Mia turned 11 last month (my tardiness in finishing this post is unacceptable), and while the essence of who she is remains unchanged, this past year has been a huge year of growth and change for her. I see big differences in her interests, the things she values, her emotional regulation, and even her style.
We were able to spend the afternoon together doing all the things she requested. I picked her up from school at lunch and we grabbed her favourite drink from Starbucks. Then we had a mom and daughter nail appointment (which isn't my thing buuuut she loves it). After we had a quick lunch at BPs, and then we went to Whiskers Cat Cafe. I had never been there before, but basically it's this cute little cafe where they have some cats who need to be adopted. Your admission covers a drink and then you get to go into the cat lounge and hang out with all the adoptable cats. They have all kinds of people and cat friendly seating, and a bunch of kitty toys available for you to use. Mia could only spend about an hour there, because she started to get quite sad that we wouldn't be taking all the kitties home. We traipsed off to Coop to get donuts for her bday dinner dessert, and then back home. She was lucky to have Grandma and Grandpa there for her birthday this year, and got to have an afternoon with them on the weekend- doing some shopping and going out for lunch.
Her birthday party consisted of two separate swimming evenings with friends, ice cream after one, cupcakes after the other. Mia had only invited a few girls and most couldn't make the original date, so we decided to push it back, but the two who could make the original date couldn't make the new one. Mia has a huge heart and was a little distraught at the thought of anyone being excluded, so we came up with a solution that could accommodate everyone.
Birthday Interview
Favourite colour: aqua green
Favourite animal: tiger
Favourite movie: Harry Potter or Lizzie McGuire
Favourite show: Just Add Magic
Favourite food: chicken nuggets...or pizza...yeah...I don't want to overdo it... or dad's Korean fried chicken
Favourite book: Hunger Games (she's about halfway through the first one) or Cupcake Diaries or Babysitter's Club
Favourite subject: recess and lunch aren't subjects, so math or gym
Favourite thing to do: practice gymnastics, learn new stretches, be with my friends
What do you want to be when you grow up? A massage therapist or nurse or someone who takes care of animals
What would your super power be? Hypnotizing people or controlling the weather
What are you scared of? Clowns and being alone
What are you most looking forward to about being 11? 11 is two of the same number and...and...and... it's more mature
What was your favourite thing about being 10? first time being to digits and when I went to Maui and Silverwood and Calgary
Mia has endured a few health hurdles this year. I had been concerned about her vision since she was in kindergarten, but all her yearly checkups with both the optometrist and opthalmologist would come back normal. After we moved here, it was found that she did need glasses at least for reading/school. Then when her eye alignment didn't improve with the glasses after a year, and in fact started to worsen, we were referred to a pediatric opthamologist here, where surgical management was on the table. We were also given the option of doing vision therapy to try and avoid surgery, and she had a very in depth vision assessment completed again. Basically, her brain was working overtime to keep her left eye aligned. When her brain would get tired, it would basically just shut her left eye off, which lead to it turning in. This is what I would see at home, but the turn would never exist by the time we went to get it checked, because her brain had learned to align her eye, and would correct it. The hope for vision therapy was to train her eyes to be aligned without her brain having to consciously think about it. Vision therapy meant nightly homework 5 times a week on top of weekly or bi weekly in person sessions. After 10 months she we finished with her sessions this month. It has been a little grueling, but the improvement to her vision has been amazing. Both the pediatric ophthalmologist and her regular optometrist were very impressed with her vision and how her eyes have responded. Now she just does 5 mins twice a week for maintenance until her 3 month follow up.
