2 Years Old!

Well there's no getting around it now - my baby is definitely not a baby anymore! Mira is now 2 whole years old and Mark and I are just flabbergasted that she's so "grown up" already. We've been telling her for the past few weeks that she's going to have a birthday, which of course means less than nothing at all to her at this age, but we got her so that when we'd ask her, "How many will you be on your birthday?" she would exclaim "Tooooo!" and hold up all five fingers on her hand. Although a few times instead of "Toooo!" she'd say "Seeeeee!" so maybe she's older than I thought, ha ha. The day after Mira's birthday we had some family over for a little party. Get ready for major picture overload.

Her new thing is to cover her face with her hands when someone whips out a camera.

Once again I had my friend Melissa whip up a cake for Mira and once again it was a shame to cut up something that looked like such a work of art - except that it tasted even better than it looked so then it was easy to demolish it. The top layer is rice krispies covered in chocolate frosting covered in fondant. The middle layer is chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream filling. The bottom layer is coconut cake with vanilla buttercream and fresh strawberries. Drool. We also had pizza, salad, chips, and fruit for everyone.

The guests included my parents and step-parents, sister Sara, Mark's parents, our babysitter Ally and her 3 kids who are school age but nevertheless are great with Mira and Mira loves them too. Mira kept getting more and more excited as people she knew kept showing up at the door. She would run up to me and babble excitedly and run back to whoever had just come in and point to them and laugh. I didn't schedule any entertainment for everyone during the party because Mira provided the entertainment all by herself.

FaceTiming with my sister Penny in L.A.

My mom and sister Sara

Mark and his parents

Yep, they're related

I tried to get some pictures of Mira with chocolate cake smeared across her face but unlike last year, she's actually a pretty dainty eater and is really good about not making a mess (until she decides to throw her plate of food on the floor - it's been a hassle to teach her not to do that, much to the dogs' disappointment).

That's as messy as it got. Not too shabby.

As expected Mira very much enjoyed the opening of the presents. Surprisingly she didn't get as many toys as I was thinking she would. She did, however, being a girl (and a cute one at that), end up with plenty of frilly girlie outfits and footwear. And yes she did get excited about receiving clothing.

Trying on her kitty socks. I wasn't able to get this on film, but before she put the socks on she was "petting" the socks and even gave them a kiss!

A handmade quilt made by Ally and Mark's mother.

Plus Mira can wear the quilt as a cape.

Artist at work.

Her other big present is a membership to Discovery Gateway, the Children's Museum in SLC. My grandparents sent Mira a birthday check that was just the right amount to buy her the membership. I've taken her a couple of times already and she loves it. She doesn't really have the attention span to focus on most of the activities for longer than a few minutes but the nice thing about it is that I can let her run wild and get into whatever she wants and it's okay! Plus she sleeps better when I take her, which can only be a good thing.

Mark asked me not to post this video because he's embarrassed at how messy our house is, but I'm going to risk the fallout that might occur and post it anyway because 1) I'm going off the assumption that the people who read this blog don't care that our house is messy and 2) this is just so cute and I haven't been able to get Mira to replicate anything close to this cuteness in another room of the house so who cares. Plus, the house is cleaner now so use your imagination (sorry Mark!).

Dirty house aside, Mark and I are doing much better. We stopped going to see the counselor awhile ago because rather than being helpful it was starting to get to the point where it felt like we were just forcing ourselves to bring up and rehash things we'd rather not go over ad nauseum. After we stopped going to the appointments we were still having arguments and I was starting to feel depressed again - to the point where we were wondering if I needed to go back in the get my Prozac dose adjusted - and one night we were arguing and all of a sudden we stopped and looked at each other and Mark said, "I hate arguing with you like this," I agreed with him, and it seems like we've been better since then. I don't know what happened but I'm just glad we're doing all right. Maybe we really did need to look at each other and remember why we've stuck with each other for so long - we're not picking fights because we want to, even though it felt like it sometimes. Just a change in perspective, I guess.

Last week Mark and I splurged and bought ourselves brand new ski boots. We each have been salivating over a pair of boots at the local ski shop and every couple of weeks we'd go in, stare wistfully at the boots and regretfully walk away because the numbers on the price tag were too big. But over the season the prices have been steadily dropping and finally last week the price was low enough we decided we'd better buy them while they still had our sizes in stock. Here's Mira helping me model my new snazzy boots.

Of course Mark and I couldn't wait to put the boots to the test. As it goes with new boots, it takes a little while to get a good feel for what they're capable of but the consensus is well-fitting boots make all the difference. However, what was not a good idea was for me to attempt my first double black diamond run while I was still getting used to new equipment. I lost my balance and ended up falling a few hundred feet down the mountain face, and it was so steep I couldn't make myself stop. That was really terrifying - I just kept falling and falling and I was starting to picture myself in a hospital bed hooked up to monitors and tubes and lines like the patients I take care of at work because I was heading towards a bunch of trees and I knew it was going to hurt when I hit. Luckily, somehow I ended up sliding towards the left, which leveled off barely enough that I was able to stop just literally a few feet from the trees. Had I gone towards the right, I would have gone off a ledge with rocks underneath. That ranks up there in the list of experiences I would not care to repeat ever again. Mark watched the whole thing and said it was the worst fall he'd ever witnessed and he completely expected me to be unconscious when I finally stopped falling, or at least very hurt. Again, I really really lucked out because I managed to ski down to the bottom under my own power - needless to say that was the end of our ski day but still, the fact that I didn't seriously injure myself is incredible. I'm so glad I was wearing a helmet! I felt like I had whiplash for a few days afterwards (which I may have had), I've got some random bruising and sore muscles, but the worst of it is my left shoulder. I have limited range of motion, my arm pops out of the socket if I move too much and if I don't keep on top of the ibuprofen I start to get some sharp pain from my shoulder all the way to my fingertips. But already it feels much better than it did, so I'll just have to take it easy for awhile. Mark is still convinced that I'm capable of doing a double black, but after this episode they're off limits for awhile.

