anxiety at times.
-Ate half an ant at church one day.
-Becomes more and more beautiful every day!

9 month stats!

Isn't she the cutest thing alive??!! We went in for our 9 month appointment today and I was so excited because I thought we didn't have to do any shots, but forgetful mommy forgot to schedule her booster shots after her last flu shots so she had to get those today. She was not happy about it. She also got her first eye exam. They put wires on her (ok...I totally forget the medical word. I'm the worst doctor's wife!) and then put a patch on one eye and they made her look at a screen that flashed different pictures. The nurse said that most kids cry, but Mia just danced to the music the whole time. She's got some serious rhythm!

Here are her stats and things she likes to do now...I'm so sad that she's growing up so fast!
-Weight: 18 pounds 12 ounces (50th Percentile)
-Height: 28.5 inches (82nd percentile)
-Head circumference: 17.1 (36th percentile) still small just like her daddy's head =)

-Dashes around the whole house crawling!
-Stands up and pulls up on EVERYTHING! She had pulled herself up using the trashcan and was digging through the trash today while I was unloading the laundry.
-Starting to push her car walker around
-LOVES playing with the springy things behind doors
-Babbles all day and all night (yes, she's been waking up in the middle of the night to babble and stand in her crib)
-DANCES to all music especially things with a beat. At music class the teacher put on "all the single ladies" and she was not only moving her body, but dipping her shoulders from side to side! She definitely does not get that rhythm thing from her parents.
-When we take away something she's playing because she's not supposed to have it or if we move her somewhere, she sits and collapses her whole body and throws a mini tantrum.
-Eats everything!! She's tooo quick and has the best fine motor skills. Here are some of the non edible things we know that she's consumed (we watch her like a hawk and vacuum constantly, but she's too quick!) dustballs, sand, grass, leaves, a piece of green onion that fell on the floor when I was cooking (her breath smelled like onion!), pieces of paper and receipts, lint, pieces of tissues.
-loves to laugh, smile.
-sings along with music (she just goes ahhhhhhhhhhh)
-Bangs on her high chair tray if I don't give her more food or if i'm preparing it too slowly.

My little baby is growing up too fast!

Eating sand and Shamu

We got back from our mini-vacation to Orlando, FL about 2 weeks. I can't believe how well Mia did on the 14 hour round trip adventure. She slept, ate, played with her toys, sucked on her toes and did a great job in the car. She slept amazingly during the trip and we had a blast!

Seaworld, lobster buffet, Cocoa Beach, Beard Papa's cream puffs, dinner and church with friends...What a restful family vacation. Here are some of our favorite pictures.

Mia's crawling!!

Time to babyproof the house!! So this week was quite an eventful week. Mia started the week by waking up at night every 5-10 minutes from rolling over in her crib (Something she did a few times at 6 months then forgot about). The next day she had been practicing rolling the other way so that night, she spent the WHOLE night rolling back and forth from tummy to back, back to tummy. I was starting to get worried! Will she not sleep through the night again? I was completely exhausted!

Then Mia start crawling backwards and getting from tummy position, to sitting position. The very next day, she started to crawl! She just decided that she was sick of sitting in one position.

Today I was on the computer for a sec and turned around to find Mia completely standing up and holding on to her toy basket! Then she decided to cruise around her leap frog table today...

WHEW! I'm exhausted just thinking about this week!

MUST have baby Items!!!

I was reading a blog today and it stated these ten things that you don't need:
1. Diaper Pail
2. Glider
3. Changing Table
4.Crib Bedding Set
5. Nursery Paint and Decor
6. Monitor
7. Diaper Stacker and Diaper Warmer
8. Bassinet
9. Brand New Layette
10. Toys

I agree with some of these things, but totally disagree with others.
Here's my list of things we couldn't live without!
1. Diaper pail!!! Have you smelled what solid food poop smells like?!! I love my daughter more than anything in this world, but the smell of that makes me gag! We LOVE the diaper champ because you don't have to open a lid and you can use normal trash bags without having to buy special bags like you do for the diaper genie.

2. Boppy Pillow: I used it for feeding Mia, she slept in it for a while because she had mild reflux and it elevated her head, and when she was learning to sit, it helped to prop her up. A total MUST!