The other health hurdle we've had to jump over, and feels like we're jumping over 49372 times, was her lungs. We had a bit of a scare last April when, after feeling pretty unwell for a day or so, started coughing up bright red blood. After a very long day in the ER, which required me to employ all my nursing vocab and weight to get her properly tested, it was found she had a very large bacterial pneumonia requiring 3 days of hospitalization and IV antibiotics. After a clean bill of health two months later, we thought we were over that hump. Although I suspected she's had asthma for a year or two. Right after Halloween the kids all got mild colds, and we saw the return of blood being coughed up, although this time she felt relatively fine. After a quick trip to ER again, all tests were negative and she was sent home on an antihistamine to see if decreasing the secretions would help with her cough. A week later we saw the pediatrician who admitted her with her pneumonia in April, and he asked us to go back to the hospital in a week to see him there if she was still coughing up blood. We did as requested (that ER trip resulted in a pretty barbed patient relations complaint from me), and she was admitted again to undergo all sorts of investigations on an urgent basis (as opposed to waiting for a million referrals to be processed). It was a very long week. We played a lot of board games and did a lot of sitting- waiting for tests to be done, waiting for results, waiting for results to be discussed, waiting for the decision about what to do next... There was even talk of her going to the children's hospital in Edmonton for more invasive testing. She had pretty much every test done that they could have done here. In the end it was decided this was likely post viral inflammation and asthma was a pretty sure diagnosis. With some inhalers in hand, and a strong recommendation that she get her tonsils out- based on their size when not infected, and her chronic snoring, we were finally discharged. We have thankfully not had a repeat instance since, and she doesn't seem to have the same severity of cough, when sick, that she used to prior to daily inhalers. She is booked for her tonsillectomy next month, and I really really hope she is done seeing the inside of the hospital for a very long time after.
Now onto the happy stuff!
She got her braces off this summer!!!!
Mia is one in a million. She is incredibly compassionate and sensitive, often cries in movies or when reading sad stories, especially if it involves animals. She is very aware of the emotions of others and doesn't like when people are down or sad.
She is often eager to help with her little sisters or with cooking in the kitchen. Cleaning is something she likes less, but will often pitch in if she sees someone (aka me) doing a big job alone. Mia's teachers often praise how helpful and thoughtful she is in the classroom. She has won the citizenship two years in a row in her classroom.
This last year Mia completed all her Learn to Swim Levels, and decided to continue to pursue swimming by starting swim patrol- which is like an advanced swim course used as a precursor to junior lifeguarding. She passed the first of the three levels with ease and wants to continue on. She is currently in an aerial silk class and has started taking judo a little more seriously. She has a goal to get her orange judo belt this year and is preparing for her first tournament in Edmonton in March. She is also an avid gymnast and will spend lots of time following tutorials on how to do all kinds of contortions and stunts. She ran in the Roots and Ruts 3k again last fall and participated in her school's triple ball tournament.
She also got to go on her first plane ride to Hawaii with Grandma and Grandpa last year. She was so thrilled to spend so much time in the ocean. She has also had a love for the water and if there is a swimmable body of water, no matter how cold, she will be in it.
Mia loves to listen to music. She is an especial fan of Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande. She also been playing my old CDs (Backstreet Boys anyone) on the CD player in her room, and man she is taking me back to my teenage years hard. She is also continuing with her piano lessons, and has joined the music program at school where she learned to play the recorder and has started to learn the ukelele.
She will pilfer items from my closet if she is in a wardrobe pinch.
She is high adventure and fearless. She likes the fastest roller coasters, the highest diving boards, the spinniest rides. I'm not half as brave as she is.
Mia likes to socialize and is often initiating some type of group activity. She likes board/card games and has a knack for winning.
She can talk your ear off regarding just about anything, and sometimes will have a running commentary going that you think is her talking to herself, but then she'll be annoyed you weren't paying attention to what she was saying. She still has this wonderful naivety about her that makes us laugh (in a nice way!) on a regular basis. We were playing a card game one night, where the point is to quickly say a word that relates to a category on another player's card. For example if the card said "pet" you would yell out "cat" or "dog" etc. Mia had to yell out a condiment and she yells "CHINA!". After looking at her a little confused, she says "well what's a condiment?" We reply with "ketchup, mustard..." She says "Oh I thought you meant like Africa or China" "Well Africa is a continent not condiment, but China is also not a continent, it's a country." "Aren't they the same thing?" No...
I had to take her to get some bloodwork done at Dynalife. She asked me if we were going to the hospital and I said "No Dynalife". She starts totally freaking out and yells "DYING LIFE?!?! What kind of a place is that?!?!!" Cue me bursting out in laughter and trying not to drive off the road.
She has a flair for the dramatics, and loves to put on a tik tok dance routine, secret handshake tutorial, or gymnastics demonstration.
She is a fiercely loyal friend and sticks up for people being treated unkindly. This year she got herself into a spot of trouble when a classmate started being physically aggressive towards her, after Mia put herself in between her and a friend this classmate was bullying. Mia wasn't about to let herself be undefended so she did her "signature judo throw" on this girl. She told me "Don't worry. I let her down gently".
I have a feeling we are in for another year of big growth and change, but we are blessed to be a part of this girl's journey.
