Summer Days

The responses I've gotten to my last post have been overwhelmingly supportive and sympathetic. If anything, parenthood gives us a great reason to complain about common crappy experiences! Sometimes I wonder how any of us survived to adulthood, especially if our parents had to deal with our siblings too.

Summer is in full swing and that means another Dirty Dash. This is our third straight year running the Dash and it's always so much fun. I've had people give me funny looks when I say our idea of fun is to dress up in wacky costumes and run a 10K full of obstacles and end up covered in mud. I guess when you put it that way...

This is how you make an entrance!

Since most of the group we run with works at the hospital and since the hospital is making us go to standardized scrubs in a few weeks, we decided to make costumes out of old scrubs that we won't be able to wear anymore. We had everything from vests and cut-offs to full-blown pirate costumes. Here are some pre-race pictures of Mark and me.

Unfortunately we didn't get a group post-race picture but you'll have to believe me when I say this was definitely the muddiest we've ever gotten! There's another race in September that I'd love to do but I have a feeling we'll have too much going on that time of year.

Mark's parents babysat Mira for a few hours a couple weeks ago and their synopsis of the experience was that she is "busy" and "full of energy" and "a little monkey" and have we considered buying her a jungle gym for the back yard? They took her to the Playland at McDonald's and apparently she went climbing all over the place, up to the very top, several times. My family has been over to visit and made comments about how wound-up she was acting but actually that's how she always is. I keep saying to my parents and sisters that if they want to borrow Mira for a few hours please feel free to take her.

I do love how she's getting into this princess phase. We found this little dress-up princess outfit and Mira absolutely loves to run around in it.

We spend as much time as we can outside, although sometimes it just gets aggravating for me because unless Mira is confined within 4 walls that are taller than she is she has this tendency to run off, which of course means I have to run after her, which she finds hilarious, so she giggles and runs faster. If I wasn't so worried that she'd hurt herself or get lost I have some days when I'd just let her go but of course a responsible parent such as myself can't allow that to happen.

At the end of our block there's a house with a couple of dogs that Mira has "befriended." Every time we walk past she "whistles" to get the dogs' attention.

Then she and the little dog get some exercise.

It's no wonder I'm so tired by the end of the day. A few days ago I fell asleep on the couch and unbeknownst to me Mira snatched my phone and took a few candid shots of me. I got a good laugh when I went to download pictures to my computer. And apparently she gave me a stuffed animal to sleep with as well.

Just because the weather is warm doesn't mean we've neglected Discovery Gateway. In fact Mira begs to go there quite often. She still has the attention span of a goldfish so I'm still running around chasing her but at least it's in a child-friendly building.

I should mention she does want to try to wash the dishes for real at home too.

 And for once she actually cooperated with the camera so I could take some super cute pictures of her.

She is a performer at heart, for sure. I think there's nothing she enjoys better than singing and dancing for a crowd. I'm trying to figure out how we're going to afford to put her in dance, gymnastics, singing etc.

The Brat Years

I've probably mentioned this somewhere already, but whenever someone asks me how Mira is doing, my immediate response is, "She's a brat, thanks for asking." And I'm only sort of joking around. Think I'm exaggerating? Let me explain.

A couple weeks ago Mira and I were going to meet my dad at a local mall so that we could upgrade my cell phone (I'm still on a family plan with my dad and sisters since hey, it saves money). While Mira and I were waiting I figured since it was about lunchtime we should go to the food court and get some lunch. First of all Mira was deciding to be contrary and didn't want to eat anything the food court had to offer, but finally she decided on pizza. Fantastic, I thought. So we stand in line. She decides which kind of pizza she wants. Excellent, I thought. This is going better than I thought.

Then she decided she wanted to make a run for it.

