Mississippi Mia Takes on Oregon

Week 1 of Mia is complete.  The hand-off went better than expected as has our transition here in Oregon.   Mia kept us laughing and loving her for over an hour in the truck on the way home from the Airport as we fully comprehended she was really here, after all the anxious anticipation and preparation...then she slept for the final 2.5 hours home.

Our biggest challenges as a family is remembering that there's a baby in the house.  Our boys are the youngest and totally not accustomed to being somewhat quiet and just bust into rooms talking loudly and that usually surprises Mia awake.  At first we thought she would never sleep a full stretch of time before getting woke up.
Mia was on marathon awake mode for about four days -never sleeping more than 1 hour during the day and 4 hours at night at a time.  At day five, the East/West coast time adjustment hit her and she decided sleep was ok.  She has since slept all night -going to sleep at 8:00 and only fussing once around 4:00 am and sleeping until 7:00 - 7:30 each night.  She plays for a few hours after morning bath and naps around 10:00 a.m.   She sometimes dozes off for 1/2 hour or so in the afternoon and the boys play hard with her in the evenings.
Mia has been to high school basketball games - she prefers the sound of Pep Band to dribbling basketball and immediately finds the mascot to introduce herself to.  The wrestling tournament was exciting to watch until a dad in the crowd decided to coach his boy very loudly in the audience behind us and Mia thought he was mad at her.  After getting over being offended and upset, she realized that it's totally ok to yell and clap at these events and not to take it personally.  She visited Grandmas Seminary class one day to meet the kids, has helped Grandma in the office a few times - mostly to help redecorate and clean off all flat surfaces for us.
We took her to a feedlot to check cattle and when pointing to cows and saying "MOO" over and over for inspiration, we realized she wanted to watch the small Chihuahua dog following us along as security.  She did get to help grandpa drive the truck and helped back the trailer into a pen to unload some calves we hauled there.
Her birthday was a bit uneventful because it was on the day of Scott's final basketball game being played 6 hours away at 3:00.  We spent that day on the road.

She loves meeting other small people her size and always steals their pacifier, even though she has NO interest in hers. She is about 50/50 on regular milk and cows milk now.  We hope to have that change complete in 4 weeks.  We hope to have her totally not waking up at night and her to have a larger vocabulary. She never - hardly ever crawls anymore, choosing walking everywhere and running if she thinks I'm chasing her like she's done something bad.  Pretty cute!

All the boys adore her and she loves them but she seems to be drawn to Scott the most. Only half of the clothes she has fit her, but that's ok,  her closets are full in Mississippi and she will be there before we know it. FaceTime and Google Hangouts are a part of her life and she enjoys them as long as they don't interfere with her games and business.

She's adorable and we all are loving this experience totally. This week is super busy, and we'll see how she does when she meets some new family members and tries now foods.

Elaine

Happy Birthday Mia

Today is Mia's first birthday. She weighs about 21lbs, has 6 teeth, prefers walking, and loves to smile. She is such a sweet little girl and Zed and I are excited that we're at the halfway point and get our little girl back soon. 

Enjoy the pictures!

Uncle Dallen (brother number 3 in the line up)

(Eating French fries)

(Inside the cabinet)

(Mia got a Raggedy Anne doll, cowgirl style, from Granny (my maternal grandmother))

Halfway There

Not only are we halfway through the separation from Mia! but I am also halfway through pregnancy.

 20wks with Mia

 20ks with Baby #2

The Handoff

A final note from the Maryland grandparents.

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Well, the handoff has been successfully made from the east Coast to the West Coast grandparents.  The day started at 3 AM.  We woke up Mia who was silly and smiley and glad to be up in the middle of the night.  Mia set out on her journey with her granny and great granny, one last playing of Barney in the Honda DVD player.  She stayed wide awake the entire time.  She arrived at BWI Baltimore, MD at 5:15 and got checked in for her cross country flight.

Arriving to the gate we found the flight delayed due to an emergency with the flight attendant.  As we waited for the new flight attendant to come, the next flight became impossible to connect to.  We took an 8 hour day and turned it into 18 for this little girl.   Mia was unplussed by the delay.  Mia delighted the audience around her by talking, toddling around, and being quite the animated 1 year old.  She kept many frustrated people happier with her joy.

