Christmas

Christmas just seemed to sneak up on me this year! We opened presents with Mira on Christmas Eve because Mark had to work on Christmas Day. She won't know the difference for awhile, after all. Here are some pictures:

Mira loves froggies, just like her mommy!

You mean all this stuff is for ME???

Mira and all her loot

Playing with Kermit

As you might imagine, Mira really had no idea what was going on. I tried to get her excited about unwrapping presents but it really fell flat. Normally she loves playing with paper and plastic but it gets taken away so she was confused and suspicious as to why I was suddenly encouraging her to play with all this paper. Next year will be more fun, I'm sure.

Her favorite toy, if you can't guess from the pictures, was probably the pink and purple push car. She's getting really close to walking, so here was our chance to help her along. (Don't ask me why I'm trying to get her to walk sooner. Bad idea. I have friends with babies the same age as Mira that aren't even crawling yet and worrying that something is wrong with their baby. *snort*) So we put her behind this little push car and she grabbed onto the handlebars and walked that thing all the way across the room, very first try, didn't fall over or anything. Aren't babies supposed to fall over a few times when they try this out???? What I've noticed about my daughter is that once she's set her mind to do something, she figures it out really fast and does really well at it. Not altogether a bad trait to have, of course. It'll serve her well throughout her life.

Here she is pushing this car around like she's a pro at it:

Unbelieveable!

I hope everyone else had a great Christmas! I'm just glad the hype and excitement is over for the year. As for New Year's, I'm scheduled to work so no fun plans for us, but that's okay. Here's to a happy and healthy new year!

A Lesson in Tolerance

Mira did something so funny today I just had to share it.

In our living room we have a playpen with a changing table built in. Very handy to have. I rearranged the room a little bit today and the playpen ended up with the changing table end near our kitty tower, where our cats love to hang out. I went into the dining room to feed Mira breakfast and when I came back out this is what had happened:

I don't know how cats know just where to place themselves to get in the way, but they all have this radar that lets them know exactly how and when to be obstructive. I don't know how I got any studying done in nursing school because the second I got a textbook out a big hairy cat would sit on it. I love my kitties.

So that was funny enough, but then I put Mira in the playpen.

I'm impressed that he just sat there and let this happen! Stewie is usually super skittish and we joke all the time that he's going to die of a stroke from being stressed out all the time. Plus the cats have learned to run in the opposite direction as soon as they see Mira. This continued for a few more minutes until I picked Mira up so she could try to "pet" the kitty. Off he went. But he was awfully tolerant of the annoying baby interrupting his snooze time!

I Know I'm Biased, But...

But I do have a very talented little baby. :)

I'll be the first person to admit that I'm no expert on how normal healthy babies are supposed to behave. I'm definitely more familiar with critically ill children that are hooked up to monitors and machines! So I have no idea sometimes if the things Mira does are extraordinary or if I just think they're pretty amazing because I'm her mother and immensely proud of everything she does. Well, either way, she does have some unique talents - like her dancing ability. I've mentioned her "dancing" talents before but I've had a hard time capturing it on video. She likes to dance to lots of songs on my phone but I can't play the music on my phone and record her dancing on my phone simultaneously. Finally we found a solution - play music videos on the TV! Check out little Twinkle Toes:

Pretty amazing (and darn cute) if you ask me! I guess I better start researching dance studios. I should mention that she also likes Lady GaGa songs - so she also has good taste in music.

Well, despite me trying to ignore it, time marches on and the holiday season is upon us. Christmas can be a big source of stress for me because of how commercialized it's become. There's a lot of pressure to buy presents for people, even if you don't know them very well or have no idea what to get them, just because it would be rude not to buy them something. So you end up getting this person something that they will probably just forget about but it would be worse to not get them anything at all because you have to be able to say you bought them something. Anyway, there's no help for it. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Mira will get a few cool things this year but really, she'll be happy with the boxes and wrapping paper and she won't remember this Christmas anyway. Next year will probably be more fun for her (and therefore for me as well).