3. Changing table: Have you tried lifting a 18 pound baby from the floor? I can't imagine the blowouts that would have stained other surfaces if we didn't having a changing table! I think it's a great idea to use a dresser with a changing pad on top. Whatever it is...it's so much easier changing them on a higher surface than on the ground!

4. Monitor: We have a small condo, but I still want to know when she wakes up...When Mia wakes up in the morning, she quietly coos and plays in her crib. Being the deep sleeper I am, that poor baby would be in her crib forever if I didn't have a monitor!

5. Baby Bathtub: I know some people think that they can just wash their babies in the sink or in the bathtub, but I feel like that's just not safe. Mia loves to lounge, put her feet up on the side of the tub and enjoy her bath. She likes to sit up and splash around. We have the euro tub and we LOVE it. It has a side where she can lay down and a side where you can sit up.

6. Glider or Rocking Chair: We have a huge comfy and trendy looking rocking chair that I got an AWESOME deal on. That's where I feed Mia every night and read her her bible stories and books before bedtime. That's where I rock her and hold her when she's having a bad night. So many memories are made in that chair...

7. MIRACLE BLANKET!!! I can't repeat this enough! GOOO GET ONE! Mia got to a point around 4 weeks old when she would bust out of her normal swaddles and for a while this was ok because she liked to sleep with her hands by her face. After a while her hands would startle her and wake her up CONSTANTLY. This made for difficult sleepless nights. I got the miracle blanket and at first she HATED it, but after a few times she started to calm down when she saw the blanket. It really helped her sleep. She used it after her first surgery and we didn't having to use her arm restraints when she was sleeping.

8. Shoulder Sling & Sleepy wrap: Mia loved being close and being held. She was a pretty sleep deprived and fussy baby. For the first 3 months she lived in the shoulder sling that my friend Min got me and when she outgrew that, I used the sleepy wrap. This is how she napped, how I got house work done, and what we used to calm her when she was out and about.

9. Breast Pump: I have a love hate relationship with my pump...I love it because it has sustained Mia for the past 8 months of her life, but I hate it because I am completely attached to it. I used to pump every 3 hours around the clock!! Can you imagine?!!! I've pumped in church parking lots, in the car, at friend's houses, at the hospital during Mia's surgeries. I'm proud that I've made it 8 months...only 4 more months to go to meet my goal of breastfeeding her for a year!

10. A hip trendy diaper bag! I know...You'd be appalled if you heard what I spent on my diaper bag, but I love it. It's by purse, it's my carry-all. For the time that I have small children, this will be the bag I carry everyday so I felt like it was an investment. I wanted something I loved. I have a Mia Bossi bag and I adore it!

11. Halo Sleep Sacks: The Fleece ones are amazing and warm. I put Mia in a sleeper and zip her up. I don't have to worry about a blanket getting tangled around her. Although she now loves to sleep with a soft blanket by her face. She scrunches her blanky with her hands and holds it by her face.

Spring Consignment Sale Season!!

Atlanta has amazing consignment sales for baby and kids products. Twice a year, churches around Atlanta host these consignment sales and I pick up amazing deals for Mia! The bargain hunter in my jumps with happiness!! Here are some of today's deals:

Leapfrog Learn & Groove Musical Table:
Original price $40
I GOT IT FOR $4!!!!

Playskool Step and ride:
Original Price $30
I GOT IT FOR $5

White Burberry Dress: $8!!

Gap Stripped Leggings: $1

Carter's Brown Plaid Romper: $3

I LOVE CONSIGNMENT SALES! We're going to hit up another one tomorrow because Saturday's are always 50% off.

Teething Woes...

Teething has started...Well, it actually started a while ago, but we had no idea. I guess I can kiss good-bye to Mia sleeping through the night! For the past week, Mia was sleeping from 6:30pm-6:30 am straight...

We visited the plastic surgeon for a follow-up to her palate surgery and when he looked in her mouth, he surprisingly informed us that Mia had a big old tooth! Most kids get their first tooth on the bottom, but our little Mia has a canine tooth to the left of her cleft!