On a less stressful note, here are some random pictures of Mira playing with the iPad. I still don't know when she decided she had to cover her face when a camera shows up.

And a picture of Wally chilling in the laundry hamper. Even though Wally's name suits him, for some reason Mark wants to call him Morris, I want to call him George and we both occasionally call him Wallace. Wally being a cat, he responds only to what he feels like acknowledging.

I finished my Advanced CV Module classes last week. I'm still waiting to be excited about doing this module. I've decided I need to just view this whole thing as jumping through hoops. But it has been nice to have some projects to work on again.

Right On Schedule

Isn't it funny how you can have a happy, easy-going, willing-to-go-along-with-anything little girl, and right around the time the 2-year mark is around the corner, she suddenly...isn't? The Terrible Twos are definitely here. I feel like I can't take Mira anywhere in public anymore! I'm so glad she's showing that she's developmentally appropriate and on-track by trying to figure out where the boundaries are and by pushing my buttons incessantly, but holy crap, where did my sweet little girl go??? I have to keep reminding myself that this is just a phase, just like the newborn phase when I felt like a gross exhausted leaking zombie for months and it felt like it would never end - this too shall pass. Mark tells me that his older daughter Jintelle behaved very similarly when she was this age. The second he would put her down she would take off running and good luck finding her and chasing her down again! And then, according to him, all of a sudden one day she just calmed down and that was the end of it. My mom says that my sister Sara was similar in temperament too - very high-energy, hard to keep distracted with any one thing for a period of time longer than about 15 seconds, but very inquisitive, very curious, and very good-natured. Both these descriptions fit Mira very well these days. And Sara did calm down eventually too and she's a very intelligent, well-functioning member of society. :) So there's hope, but gee whiz, this is a tiring age! I feel in some ways that I had more freedom when she was a baby because at least when I took her places 1) she couldn't go anywhere on her own and 2) if she was crying it was because of something easy to solve, like she's hungry. Now I take her into public and I can count on at least 100 (ok not really, it just feels that way) temper tantrums - you know, the kind where they throw themselves on the floor when you prevent them from pulling everything off a shelf and they kick and scream and then hit and kick you and you have to carry a writhing little animal out the door. Aah, fun times. :)

What does make me feel better though is that I must be doing a good job with setting boundaries because there have been a few times I've been in public somewhere with her and she's gotten ready to throw a fit, and I say to her very sternly, "If you scream, we are leaving." Then she looks uncertainly at me and apparently decides I mean business because she doesn't end up throwing the fit. Mark has also commented on the fact that if he tells her to do something multiple times she doesn't do it, but then when I ask her once she runs off and does it right away. So I feel a little better when I can see that she's got the makings of a well-behaved child in there. I just wish it was easier to find an outlet for all her energy when it's cold and snowy outside!

Well, enough complaining. Mira really is a sweet girl and is really pretty smart, in my opinion. I'm running out of body parts to teach her because she learns them so fast. She tries really hard (and mostly succeeds) to get herself dressed and undressed. She still doesn't have a big vocabulary but every once in awhile she'll surprise me by saying something completely out of the blue. Mark's mother is a speech therapist/pathologist who has worked with kids for years and I'm thinking we may want to have her start working with Mira before too long. She's trying to talk, she just seems to have some trouble figuring out how to make certain sounds. But she definitely understands everything we say - actually I think she understands more than we give her credit for but we don't realize it because she can't really repeat back anything. Well, it'll come eventually - and plus, the sooner she talks the sooner she can talk back! (Quick, name the show!)

Besides, who needs talking when you've got this cute face to look at?

We finally got a few days last week with temperatures close to 40 - a real heat wave! So Mira and I took advantage of the warm weather (ha) and spent some time outside.

She kept pushing her hand down in the snow to see what would happen. Luckily no face-planting this time.

Watching an airplane.

And off she goes.

We took Mira to get her professional 2-year photos taken. I remembered how many great pictures we got last year for her 1-year pictures and figured with her exuberant personality she'd love to show off for the camera. Boy was I wrong. I was mortified at how many temper tantrums she threw. Needless to say I left a very generous tip for our photographer to make up for her having to deal with us. I promise I'm not a bad parent, Mira was just being a brat that day!!! I'm impressed we even got any good pictures at all. We weren't able to get any family pictures this time - we tried that and it turned into Mark and me trying to hold Mira down on the couch which led to more screaming and hitting and kicking. Here are my favorites from the session:

Singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider"

This is about the time we started bribing her with candy to get her to sit still for a few seconds.

Playing Patty Cake

Aaaaaannnnnddddd she's done

Definitely done.

As I keep reminding myself... It means her frontal lobe is developing normally. Plus, those last two will be great blackmail material for when she's older. :)