Finally at 900 we boarded the plane for Salt Lake City Utah - a 4.5 hour flight with 1 Mia, 1 large diaper bag and 2 book bags and 2 grandmas. The looks on everyones faces said it all....Will this be "that screaming kid?" Mia was so good, until she realized the young man on our row had a laptop.  She scrambled over both grandmas to get to the computer.  We caught her at the pass, but she continued to eye the computer for the remainder of the trip.  She was tired, she cried, fell asleep, woke back up, played patty cake, ate cheerios, dried fruit, drank water...and all along the pile of leftovers fell on the floor.  She smiled at the kids on the seat in front of us, smiled at the business men behind us and made many new friends.  As we left the plane we apologized profusely for the large pile of leftovers on the floor, smashed into the floor by a 1 year old who held it together for a long flight.

For the afternoon we enjoyed the large empty areas of the airport to watch Mia practice walking.  For a child who came to Maryland able to take one step and babbled a little, we traveled west with a little girl who can walk and walk and walk and DOES SHE TALK!  She loves to copy sounds, sometimes sings, and babbles babbles babbles.  She is great at Patty Cake and loves to lift her arms as we say SOOO BIG! She does itsy bitsy spider and hugs anyone who sings Barney's I LOVE YOU song.  For 2 hours she walked, talked to people, would attempt to run to strangers before we caught her, looked for cell phones she could take from unsuspecting people.  She brought smiles to everyone she interacted with and had a great afternoon.  After all that exercise she fell asleep for about an hour on a blanket on the floor.

Finally at 5:15 MT we got onto the final flight for the day, off to meet Grandma and Grandpa Davies.  For the 1 hour flight she was delightful.  She hugged and hugged and hugged.  Smiled at everyone and loved the trip.  We couldn't have asked for a better good bye.  For a little girl who had minimal sleep all day, she stayed happy and silly and loved on her grandmas.  Thank you Mia, we needed that.

The reunion with her grandparents was wonderful.  There were tears all around, but the joy on Mia's grandparents faces said it all... we cannot wait to love on you for the next 5 weeks.  So as we handed off diaper bags, clothes, leftover bags of Cheerios and goldfish, bottles, wipes, and more STUFF than any of the adults. Mia smiled and was fascinated with yet another new experience.  She got to the truck and didn't look back.  She's a forward thinker, loves to learn, and is soon to run circles around her parents.

We are excited to see the new adventures Mia gets to have on a ranch with lots of uncles and a grandma and grandpa who cannot wait to spoil her.  Mia, you made out lives special for the past month.  Enjoy round two.  We love you. Enjoy a wonderful 1st Birthday this week!

PS.  This trip would not have been so enjoyable without the love, support and aid of Great Grandma Fiddler, 70 years old, goes to the gym 4 times a week, and lifted Mia, bags, backpacks without a single stop. She walked fast, she rocked Mia, she kept the trip on track.  You are my hero and I am glad that Mia got to know how wonderful  you are.

-Kathy

Zed's. New Plane

6 months to go! Tonight Zed found out that he will be moving on to the T-1. This will put him into the cargo and refueling aircraft once training is complete. For the next 6 months he will be learning about the T-1 and the crew concept. In mid to late July he will find out what his official AF aircraft will be. In August he will graduate and he'll start specialized training anytime from September to November.

Mia Update

Mia - Week 3

Week three brought an entirely new Mia to Allen, MD.  Without the itch of eczema Mia slept well, ate well and played even better.  She learned Patty Cake and can often be found sitting amongst the toys in the room clapping her hands. She talks incessantly, sounds very smart in what she is saying, if only we knew her language.  She is also “toddling” everywhere.  No longer is crawling her first choice - With a cool new pair of sneakers she has some traction to get anywhere she wants.  Granny was thinking she was not getting enough exercise, but running after a mobile toddler is enough exercise for even the most active athlete!

Her BFF continues to be Libby.  Libby sits beside Mia at all times awaiting the morsels lovingly thrown at her from all angles.  Its a match made in heaven for a dirty house.  Libby is partial to Cheerios (as is Mia) but willingly eats green beans, peas, and peaches if tossed aside.

Mia has had multiple field trips.  We walked up to the Allen Post office yesterday and saw Miss Dorothy and the other folks at the post office.  Mia played cute and chatted it up with the post office folks.  She got to pick up her birthday package from Michigan and we brought it home to open.  A really cool JACK IN THE BOX! We also went to Target, Walmart, Marshalls and the grocery store.  I forgot how prepared one must be to go to the store…. yesterday I forgot a snack in my purse so we got some Raisins!  She loves them.  I do apologize to the folks at Target, she threw many on the floor so I just kicked them under the aisle shelves. You may find them

It does take a village to raise a child - I had to go to Baltimore Monday and Wednesday, Great Pop Pop came over early in the morning (0530) for coffee and Mia time so I cold get dressed! Great Grandma made dinner every night and watched Mia in the daytime those two days.  Great Grandma is an amazing energetic woman who has run circles around all of us.