Today she woke up with a mild fever and has been cranky and clingy all day. As soon as her feet touch her playmat or her jumperoo she starts to cry because she just wants to be held. She's become so active and independent that when she lays her head on my shoulder quietly playing with my hair, I know she's REALLY not feeling well. She hasn't been feeding really well too and is refusing her favorite gerber puffs and avocado pieces...She cries when the bottle goes in her mouth.

I hope this is teething and not something else...We'll see.

Valentine's Day

My wonderful day started with my husband waking up before going to work to make me a wonderful breakfast in bed...A huge breakfast including Mimosas & blueberry pancakes. We don't have a breakfast tray so he brought it to me on Mia's highchair tray...hahah. Pretty smart, huh?



















Then I got to spend the rest of the day with my beautiful daughter! This was her Valentine's Day outfit for church!


















Here's her Valentine's Day t-shirt. It says "My heart belongs to dad"

It was also Chinese New Year's so I made Jeremy a late dinner of steamed fish, honey walnut shrimp, and beef broccoli. I had a lovely day with my two loves!!

Adventures in Eating...

(This is what happened when Mia tried to feed herself)

Mia's daily menu has been increasing dramatically during that past month. Here's what her eating schedule looks like:

7:30am: 6 ounce bottle
9:00am: Breakfast- Fruit. Bananas (not if she's constipated!), pears, apple sauce, or prunes.
11:30am 5 ounce bottle
1:00pm: Lunch-Veggie. Avocado, sweet potatoes, peas, butternut squash, or carrots.
3:00pm: 6 ounce bottle
4:30pm Dinner-Pureed chicken with carrots and apples. I'm sorry, but pureed meat smells like cat food and has the most awful texture!!!
6:30pm 7 ounce bedtime bottle

Our freezer has more food for Mia than it does for us!!
She's started to eat Gerber puffs too! She's working on her pincher grasp, but sometimes the puff gets stuck in her palm and she forgets it's still there!

I feel like I spend the whole day feeding her!!

Snow...

We've been talking to our family up in Maryland and Virginia and hearing about all the snow!! Everyone's snowed in and unable to get out. I LOVE being snowed in. They yummy food you eat all day, the lazy naps, sitting in front of the fireplace drinking coffee...We're supposed to get some snow in Georgia the next few days...We'll see!! Too bad Jeremy has to work...

Here are some pictures of Mia from our visits to Virginia in Nov. & Dec. There were 2 storms while we were there!!! She was NOT happy about being out in the cold with wet stuff falling all over her face! The second picture is Mia sitting on Grandma's car...If we sat her up on the ground, she would have sunk!

6 month Stats

My baby's growing up!! Technically she's almost 7 months, but we had to push back her 6 month check-up until she was fully recovered from her palate surgery. She endured one oral vaccine (she spat half of it out on to my face while she was crying) and 4 shots including the flu shot and the H1N1 shot. Poor baby! Mia did great afterwards though. No fever or fussiness.

Weight: 17 lbs 6 ounces, 68 percentile (This is after losing weight after her surgery!)
Height: 26.2 inches, 53th percentile
Head Circumference: 16.6, 32 percentile (She takes after her dad's small head...this is an improvement from when she was born...her head was in the 5th percentile then!)

New things Mia's doing:
-Sits up all by herself! No pillows needed!
-Pulls up to standing by grabbing the laundry basket, my shirt collar when I'm sitting, and my pant legs!
-Gets on to her knees and hands then plops on her belly.
-Eats 3 meals a day of solids. Oddly she LOVES the combination of prunes, papaya, and avocado (we have to give her prunes because she's been constipated since she started eating solids more frequently). She hates peas...I have to hide it in her sweet potatoes, but she still manages to figure it out and spit it out.
-Started to grab finger foods with her palm...They don't actually make it to her mouth yet because she squashes the crap out of it!
-Screams and shakes her head when she doesn't want something
-Can stay in the church nursery without crying! Last week they had 12 girls and 1 boy in the 5-8 month room! CRAZY! Poor boy!
-Starting music classes in March!

I love this place!!