But there are a few fun things about the holidays. Last week was my work Christmas party. It was held in this big barn with a large amount of empty floor space. We set Mira down on the floor so she could crawl around and the funniest thing happened. As soon as we set her down, about a dozen little kids, probably all about 2-4 years old, gathered around her and started smiling at her and trying to play with her. And Mira loved it! She smiled and reached out for everyone, and then she took off crawling. And every one of those other little kids got on their hands and knees and crawled after her! She had her own little entourage. I just couldn't believe how social (and popular) she was. She was the center of attention. SO CUTE!!! It was so fun to watch. My work friends couldn't believe how fast she crawls (she may as well be running, she's so fast now) and kept saying they couldn't believe she could do that already - she seems too small to be able to crawl that fast. Oh, and stand unassisted. That really blew everyone away. (I should note that a couple days ago Mark was able to get her to take a couple of steps on her own!! I've tried to get her to do it again but you have to distract her and trick her into doing it. Again, not sure how she falls in the spectrum here but keep in mind she's doing all this at 9 months old.)

And what's a Christmas party without a visit from Santa Claus? Now here was a great chance for a photo op! over we went and plunked Mira down on Santa's lap - she did awesome! He had some jingle bells on a leather strap that she tried to eat and then she pulled on his beard. And she didn't cry or get scared at all - next year might be different though.

Tonight Mark and I took Mira to see the lights in Temple Square. I personally disagree with about 98% of things that come out of the Mormon Church (compounded with the fact that I'm atheist and that Prop 8 crap pissed me off like you would not believe), but I can still appreciate how pretty Temple Square looks this time of year - just like you can appreciate a Catholic cathedral or Muslim mosque or Jewish synagogue without being of that religion. It was FREEZING so we went through really fast before Mira got frostbite or something, but I still managed to get some good pictures.

Mira wasn't overly impressed but it was close to her bed time and she's probably too young to really appreciate the lights anyway. Maybe next year.

And one last video. One day just for fun Mark put her on a banana chair just to see what she would do. We were blown away that she figured this out:

My baby is pretty darn awesome. :)

Having Fun

One thing that I've noticed about being a mom is I don't get as much time to myself. I KNOW, RIGHT???? Who would have ever thought that having a child would get in the way of your personal time? Shocking, I know. All jokes aside, for someone who really used to value her personal time, it has been, at times, a very rough adjustment for me to spend every waking second caring for this little person - who is so much fun, don't get me wrong - but who really doesn't allow me to do the things I used to enjoy quite as much. I think one thing that tends to happen is, as mothers, we get so caught up in focusing on the kids that we start to neglect our personal needs, and then when we realize we're not getting our needs sufficiently met, we feel guilty for even thinking about ourselves when we have a child to raise. Or maybe it's just me - but anyway, that's what was happening. Not healthy. So finally last week I got super stressed and felt like my life revolved around staying at home with Mira and going to work. Mark luckily took the hint so last weekend we had a date night sans baby. It was SO nice! I hadn't realized how much I needed to get out of the house and have bonding time with Mark doing grown-up things - like drink this awesome margarita:

I'm not usually a big drinker since I'm a major lightweight but I was in the mood to get tipsy (mission accomplished) and it certainly helped me relax and enjoy the evening. After dinner we went to see a movie at the brand new super cool state-of-the-art movie theater a few towns up. The movie we saw wasn't that good (just FYI, The Immortals might be worth renting on DVD but really not worth the theater admission) but again, it was so nice to get out and have a date night. It had been a really long time since we'd done anything like that. Long overdue. Hopefully we can be better about this in the future, and hopefully I won't let myself get so stressed before I speak up and take care of myself. A happy mom is a good mom, as they say!

When Mira was really little my dad would keep saying that he couldn't wait for her to get a little older, like about 6 months, because once babies hit that age they start to get really fun. I was skeptical at the time (for some reason) but I have to say, these last couple of months have been, well, so much fun! Mira has such a personality and does the funniest things. Sometimes I can't tell if she does them intentionally or not but either way, she cracks us up! A few weeks ago Mark and I were sitting with Mira on the couch and she was really upset and crying because she was tired. It's the kind of tired crying when they squeeze their eyes shut and ball their little fists up. I was holding her facing me talking to her, and all of a sudden she stopped crying, looked at me, leaned forward and next thing I knew my nose was in her mouth! Random - and Mark and I couldn't stop laughing. She crawls super fast and is getting really talented at getting to the stairs and getting halfway up before we can get to her. Just today she figured out that there's a corner of the living room I don't want her in, so she would dart over to that corner with this huge grin, and squeal with laughter as I grabbed her and carried her away. So of course as soon as I set her down, off she goes to that corner as fast as she can go! So cute. She's standing on her own more now - she must have forgotten how it hurt to fall on her face that one time.

