Father's Day Photos, continued

Father's Day Photos, just a little late

Happy Independence Day

Happy Independence Day! We're at home right now, looking out at the cloudy sky and hoping it doesn't rain on Mia's first fireworks experience tonight.

Our silly girl has been extremely entertaining this weekend. She's talked to her grandparents on the phone. She's been spouting off new words like turkey, kick (she kicks her feet out when she says this) and duck (while watching Donald Duck). She removed my socks so she could color my feet with her crayons. She also tried to put on my socks and put her shoes on my feet.

Her finest moment was this morning when I noticed her grabbing the front of her diaper. I asked her if she had to pee pee and wanted to get on the potty. She said yes, so off we went to the bathroom. I removed her diaper and sat her on the potty. Next thing I know, she goes pee pee in there! I was amazed. She was very nonchalant about it, as though she does this all the time. Maybe it's a fluke, or maybe it's the start of potty training. I'll know to look out for it now.

I've added pictures of her with the pig at Lynn's Paradise Cafe last weekend, and playing in the neighbors' yard while staying with Granny and Grampy yesterday.

Silly girl

16 Months Old

Miss Mia continues to bring so much joy to our otherwise busy and often stressful lives. She is developing her little imagination by mimicking the people around her. She pretends to put on makeup like Mommy (she has her own “lipstick”), she pretends to give herself a bath like Daddy gives her, and she crawls around making “woof” sounds like the dogs. She loves to bring home new tricks she has learned from her friends at daycare, like spitting out her milk and putting food under her armpits. She also loves to hold out food to the dogs, let them lick it as a teaser, yank it away (I imagine, mentally yelling “psych!”), then eat it herself. Some of her other new habits and achievements:

• She graduated from her Polliwog swim class. She can “jump” off the side of the pool and go under, turn around and find her way back to the side (with our help, of course). We can let her go and she’ll make her way back to the water’s surface. And she can swim a few strokes to us.


• She loves to talk on the phone. When her grandparents call we put them on speaker. When Carol says “Mamaw loves you soooo big”, Mia holds out her hands wide, like they do when they’re together. When Dad whistles like Grandpa Al used to, Mia pretends to whistle. Usually we’ll give her the phone and she’ll walk around the house carrying it like a teenager, tucked between her ear and her shoulder so she can continue to play with her toys while she “talks”.


• She has quite the temper and is not afraid to demonstrate it in public. Mike took her to McDonald’s for a Daddy/Daughter dinner a few weeks ago and he had the nerve to tear her hamburger in half. Obviously she likes to think of herself as a big girl who can handle the whole burger so she let him know her displeasure through a series of intense shrieking and ear-shattering screams of “Nooooooo! Noooooooo!” It was so bad they had to leave. We now give her the entire burger to do with as she wishes. Some battles are not worth that much fight.


• Changing time has become quite a physical challenge for Mommy and Daddy. Mia no longer wants to sit still for such a mundane chore. I have tried to distract her through various bits of trickery, such as snacks, ribbons, toys, books, etc., but our girl is on to us. On Saturday as I was changing a massive poopy diaper, I gave her a book to read. As soon as the diaper was down, she stuck the book in the poop. When I grabbed it to avoid spreading the mess, she retaliated by sticking her hands in it and flipping over. So I had a dirty book in one hand, her feet in the other and she was on her stomach, in essence rolling around in her poo. Cleaning those type of messes have prompted dreams of potty training…


• Except that she actually did poop on the potty last week, and that didn’t go so well either. Mia is very regular so I know when it’s coming. So one morning as I noticed the onset of her grunts, I grabbed her and ran to the potty. She screamed as I sat her down, but the work was already in progress so she finished. When she was done, Mike and I clapped and cheered and made a big fuss, telling her how proud we were that she went poopy on the potty. We even got her up to show her the poopy to which we were referring. We pointed at it, clapped for it, did some cheers, and Mia really started getting into it. We did such a great job convincing her how great that poop was, that she picked it up to take with her. So Mommy had to grab her arm and fling the poop back into the potty. Then came the washing of the poopy hands while still not having addressed the poopy bottom. Another FYI: wiping the bottom is not nearly as easy as it sounds.


• Mia’s vocabulary is really astounding to us. She will repeat just about any word we say, whether she understands the meaning or not. But there are so many words that she does understand and it still surprises me when she knows the difference between car and truck, when she says please, or when she points to my shirt and says blue. Also, I’m not longer Nah Nah and usually not even Mama, and Mike is no longer Dada. We’re Mommy and Daddy most of the time.


• Although very much a girly girl, Mia is also incredibly brave. She will climb on anything, flip over her toys to see how they work underneath and will jump off anything high, whether it be our bed, the couch or into Papa’s pool.


• Her hair is getting long enough for pigtails but she still doesn’t really want to keep them in. She’d rather pull things out to see how they work (and taste). The only way I can get her to keep bows in for any length of time is to tell her how pretty she looks and let her look at herself in the mirror. Like I said, she’s a girly girl.

Sick baby

Mia has had another virus, with sore throat and fever. She's also developed a rash. There isn't anything to do to "cure" it, just treat it symptomatically with Tylenol and Motrin. Dad and Sue kept her Monday, I stayed home with her yesterday and I took her back to Dad and Sue's today. Yesterday she was very fussy, screaming and crying a lot. Today, for the most part she's done well, just sleeping more than usual. 

She's said a few more new words this week - Memee (Emie), blue and ear. She's also been attempting to remove her clothes on her own. Here's what I walked into during dinner tonight.

15 Month Check-up

Mia had her 15 month check up last Monday. She’s growing just as she should! She’s 23 lbs., 5 oz., which puts her in the 55% for weight. She’s 31 inches long, at the 70% for height. The appointment was timed just right because she had fluid running from her ears. The doc said that was exactly what should be happening with her tubes. Instead of infection building up, her ears now drain out all the bad stuff. We’ve used drops over the past week to help clear it up.

On Saturday Mia got a fever. It was 103.9, but she was acting just fine. We began our usual system of alternating Tylenol and Motrin, but as of last night it was still almost 104. I have an appointment with the doc today to see what’s going on.

Mia got to spend time with all her grandparents this weekend. She was so happy about that. Her face lights up when she sees them, and she's now saying mamaw, papaw, nana and papa. She can't quite get granny and grampy out because the r's trip her up, but she still kicks and claps when she sees them, whether she can say their names or not!

Our little girl is talking up a storm! She says over 25 words now. New additions are Cara (Gaga), book, bath, yellow, girl, and boy. She's also helping with certain tasks. For example, I'll ask her to pull the plug on the bathtub and hand it to me, and she will. She'll also put her arms through the holes on her shirts. When it's time to take them off, she'll pull them over her head without my help. She must have quite the imagination too, because she and her toys have a great time together. She'll sit and play with things, talking out loud in her "conversational" voice. Then she'll laugh at something she's said that's apparently quite hilarious! She climbs stairs very well, and knows to go down them on her bottom, but of course she prefers to try to walk.