I looove this place!! This place is going to be trouble for me when we start furnishing the house we do not have yet...hahah!

http://www.furniturewithasoul.com/store.php?location=buckhead

My Future Hobby

Since we've decided to lay roots here in Atlanta for a while, we've been thinking about buying a house. Thinking about buying a house obviously led me to thinking about furniture....I love a lot of the furniture that we already have which has clean lines and very neutral colors, but I'm getting tired of all the dark wood. I've always loved asian antiques and mixing a little bit of the shabby chic rustic look with the more clean lined modern look. Plus: I LOVE CRAIGSLIST!!! Half of the things in our house are great finds from craigslist!

My next hobby will be redoing old furniture! I've already asked Jeremy for a electric sander for my birthday present! Crazy...but I love the idea of taking old, cheap finds and revamping them into something beautiful!! Here are some of the things that have inspired me...

Work Smarter, Not Harder!!

"Work Smarter, Not Harder" is our baby Mia's motto that Jeremy uses to describe our Mia these days!

In attempts to encourage crawling or some sort of mobility, I decided to place a circle of toys around her just out of her reach. Mia sat there looking at the toys for a second. She then tried to reach for the toys that had tags sticking out. When she decided that they were still too far, she sat there for a moment and then figured out an ingenious way to get to them!!!

She tugged on the sheet that the toys were sitting on and pulled the sheet closer to her. When the toys were close enough to her, she proceeded to STUFF them in her mouth.

Finally rolling over!!!

Mia has been doing great!! Her eating is back to normal and when she eats, it's amazing to hear the sucking sounds she makes when she eats now. I think we may try to use some regular nipples after she's all healed. I know it may be a bit late to be introducing her to a totally new bottle now, but I feel like it'd be great to build suction to help with her speech development. Her palate looks amazing! It looks like a fully developed palate. She still has white stitches that have yet to dissolve, but it looks amazing! It's a wonder what doctors can do these days!

So...Mia is finally rolling over. Problem: I've never actually seen her in the act. Our little Mia is a sly little one. I've been COMPLETELY obsessing over her rolling since she was 4 months old. No matter what I tried, she refused to roll. She'd get sooo close then not go through all the way. She's been sitting up since she was 4.5 months so I know that there are some things that she's way ahead in, but rolling was something that looked like it would never happened. Everyone assured me that it's normal and that some kids just never roll and they just skip to sitting and crawling.

Yesterday, while Mia was napping, I all the sudden heard a frantic cry! I walked into her room and from the door of her room, I saw a foot sticking up. How can this be possible? Mia sleeps on her tummy. When I looked in her crib, she was sideways in her crib belly up!!! She was so surprised, she woke herself up from her nap and was crying! I was laughing so hard!

However, this is not so fun. She flipped over in the middle of the night and during today's nap and keeps waking up! Hopefully, she'll learn to roll herself back. She looks like a turtle that has been flipped on it's shell!

Too bad I've never seen her do this and she refuses to do it when I place her on the floor!

It's good to be home!!

We're back at home! Mia was drinking about an average of 2 ounces every 2 hours and was able to take oral pain meds so they let us go home! We won't have minded staying there another day if Mia needed the morphine, but it's hard being in a crapped hospital room. It makes me really thankful that we were able to leave so soon. There are many kids on the surgical floor who are there for weeks at a time.

Mia tries to suck her bottle because she's hungry, but ends up crying because it still hurts. We are just squeezing milk into her mouth and she swallows. She's definitely handling the pain meds better than she was at 3 months. She tries to play and coo and is taking 2 hour naps in between. She has been kind of maintaining her normal schedule.

Mia is definitely a fighter!! Our surgeon said that he wants to do another surgery in about 9 months to touch up her lip and some of the scarring under her nose...I guess we just have to take things step by step!

Out of Surgery...Houdini!

Thanks for everyone's thoughts and prayers!

Mia is now out of her palate surgery and in the recovery room. Jeremy is holding her right now as she rests. Mia went into surgery around 10am and came out around noon. Dr. Burstein told us that everything well very well! They basically closed her soft palate and the muscles towards the back of her mouth. Her breathing is a little bit labored because she has to get used to breathing with a closed palate and because things are a little swollen, but she's doing well.