Mira's diet continues to expand. If dinner can be cut up and chewed by someone with only 2 bottom teeth then I give it to her. Unfortunately a problem I'm beginning to run into involves her developing a sense of independence... meaning she wants to feed herself. Great if it's pieces of fruit, not so great when dinner is chili and she clamps her mouth shut when I try to feed her. Well, I gave in. Here's the aftermath:

Note the splatter on the arm of the chair.

I'm trying to teach her to feed herself with a spoon. The first thing she does with a spoonful of food is turn it upside down and chew on the handle. I figured chili could be a finger food this time.

So... messy...

But at least she liked it!

The logical next step, of course, would be a bath.

She's graduated to free range of the big girl bath tub!

This makes me laugh every time I see it.

Yay for bath time!

Here's another video of her sort of playing peekaboo with her bib. The bib wasn't the best thing for her to hide behind, but I wanted to get the gist of it on video so I got what I could.

I keep expecting Mira to start showing signs of stranger anxiety but she hasn't yet. She's quiet around people she's not familiar with but otherwise she really doesn't make a big deal about new people. Remember how Mark has been upset about how Mira has a definite preference for me and hasn't really seemed to care about him? Mira's finally getting really excited about her daddy. When Mark comes home from work she crawls over to him as fast as she can and tries to climb all over him, she chases after him when he tries to leave, and there have even been a few times when - gasp! - she's wanted him to hold her instead of me! Wow! Plus she's figured out Mark does some really fun things with her that make her laugh (I've never been able to get her to laugh as much as Mark can). Mark tosses her up in the air, holds her and spins around really fast, and sits her on his shoulders and bounces, and oh my, she loves it!

Yes, having a child is hard, exhausting work and you don't get to do as much of the things you'd like to do, but wow, this baby of mine sure does make me happy! And she might not understand words yet but I make sure to tell her every single day how much I love her and how happy she makes me.

I'm hoping to be able to blog more often now. We finally got rid of our Cricket mobile hotspot and got a Verizon mobile hotspot. Long story short, our internet now 1) works and 2) is much faster. One reason I wasn't posting as much as I'd like is because to get one post done would take about a week, at least, because it took so long to upload the pics and videos. If I'd signed up for dial-up, I'd expect that, but we were paying for 3G broadband and weren't getting anything near that - not okay in my book! So far, this new carrier is so much better and I'm loving it! Here's hoping for more frequent blog updates!

I leave you with this aaawwwwwwwww moment:

Mira's First Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is definitely an awesome holiday. I love spending time with my family and taking the time to visit and relax, and of course eat. I love food - I just don't understand how anorexics do it. Which is why I'm not an anorexic. But I really enjoy Thanksgiving because it's a nondenominational holiday with the purpose of taking time to reflect on your life and how much we have to be thankful for. Our society is a lot about finding what you don't have and then trying to go out and get the newest and coolest - but when you slow down and really take a look at your life, it's amazing how much you actually do have. At the very least, I am SO thankful that my whole family and I are healthy (courtesy of the PICU).

I took Mira to my mom's for dinner with my family on Thanksgiving. Mira loved the food - this was a really good age for her to have a first Thanksgiving because she's old enough to sample most of the food. Sadly she didn't get to try out the turkey this year as I felt she needs more than 2 bottom teeth to attempt chewing meat. But she got to try some homemade bread, squash, roasted potatoes, stuffing, cooked apples, cranberry sauce, and of course pumpkin pie. She wasn't a huge fan of the squash, even when we put salt and butter in it, but she enjoyed everything else and just LOVED the cranberry sauce - and it was the homemade kind so it was pretty tart too. I was surprised by that. And she ate about half a slice of pumpkin pie just by herself. She was having a grand old time, grabbing handfuls of food with both hands and cramming everything in her mouth as fast as she could. I'm learning I need to space out the food I give her because she's made herself gag a few times by putting too much in her mouth if she's eating something she really loves.

Here are a couple of videos from Thanksgiving. The first one is my dad having some fun with Mira, and the second one is how she reacted when trying out cranberry sauce.

