Great Grandma G (Feb 20, 1916- March 25, 2011)

Mia and "Great Grandma G" Spring 2009

Mia and GGG Thanksgiving 2009

Dave, Mia and GGG Spring 2010

All of us September 2010 (after a camping trip)

Even little Gavin who is a month old fetus here. . . GGG was one of the first we told about our being pregnant again. She was thrilled!

GGG and Mia around Thanksgiving of 2010

After her 95th birthday in February, we received a call from Dave's mom mid March letting us know that Great Grandma G was not doing well. They applied to put her on hospice. At first she was doing better to the extent that they were hesitant to put her on hospice! But soon she started to decline. We decided to go visit Saturday March 26th but on Thursday March 24th we got a phone call that let us know we had to jump into our car to go to Chicopee, MA to say our good-byes. We were in the car an hour later and made it there around 1am. We got one of the last symbols of her awareness: an eyebrow "nod" when she heard our voices (Dave, me and Mia) enter the room. It was just as she had wanted it, she was at home, with her loved ones surrounding her. We were so happy to be a part of these final wishes. Twelve hours later, at around 1:15pm, she died.

Mia had been napping at 1:15pm and not too long thereafter she fell off the couch she was napping on and had more blood come out of her than I had ever witnessed. Her mouth was pouring blood and we wondered whether she had any teeth left. Unable to keep ice on her mouth, we were so happy that GGG had popsicles in her freezer! Although we generally avoid loads of sugar, we gave Mia 3 popsicles in a row to reduce the swelling and since sweets are an analgesic this was an added bonus. I also allowed her to have a Dora bandaid, which she has been asking for with desperation in her voice though I always tell her that bandaids are for bleeding. Since I couldn't put it on her lip, I put it on her wrist. With Dora bandaid and a sugar high, this girl was giggles 5 mins after the fact and it turns out all her teeth are fine though I think she bit through her lip, which has since healed nicely.

Although we could not make it to her funeral, a christmas cactus that we adopted from GGG's house bloomed completely out of season the day of her funeral:

We attended her Cape Cod burial where Mia reunited with her cousin Emma who is 5 months younger than her. They hadn't seen each other in about 15 months. Here is a picture of the two at lunch after the burial:

Emma (5 mo), Mia (10 mo)

Mia (26 mo), Emma (21 mo)

We miss you Grandma but we know you were ready to go and we were so tickled that you waited for us to be able to say good bye.
Love,

Dave & Stacie

Obituary

Katherine M. Groskreutz 1916 - 2011 CHICOPEE - Katherine Muriel Groskreutz (Abbott) was born on February 20, 1916 and lived a full 95 years upon this earth. She grew up in Bristol, CT and early in her adult life, was employed as a hospital dietician at the Children's and Orthopedic Hospitals of Philadelphia. After marrying her Air force sweetheart in 1944, Arden Groskreutz, the family settled in Chicopee, MA in 1945, her husband being stationed at Westover Air force Base. They had five children, William* (Billy) who predeceased her, Mary of New Hampshire, Sally and her husband, Robert of Tennessee, Judy and her husband Robert of Chicopee, and Kathy and her husband Steven of Shelburne Falls, MA. Katherine was also pre-deceased by her husband Arden, two brothers, David and Robert Abbott and sister, Dorothy Abbott. She is survived by 11 grandchildren and 19 great grandchildren. Her family was one of her greatest joys along with gardening and quilting. Her deep faith was a great source of strength and she was a valued member of the First Central Baptist Church in Chicopee, where her homemade cards brought comfort and encouragement to hundreds of people over the years. The family will receive relatives and friends at a gathering to be held at the Tylunas Funeral Home, 159 Broadway, Chicopee, on Sunday (today), March 27, 2011 from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. A Memorial Service will be held on Monday, March 28, 2011 at the Tylunas Funeral Home at 9:00 a.m. Burial will be private. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Baystate Hospice or to the Sunshine Challenger Baseball Program in care of Sunshine Village, Chicopee. For Katherine's personal webpage visit tylunasfuneralhome.com Tylunas Funeral Home (413) 592 - 0148

*This is who Gavin's middle name is in honor of

Mia

Look what I can do!

Mia is very proud of her new ability to cross her fingers. She discovered this while sitting on Charlie's lap when he was visiting Philly. She can put her fingers into this position without the help of her other hand too. Try it, it's hard for me. . . I can barely do it!

Mia holds a grudge

Actually, I think it is more of a sign that Mia knows what rules are and is structuring her life around right/wrong but still here are 3 "grudges" that she constantly talks about whenever playing with her puzzle, clay or looking at her plant (respectively.

• "Randall broke the puzzle piece", she'll say. Yes, Mia, Randall ACCIDENTALLY wet that last pig piece and then it wouldn't fit in the puzzle so we had to throw it away.
• "Alex pushed them [the different color clays] together". Yes, Mia, but we told Alex he could mix the colors together because we have so many clays now it doesn't matter (we used to discourage her from pushing the different color clays together too hard because this is how we ended up with several tubs of black clay).
• "Gogo bite the leaf". Yes, Mia, Gogo bit that leaf but it is getting better and she hasn't bitten any other leaves since then.