Mia has officially been dubbed as "Houdini" by the hospital staff because she once again attempted to escape from her IV that was placed into her right ankle. Last surgery we had major problems because she had kicked out her IV and wasn't able to get pain meds for the first 4-5 hours post- surgery. When meeting with the doctor beforehand, we had warned them about securing the IV and taping it really well so that she didn't kick it out. This time she almost did it again!! She tried to wiggle her toe into the place where they inserted her IV and almost succeeded in kicking it off. Everyone is on high alert to always check Mia's IV line...=)

Mia is receiving morphine every 2 hours and if her pain management and intake of fluids is good we can go home tomorrow, but we're in no hurry to go home...we want to make sure that she's comfortable and able to manage the pain on oral pain meds.

We'll continue to keep you guys updated!!

Mia says "Hello"

This was taken a few weeks ago when we were visiting grandparents in Virginia...
See if you can hear her say "Hello"
(ok...maybe I'm just hearing things!)

Nerves...

Mia's new thing is waking up in the middle of the night to just talk and play. She hasn't been waking up crying, but I'll hear her through the monitor or from the living room. If I leave her alone sometimes she'll fall back asleep and sometimes she'll realize that she's hungry after being up and playing for 30 minutes.

I just finished feeding her and am out in the living room. I know I should be sleeping, but I can't help but be nervous about Monday morning. My sweet sunshiney girl has no idea that Monday is going to be a pretty hard day for her.

The timeline for palate surgeries varies greatly from surgeon to surgeon. We've heard of some doctors who won't do surgeries until a child is off the bottle and able to drink out of a cup so that a bottle will not hinder the healing process of the palate. Our surgeon believes that earlier is better so that speech development will not be affected. Mia coos, screeches, and even growls all day, but has yet to babble (dada, mama, baba) probably because her palate is still open. Hopefully, her speech will start to really take off after her surgery. We're just hoping for the best.

Even before Mia was born, I had always wanted to teach my children baby sign. Just in case Mia has a speech delay, we've started baby sign with her. Right now we're just doing things like more, milk, all done, bath (her FAVORITE time of the day!) and although she's too young to sign back, I think she's starting to recognize some signs. She starts waving her arms and legs when I do the sign for milk! =)

Please pray for a speedy recovery that is infection free! We may be in the hospital a night or even two nights depending on Mia's feeding and pain management. Feeding was rough last surgery for about a week especially since she refused to take the bottle and the pain meds were an appetite suppressant. We're hoping that fistulas (holes in the palate) do not develop so that we won't have to have further surgeries on her palate.

Thanks for your prayers and support! Hopefully, Mia will be out and about for play dates soon! We can't wait to recover and start music classes soon too!! =)

Here's our beautiful Mia giggling...(too bad it's not in HD, it was taken from our camera not our video camera)

No more orange boogers!! Palate surgery...

Mia is almost 6 months!! Time flies! My little cuddly girl who lived in my baby sling is now a big independent 6 month old who always wants to be sitting, playing and sleeping by herself. Even when I try to cuddle her, she tries to inch away...=(

At her ENT appointment last week, she weighed in at 17 lbs. and 8 ounces!!! (Well, she was fully dressed and had a full diaper!) We're also happy to report that her ear are fluid free and she has passed all her hearing tests after having her tubes put in! YAY!

Our palate surgery will taking place on Monday, January 11th. Of course, I'm a total wreck this week. I can't help but be worried after all the complication we had at her last surgery, but it's comforting to know that hardships pass...All we can do is pray and know that everything is really out of our hands.

Good news is that Mia will no longer have green and orange spewing out of her nose...=)














We've had quite the adventure with solid foods! Although Mia LOVES avocados and sweet potatoes, she was not a happy camper when they were stuck in her nose! Because her palate is not closed, food often goes through her nasal cavity and out through her nose. We would all have to run and duck for cover when we knew she was going to sneeze while eating...=) I have many shirts that have been stained by sweet potatoes.

We fall more and more in love with our little girl everyday. She continually amazes us with her bright spirit and her spunky personality. We'll hopefully be hearing her first babbling words after her surgery...hmm...should we take bets...will she be saying "mama" first or "dada"?

Please keep Mia in your prayers...We're hoping to keep her healthy before her surgery and praying for a healthy, quick, infection-free recovery!