Jeff came home late last night from Jordan and the joy on Mia’s face this morning when she woke up was awesome!  The joy she has when she sees her family is awesome!  The squeals of delight make it such a great day!

So this week Pappy (Jeff) is home all week to play.  I cannot wait to hear the stories. Mia loves to watch herself on videos and we have had a lot of fun watching her watch them.  She is growing by leaps and bounds and this has truly been a great week with her.

What's up with the parents

I'm constantly giving updates on Mia, but Zed and I are keeping busy ourselves.

Zed has his track select on 11 February. It will then that he finds out of he's going helicopters, tankers/transport, or fighters/bombers. Last week he would check in each morning and then come home to either work on his truck, clean the house, or study for the track he thinks he'll receive. This week he will be in Nashville attending a conference for cattle ranchers. He will be going with his dad, but his mom and brother #5 Jeff will be touring the city. Zed loves the ranch life so he's excited to be back in it for a few days.

I have been studying hard and doing my best to network with the people in my class. We had our first test and I missed one question, which I was very proud of. We have another test this week on material I have never seen before, so I'm excited to learn some new things. This week I will be staying in Biloxi and participating in a volunteer event with my class. Next week is another week of class and them a four day weekend for me!

Oh, whoever gave us battleship as a wedding gift...thank you. We're able to play even though we're not together and ther is no way either of us can cheat. This will be a game that whoever is away will have half of.

Zed and I will be going to see Wicked in Memphis and celebrating our anniversary 3 months early. The plan right now is to stay in the Peabody Hotel, go on a carriage ride and explore Beale St. We'll be using this weekend because for our actual anniversary in May I will be 8mo pregnant, we will have Mia back with us!, and Zed will most likely be studying for a check ride. This is the perfect opportunity for us to relax and enjoy each other's company and maybe decide on a name for our little one :)

The distance is hard, but technology has made this separation easier. Unfortunately this will not be the last time we're apart, but it will hopefully be the last time one of us doesn't have the kid(s). We will be letting the kids visit the grandparents alone again, if they'll have them, but we should be able to work it that one of us is with them while the other is deployed. We are extremely lucky to have these amazing surrogate parents if the need ever arises again. 

Thank you all for keeping us in your prayers as we go through this trying time. 

Second Time Around

Since I have a lot of free time without a husband and little girl, I've decided to try and use this blog for what I initially intended it for. A medium for you to learn more about me and my family and a way for me to express my form of art...writing. Well, here goes nothing!

Being a young pregnant lady I tend to get a lot of unsolicited advice, mostly due to people thinking this is my first. When I'm finally able to get a word in and let them know this is my second, their tune changes and I'm asked what I'm going to do different. 

If you've met Mia you'll know she is a very easygoing, happy kid. I would love to say that's all thanks to Zed and my amazing parenting, but the more I see other kids her age I think it's a lot of her own disposition. We were concered about having the epitome of a "first child" simply because Zed and I are both firsts. We didn't worry that she didn't always match, we took a lot of cues from her (shoes, socks, clothes, food, etc) and tried to only impose when necessary (mostly sleep). Zed, of course, was much better at this than me, letting her eat dirt and treating her like a trained cheerleader. 

So are we going to change our parenting techniques, not intentionally, but each child is different and we will again take the cues and proceed from there. 

There are some things that we've learned. We have already bought a swing that can go from left to right or front to back. Mia did not like a rocking chair so when we couldn't console her, we were on our feet swaying side to side, hopefully the swing will help with this. There are elastic bands that you can get personalized with your child's name and then they fit nicely on bottles. This is a  necessity sending our kids to the base daycare, names must be permanently displayed. We got these for Mia eventually and it made life a little easier. We also know to bring a few different sized outfits to the hospital to bring the baby home in. Poor Mia was so tiny she was swimming in the newborn clothes we had brought, we'll be bringing at least one preemie outfit this time around.

As far as the momma goes, I have eaten less and worked out about the same amount (3-5 times per week). With Mia I gained a ton of unnecessary weight and unfortunately did not lose it all prior to getting pregnant the second time. This time, as of 18wks in, I have only gained 6lbs! I will be bringing more clothes for me to the hospital and changing into them as soon as I can! I didnt know that was allowed :) I'm going to worry about myself a little more this time, making time to work out even if that means I have to ask for help. The final and most important thing I'm changing this time is not letting work get between me and feeding the little one. Work combined with getting pregnant, Mia made the switch to formula a little sooner than I had wanted.

