Post Placement Visit

So after having a "birth mother emergency" our second post placement visit was delayed until Friday afternoon. The visit went fine. It is funny how this time around is so different than last time. I used to get so nervous before the post placement visit but not anymore. I guess I am more confident as a mommy this time. Our social worker is also very laid back and it is really like talking to an old friend. The kids of course were both kind of whiny because it was right smack in the middle of Mia's nap time and Aiden well he just wanted our attention. I finally just told the social worker that it was Mia's nap time and she saw her and she is all in one piece so I can I just lay her down now. She laughed and said of course. So, after I put Mia to sleep and found Tom and Jerry for Aiden everything was fine. We have to wait 30 days between visits for our last post placement visit and then we will be able to finalize. We will be able to take care of everything here in Mississippi and Mia should be officially ours by February.

No News Yet

Well no movement on the house yet. We had a Realtor Open House last week and we once again got great feed back. I think after the holidays things might start picking up. People keep telling us that the market is improving here and that we are in a good area and price point so that is encouraging.

In other news, Mia seems to be feeling much better. Her constant cold and cough are gone as well as all the drainage. She has started sleeping through the night finally. We have our next post placement visit scheduled on Thursday. We will have our last visit in January and then we will finalize the adoption. Our social worker has assured us that is all can be done while we are still here in Mississippi.

Someone was just asking me what was the thing I liked least about living in Mississippi. Aside from it being so far away from our family and friends, I don't like the fact that there really are no seasons. It goes from Spring to Summer. Then last weekend we were surprised to wake up to snow. We bundled the kids up and went out to enjoy it knowing it wouldn't last long. Aiden made some snow angels and two tiny snowmen. Then we had a snowball fight. Mia wasn't as impressed with it. She hated her mittens and didn't like the fact that it was hard to walk on. It was nice to have a little winter though even if it didn't last - today is 70 degrees outside!

House Is on the Market

Well it is official sign and all. We are hoping to have this house sold by this Spring. The real estate agent feels that the market hasn't been hit here too bad and people are still buying and selling especially in our price range. We are really hoping to have this place sold and be in our new place in Virginia before Aiden starts school in September. We shall see.

As for the latest Mia health saga, we had our three week check up with our ENT last week. Unfortunately, Mia is not doing any better since the tubes. The doctor gave us more drops as well as an oral antibiotic hoping that this will get the rest of the fluid and infection out. He did say that if she is no better by her six month check up in April we might want to consider removing her Adenoid. Despite it all, Mia continues to amaze us. She is really such a joy to have around. She is just so much fun. Aiden is really starting to enjoy having her around now that they can actually play tag and stuff. Also, Mia has started to finally say a couple more words. She says "all done, hello, bye-bye, Aiden and dog." She also sings the melody to Patty-cake, Itsy Bitsy Spider and Elmo's World - replacing the words for "da." So despite her ever present runny nose, cough and ear infection she remains happy and active.

Got Tubes????

Well after battling ear infections since she arrived home with us, it was recommended that Mia get tubes inserted in both ears. It was quite a whirlwind week last week. We took Mia to the doctor on Monday with a cold and we were referred to a pediatric ENT. We met with Dr. Carron of UMC on Tuesday and he definitely recommended tubes for Mia. The procedure was scheduled for Thursday at 6 am. Tubes were put in and Mia did great. She is now on the mend and back to her crazy little self.

Eric also accepted a position with CNA Insurance. The position will be bringing us back to the Richmond, VA area. We are so happy to be able to go back to Richmond and be with our family again. We worked very hard this weekend getting the outside of our house in ship-shape for selling and this week I will be working on the inside of the house. Eric begins his new position on December 1st, however, we will be staying here until our house sells. We are hoping to be able to move to Virginia sometime this Spring.

Sickness

Well Aiden got some type of virus and has been sick for the last 3 weeks off and on. Just when we think he is better, we get calls from school that he is sick and needs to be picked up. Poor kid. He was tested for the flu and the test came back negative but I wonder how accurate it was. Anyway, taking care of a sick 4 year old and a 1 year old that gets into EVERYTHING I have had no time to update our blog. Also, I don't have all that much to report because all I have been dealing with is bodily fluids that no one wants to hear about anyway.

Mia has been home for 3 months now and is doing great. She went from wobbly walking to running circles around me in the matter of days it seems. She also gets into everything like I said. She loves to get into our cabinets and pull everything out. Just when you have one mess cleaned up, she has done something else. So needless to say she certainly has us on our toes. She still hasn't really said any real words yet except for baby blabber. And she has not gotten any more teeth yet - she only has 4. As far as the sleeping goes it has gotten much better. Most nights she sleeps from 9 until 7 and takes one short nap in the morning and a two hour nap in the afternoon. I find that if I let her sleep any longer in the afternoons that is when we run into issues of her getting up in the middle of the night and not wanting to go back to sleep. She also loves going to the nursery at the gym which is great. She has so much fun in there sometimes it takes me awhile to get her to leave. Mia has become a huge fan of daddy as well. But she really does not go to anyone else unless they have an interesting piece of jewelery on. She will smile at people but she does not want them to hold her. Her favorite game right now is tag. The entire time she is making monster noises. Aiden is having a lot of fun with her now that they can actually play with each other. He also is very protective of her which is funny to see. He is a great big brother.

In the moments of wellness we took the kids the State Fair. They had a blast. What a difference from two years ago when we couldn't get Aiden to ride anything. This time he even rode on the little roller coaster and the whole family rode the big Ferris Wheel. The kids played the ducky game in which everyone gets a prize. But I think everyone had the best time in the petting zoo where they even had a huge but very friendly camel. Mia loved feeding the goats especially which were more at her level. Aiden also got to go to the pumpkin patch with his class. It was his first time riding the big yellow school bus which I think he was actually more excited about then the actual trip.

Official 1 Year Appointment

We were able to get our official 1 year check up on Friday. Mia is doing well. She weighed 20.6 lbs and is 29 inches long - in the 30th percentile on the growth charts. She got 2 immunizations and handled them like a champ. No more heart murmur heard but she does STILL have an ear infection. We are on oral and drop antibiotics and if it is not cleared up we are off to the ENT. Sleeping is still an issue. She is down to getting up once a night for a bottle. The doctor encouraged me to try to bring her a bottle of water instead of milk. She said that she may be getting up because she knows she will get some sweet milk - I guess she has me trained - lol! I tried that for the first time last night. She didn't seem two upset about the water and drank a little of it and than pushed it away and I rocked her back to sleep in about 50 minutes. I will try it again tonight and see what happens. She is still not saying much of anything. She is constantly babbling but doesn't really say any words. She does like to point her little finger at things and wants to know the what they are and watches our lips very closely as we tell her what the object is.

Unfortunately, our state has been hit hard with the flu and our doctor's office is out of vaccinations at this time. Aiden has a fever of 102.9 right now. The doctor told us that we should bring him in if his fever continues tomorrow and they will test him for the flu - great! Oh well what can you do.

We went to the Ole Miss/Alabama game this weekend. Alabama won big time but we had a good time. It was nice to have it a little cooler outside this time if only it weren't so muddy. Mia ate the entire time - I guess she has the tailgating thing down - lol!

Watch Out World

We have a walker on our hands! Miss Mia started full out walking on Saturday. She kind of looks like Frankenstein holding her little hands out in front and tottering around. She is pretty quick on her feet and does some pretty smooth turns and everything. Yup she is keeping us pretty busy getting into everything - tee hee.