The funny part is that she says these things with a mad looking wrinkly forehead face.

generalization of language rules

"Eat yours toast mommy". It makes sense if you think about it that if those shoes are Mia's and that food is Gogo's that you should add an "s" to anything to make it possessive. Poor kid, this is the start of learning English, which has just as many exceptions to the rules as it does rules. Good things we have an English major around the house!

potty training

Mia came to me this morning with her pants already off and asked me to take her diaper off so she can go in the potty. I knew it would help to get out of the footed pajama weather. Now we might just have to get pull ups so she can go on her own immediately upon waking (there is a potty in her room). Also, we decided to let her go without a diaper for naptime today since she had just gone pee pee in the potty before settling down for the nap. We were surprised 15 mins later when she opened the door with the potty in her hands saying, "I made poo poo"! I was so happy because normally she comes to us for help using the potty. It was hilariously messy as she and her poopy tushy carried the potty to the bathroom to dump it proudly. Of course later we found that she had first peed in the bed and then made a tiny poop in her pants before making it to the potty but I guess the effort was there :)

getting dressed "by my own"

I know the saying about teaching a man to fish but seriously, how many times can I watch her put both legs through the same leg whole before jumping in to help? Well one day when she actually got one leg in each "tunnel" as we call it, I was so happy and she was so proud that we both ignored the fact that they were on backwards.

Mia's first dentist appointment

In the waiting room with daddy

.Sitting in the "special" chair next to hygenist "Miss Kim" who gave her a new toothbrush, 2 plastic dinosaurs and 2 stickers for being such a good patient. Dr. Jen thought Mia was exceptionally cooperative especially since she is still teething (she has 1 out of 4 2nd year molars in and so has a total of 8 teeth on top and 9 on bottom). Mia was hesitant at first but we showed her in the library books we had gotten to prepare her (The Tooth Book and a Maisy book on going to the dentist) that they were doing just the same things with the little mirror to look at the teeth and the "tickle brush" the hygenist uses. Soon enough and with the help of the ever-mesmerizing TV in the corner, Mia opened up her mouth long enough to get a good cleaning and an clean bill of health from the dentist. Her next appt is in 6 months (in September).

Here is Mia showing off her pearly whites after a great visit!

Binghamton Friends

First Charlie and Maria visited us in Philly (2/25-2/27) and then Mia and I went to stay with them while visiting for Kim and Earl's birthday party (3/11-3/13).

PHILLY

Maria & Charlie cook us a lovely dinner with our new present the first night.

The present was a Spätzle maker, which is a German pasta.

Here are the boys taking a turn cooking, while Maria and I no doubt "play clay" with Mia.

Our last day together was spent lazing around the house before and after a nice stroller ride down Baltimore Ave. Here is Charlie making Mia giggle while she sits on Maria's lap.

BINGHAMTON

This is Mia in Charlie/Maria's bed after driving the night (6pm-9:30pm) from Philly to Binghamton. Mia and I slept together for the first time in a long time. She definitely took her half out of the middle coming all the way over and sleeping practically on top of me. We could have fit 2 more people in that queen!

The next morning, Mia and I visited my friend Corrie and her children Lee, Opal (seen above) and Samuel. They treated us to amazing homemade quesadillas for lunch and, as always, it was a super relaxing laid back visit just chatting and playing.

That night Mia and I had some partying to do. We ordered a pizza and went over to Kim/Earl's house to help them set up for their birthday party. Here you can see Mia and Sarah dancing to the live band (at 9pm, way past Mia's bedtime!).

The next morning (our last day) we took an early morning run across the Washington St. pedestrian bridge. Here you can see Maria caught Mia. Later, we went to brunch with all the party folks (forgot my camera) and then set home from there.

We had a great time visiting Binghamton and can't wait to host everyone in Philly next time they need to get away.

Mia's first Flower

Meet Mia's first flowers; picked out at a flower shop at the Reading Terminal Market

Nasturtium. . . Turns out Mia picked out an edible flower!

Filling the pot with soil

Pushing in the seeds

Watering the seeds

Posing with our posies

Here is the plant only a week and a half later. Mia likes to count the stalks.

There are 3 but one more should push up tomorrow by the looks of it.

Mia

Mia in her Valentines day outfit (red pants, pink shirt)

with treats from school (lollipop in one hand and a valentine hologram card in the other).

Dave and I have noticed that Mia has definitely grown up a lot in the last week. She looks older to us for some reason. Although a picture definitely can't capture this so we'll try to summarize below.

In addition to being able to talk in conversation with Mia she takes it one step further and has started recognizing and talking about my emotions. The other evening when I was frustrated because she had been kicking me when I put on her nighttime diaper she looked at me and said, "mommy? you sad?". She went on to say fragments about Mommy & Daddy frustrated (she got this word and likely her new empathetic skills from a book about emotions that the Conte's bought for her) and Mommy and Daddy work and Mommy and Daddy sad. Geeze, this makes us sound like two sulky awful parents. . . but in actuality I am very proud of her for being able to discuss feelings like this. I've heard the best way to raise an empathetic child is to teach them the words for feelings and encourage them to recognize these feelings and talk about them.

• Mia had popcorn for the 2nd time the other night and called it coporn, which I thought was hilariously cute.
• Mia is very into any and everything Gavin related. She is all of a sudden completely enthralled with toys meant for tiny infants.
• Mia's new love is running. As Spring is swiftly approaching we are spending more and more time outside. One day we decided to take a stroller ride to the library (to borrow books about the dentist because she has her first appointment later this month), we stopped off at the cafe' that Dave was studying at 45th and Locust and she insisted she wanted to run instead of stroller to the library. So she ran from the cafe all the way to 41st and Locust. . . and it was even a slight uphill. She learned rapidly that "red means stop" and "green means go".
• Mia is counting everything. She has always known how to count to 20 by rote memorization but she has only relatively recently (I believe, because of Hi Ho Cherry-O) actually started counting items. Now, without prompting, she counts everything (tonight for instance she correctly counted the 5 buttons on my shirt and 6 balloons in her Curious George book).

Sadly, Dave and I have started doing bedtimes differently. Whereas we always enjoyed doing bedtime together. We are nervous that Gavin will make this more difficult and since we don't want Mia to resent Gavin for the change, we are starting to have Dave put Mia to bed on his own from now on. She doesn't seem to mind the switch at all!