I know I will still want to change things after this baby and I will always be learning, but my goal is to never stress and just love my little ones with all I have. I am truly blessed to have a little girl who is so easygoing, a husband who puts up with my crazy antics, and for the opportunity to be a new mom again.

What's for Dinner

As I'm sitting here in my hotel room wondering if I should eat a PBJ or turkey sandwich I wonder which, if any of the precooked meals Zed will eat tonight.

While I was home this past weekend I made 4 crockpot meals and froze them. We had food storage that we needed to use or lose within the next month. All zed has to do is pull the gallon zip lock bag out of the freezer the night prior and then throw it in the crockpot before he leaves for the day. I made him beef stroganoff, teriyaki pork chops, pot roast, and a ravioli sausage bake. The beef stroganoff he will have to make either rice or noodles to eat with it. As he eats them I'll be sure to let you know how they taste and post the recipes and any tips.

To make these four meals (all family sized) I spent about $60 and 1hr into the kitchen. This is not bad considering these meals will last him, at minimum 10 meals. If this goes well, the plan so to continue this method and hopefully make it easier once baby girl #2 comes along.

If any of you have any recommendations, please share!

Week in Review

Another email from Maryland about Mia's week with G and Pappy.

Hello all lovers of everything Mia!

It was quite the week for Ms. Davies of Columbus, Mississippi.  As she dove into week two visiting her grandparents, the Berthiaume’s, so did the ice cold weather.  Week two of her cross country journey brought temperatures at -9 with wind chills much below that.  Across the state pipes froze, the Chesapeake Bay needed ice cutters, and Mia got more comfortable with her new bedroom.  Week two also brought 2 new teeth up top.  There was drool, drool drool as she tried to eat on everything around, books, plasticware, even the dog’s bone!  She was restless at night from all that teething, but alas…. this too shall pass.

Tuesday brought a winter storm that dumped 6 inches of snow for the Eastern Shore!  Mia got to touch snow for the first time… She was a little afraid, and not until we put it in a cup for her would she touch it!

Her Great Granny Fiddler watched her in the daytime while her Grandmother worked.  They played patty cake, went to Walmart, visited Miss Jan, a neighbor down the street and had a wonderful time.  Mia’s new BFF is Libby, her grandparents dog.  Libby follows Mis everywhere in hopes of a scap, a morsel, anything that might drop from her clothes or hands.  It does make for easy clean up around the house!

With the frigid temperatures the need for propane was great.  Apparently the propane company didn’t realize this, for Wednesday morning we woke up at 0400 to a house temperature of 42 degrees and the pipes downstairs were frozen solid!  Grandmom whisked Mia and Aunt Abby over to her grandparents for some heat while Grandmom returned home to wait for the propane delivery.  God Bless Great Grandparents!  With many apologies the propane truck deliver 300 gallons of propane and slowly the heat returned and pipes reopened…. 

One of the struggles with icy cold weather is the dry weather in the house.  The change in weather really bothered Mia.  She came to Maryland with a minor case of eczema which, with teething and excessively cold temperatures outside and the dry heat inside turned into a terrible case of eczema.  Luckily, Pop Pop Fiddler called a pediatric dermatologist who saw her Wednesday, prescribed a special cream for morning and night, recommended daily bathing with lots and lots of Aquaphor throughout the day….  Mia gets to visit her again in 2 weeks so she is all set to travel out to Oregon.  Within 24 hours of getting some nice cream all over her and a bit of anti itch medicine at night, Mia Davies was a new woman…. Sleeping well, eating better and beautifully clear skin!

She has enjoyed a plethora of foods, Cheerios are a great staple snack that she always has at the ready.  She loves peaches, pears, applesauce, pork, turnkey, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots.  Yesterday she has macaroni and cheese, home made by Great Granny.  She is starting to walk everywhere (preferably holding someone’s hand) but gets better and better each day.

Mia growing by leaps and bounds.  She fits well in 12 months clothes, weight 9 KG at the doctors (19.8 pounds) and will surely be up to 20 pounds by her birthday.  She loves to climb on everything! She has learned Patty Cake and Itsy Bitsy spider.  She loves to dance.  Yesterday she and Aunt Sarah spent some quality time dancing to the music of Queen!  She is also very excited to learn she will have a new sister this summer.  She cannot wait to share her food, her raisins, cheerios and drool!

Today we got up at 6:30, took a long walk up the street, ate a great country breakfast, and it is now kitchen playtime.  Libby is standing by to pick up, lest Mia drop a crumb.  Mia misses you all and cannot wait to see everyone.  FaceTime us when you can. She loves to see everyone!

Kathryn Fiddler