I nabbed her before she got anywhere, but this precipitated a meltdown. As in, flailing, kicking, arching, struggling to get down. I realized I about 5 too few arms to manage this fighting toddler and my purse and our food on a tray. I ended up tucking Mira under one arm in a football hold while trying to push the tray along with the other (a part of me wished she would scream loudly enough that the people in front of us in line would get sick of it and let us go first just to make it stop). When we got to the cash register I realized I had to juggle this flailing child around to reach my debit card. Once that got done, I somehow had to carry a 30 pound screaming toddler, my purse, and a tray of food through the food court to a table. I know from past experience that I absolutely cannot trust Mira to hold my hand and meekly walk with me to wherever I'm going - oh no, trying to do that always results in Mira deciding that she'd like to be dragged on the ground. I ended up dumping a regular-sized soda down the front of my shirt in the process of trying to juggle everything. When we finally got to a table, Mira decided that the pizza was not being cut up to her exact specifications and she had a nice loud screaming fit. Short story long, I'm never taking Mira in public again until she's at least 10. And that wasn't even a bad day.

One response that I commonly get when I tell stories like this is to enjoy it because it goes way too fast. A friend of mine found this article that I'm going to share here because it describes my feelings on this perfectly.

To Parents of Small Children

I'll admit it, there are many times when I feel like I just can't wait for this phase of Mira's development to be over with. I'm sure I'll miss parts of it when it's gone, but seriously, I'm just so exhausted I feel like I need a break! What makes it worthwhile is that she does and says so many cute and hilarious things, and when she's tired she snuggles down into the side of my neck and hugs me. This part I do love - I'm still her favorite person in the world, and she is so affectionate. She loves to give hugs and kisses, she wants to hold my hands and dance and twirl and sing. I just love the way she tries to mimic things that she sees. Apparently Mark and I might need to censor ourselves a little better because several times Mira has grabbed my face in her hands, leaned in and given me a really long romantic kiss on the mouth.

At least with summer weather finally here it's easier to wear her out.

Mark and I have talked about taking Mira on some short hikes, which I'm sure will happen as soon as our work schedules align correctly. Mira's little wading pool from last summer cracked so Mark found this new pool for Mira.

Mark has been really busy working in the yard. He's been doing some landscaping in the backyard, one improvement being the addition of a new fire pit.

He also put in a flag pole in our front yard. This is the view from the back yard.

Our baby chicks have finally graduated to living in the coop with the other hens! I thought they were big but compared to the full grown hens they're still really tiny.

And some more random summer pictures of Mira.

Helping water the blueberry bushes.

This was at a neighborhood block party last weekend. I think she's figured out the icing is the best part.

Nothing says summer quite like eating watermelon outside!

And some videos. The first one is from Discovery Gateway and the second one is from Memorial Day weekend at Mark's parents' house.

Don't get me wrong, I love this girl with all my heart, but man, she runs me ragged! And of course after saying all this - I absolutely wouldn't trade her in for the world. It's all worth it. Sometimes (especially after working a 12-hour graveyard shift) it's hard to remember that part, but it's absolutely worth it.

Work has finally calmed down a bit. Our census is down to about average (so no more mandatory on-call shifts until next winter!) and the most work-intense part of my Advanced Cardiovascular training is done. This last month was pretty stressful because I applied for a couple of different promotions within the department, one of which required creating a presentation on top of all the other education I was trying to get done, and I didn't get either position. In some ways I'm glad because quite honestly, a lot of the time I feel overwhelmed with what I have on my plate already, and adding on to that wouldn't have been emotionally healthy for any of us in this house. On the other hand, I'm a perfectionist over-achiever and the concept of not being good enough is a really really difficult one for me to swallow. Mark of course doesn't think any less of me for not getting the positions, and Mira I'm sure is benefiting from me being at home more, so again, I need to learn to not try to do everything and be happy with what I have. You'd think I'd have learned that by now... Well, my experience has been that if something doesn't work out it's because something that's a better fit is waiting. So, for now, I'm going to dedicate myself to being the best mom and wife I can be, and for 3 nights a week I go to a hospital to work.

Just another night at the office.

A patient's family left me this super sweet handwritten card and some candy to thank me for taking care of their child. In my 5 years in the PICU this is only the second time a family has left me a card to say thank you. If you want to make a nurse's week - leave them a card thanking them specifically for what they did. So I guess I really am doing the right thing and making a difference.