I wasn't able to capture this on camera, but when we got started with dinner I put a burp cloth on Mira's lap to try to protect her dress, and she grabbed it and started playing Peek-A-Boo with it! She held it up over her face and waited for me to say, "Where's Mira??" She lowered the cloth and laughed and laughed. And she did it over and over again and got so excited she sped it up so eventually she didn't wait long enough for us to say, "Where's Mira?" but she had the right concept. She's quiet when her face is behind the cloth and after she lowers it she laughs. She started doing it a few days ago - add that to the list of cute things she does that I need to attempt to catch on camera.

And of course we have some more picture overload. I've decided she's a very photogenic baby and she just can't take a bad picture, therefore it's impossible to narrow down the number of pictures I post on here because they're all just so adorable!

With Grandpa

Playing with Auntie Sara's necklace. I love this picture.

With Mommy

That food didn't stand a chance...

Apples are yummy!

I love this expression. I think she's really taking the time to savor the flavor.

It was a great holiday, especially since my little sister Penny was able to be with us! Penny is going to school in L.A. and originally we were thinking she wouldn't be able to come down for the holiday but at the last minute my dad was able to get plane tickets for her. So that was very nice.

Here are some more random pictures of Mira - again in her high chair, I don't know why some of her best moments are when she's eating but there you go.

Attempting to feed herself some yogurt. She wants to try to spoon-feed herself but it doesn't usually end well for the high chair. But she does have this cute habit of holding stuff just with her mouth.

Her chipmunk cheeks after stuffing her mouth full of watermelon.

Interestingly, she does chew with her mouth closed... for now.

I should mention that watermelon is one of her new very favorite foods. This is definitely one of those foods that I have to space out or else she'd cram her mouth so full she'd gag herself. So far there are only a few foods that she doesn't like, so I consider myself lucky! It probably won't last (I understand little children tend to be picky eaters) but it sure is nice to know I can just toss some cut up food on her tray and she'll love it.

I hope everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I suppose now I need to stop being in denial and just accept the fact that Christmas is the next holiday...

Big Steps

How is it that my baby is 9 months old already?? Crazy! It occurred to me that Mira has now been out in the world for about the same amount of time she spent growing inside me. As far as a fetus/baby is concerned, 9 months involves so much change! Nine months ago Mira couldn't even turn her head the way she wanted to, now she can do stuff like this:

I'm still trying to get a good video of her dancing. She'll be jamming it up and as soon as I get the camera going she stops and gets distracted with something else. Don't worry, I'll get a video! It's so cute to watch her bounce up and down (if she's standing she'll go up on her tip-toes) and she'll even put her hand up in the air and do a "raise the roof" type move. And she dances to pretty much any type of music she hears - whether it's on TV, while we're walking through a grocery store, one of her musical toys, from my iPod - she loves dancing! I think we've got a little dancer on our hands.

Yummy

Cutest little penguin butt ever

She pulls herself to a standing position like it's no big deal now and cruises around. She can even stand unsupported! That really freaks me out - it doesn't seem like babies should be allowed to stand on their own before they turn 9 months old. She could do it for 5-10 seconds at a time but then she fell forward onto her face on the hardwood floor and ever since then she hasn't wanted to do it as much. But she's definitely capable! She can crawl super fast too - and navigate around the barricades we have set up in front of the stairs in an attempt to keep her from climbing them. I suspect she does it just to get attention from us because she'll only get up on the first step and then turn and grin at us.

Why can't grown ups have car seats like this?

After months of procrastinating, we finally moved her to the big girl car seat! I kept putting it off because I didn't want to admit my little baby was big enough to outgrow anything but considering her feet were dangling off the edge of the infant car seat and her head was at the top of the head rest... it had to happen. Her new car seat seems so nice too. Plus it has a cup holder. :)

For the most part we've had a really mellow season so far (highs in the 50s some days, the grass in our yard is still alive and there are still lots of trees with leaves on them) but we did have one day with a few inches of snow. I put her in a snowsuit and set her down in the yard to see what she thought. She was not very impressed.

Seriously, why couldn't we have stayed inside where it's warm?

I'm so excited for Thanksgiving tomorrow! Thanksgiving is probably in my top 3 favorite holidays. Mira's diet has expanded enough I think she'll be able to try most food at dinner. She still only has her 2 bottom teeth so I'm not sure if turkey will be on her menu but she'll be able to eat plenty of veggies and, most importantly, dessert. I can't wait to see what she does with some pumpkin pie.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!