Well, it's official - my child is now 3 years old! It just doesn't seem possible that it's been that long. I can barely remember what it was like to have a baby to take care of. Mira is definitely not a baby anymore - still a little kid, but so grown up!
For Mira's birthday, instead of getting her a present that she would probably forget about in a few days, Mark and I took Mira skiing. In retrospect it may not have been the best idea, since she's at the age where trying to get her to do even the simplest thing (such as keep her gloves on so her hands stay warm or put her hat on or even just walk in the direction we tell her to) is a huge battle. But since she falls into the "4 and under" age category, her lift ticket was free, and her ski equipment rental was only $15, so money-wise it was a good choice. And she's so active I'm always trying to find physical things for her to do. It ended up being a bit more hassle than I'd anticipated (don't get me wrong, I definitely figured it would be a hassle, but I keep forgetting just how difficult it is to take Mira in public until we get out in public) but it was still fun.
Here are some pictures of Mira getting ready to hit the slopes.
It felt like it took for-freaking-ever to actually get to the slopes, because first we had to walk to the open gondola lift that would take us from the parking lot to the base of the resort (and trying to get Mira to walk in her ski boots while juggling her skis and our skis took awhile), then we had to get her lift ticket, then we had to take the lift to the base, then we had to take another gondola to the main lodge on the mountain, and then we had to take the ski lift to the top of the beginner hill. Mira hadn't slept much the night before so by the time we got up the hill to actually start skiing I think she was already pretty frustrated. I also think she thought the chair lift was more exciting than skiing because we'd get her partway down the hill and she'd start to cry, point at the chair lift and say, "Up! Up!" So I'd tell her we could get back on the chair lift but we would have to go down before we could go up again. I have to agree with Mark's assessment that she was probably a bit too young still, because she can't really grasp the concept of snowplowing or turning on her own yet, but I'm still glad she got the experience. Here are some videos of us taking Mira down the hill.
The other really time consuming part was when she decided she needed the potty. We put her in a diaper, just in case, but she wanted to use the potty and I'm not about to discourage that. But of course by the time we could get to the lodge, get her to the bathroom, get all her layers off, get her on the potty, get her layers back on, wash hands, get back outside and get all her equipment back on, it took about 7 hours. Okay, clearly that's a slight exaggeration, but it still did take awhile, and she went potty twice (but I should point out how impressed I was that she stayed dry for the whole outing). The point is that ate up a lot of time and energy for Mira, and then she wanted to eat lunch, so the end result is after just a few runs down the beginner hill she was pretty much done. So we got back on the gondola to the base. She actually had a lot of fun on the gondola - she got excited watching for the other cars coming from the opposite direction and when the gondola jiggled as it passed over a pole she thought it was absolutely hilarious. Observe.
And some super awesome family pictures.
Once we got to the base, we remembered there's a small little terrain park for kids so we took Mira there, walked her up to the top of the small inclines, and let her go. At first she thought it was funny to lie down but we kept telling her to stand up, and finally:
I love how proud of herself she is!
She had a lot of fun with that so we took turns sending her down the small hill several times until she started to get tired again and we decided to call it a day. So we got on the open gondola lift to the parking lot.
That's when it got scary.
I'm not always very good at describing things so here's a picture of what this lift looks like.
As you can see, you stand in it and as you reach the concrete platform to get on or off the doors slide apart and you enter or exit the lift as it slowly travels around the platform, then the doors close at the end of the platform and the lift goes on its way. Our lift car arrived at the parking lot and the doors opened, as Mira went to step off, her foot slipped into the very small gap between the lift car and the concrete platform. Mark and I dove for her as fast as we could, but the lift was still going and as it continued forward, Mira's ankle got crushed between the lift and the concrete.
It was one of those moments that dragged but yet in reality things were probably happening faster than we perceived. I jumped off onto the platform and tried to wrench Mira's foot out, tried to unbuckle her boot to pull her foot out, but it was too tight. Mark managed to brace himself halfway off the lift and somehow, somehow pushed against the lift hard enough to keep it from going any farther, but more cars kept piling up and banging into our lift and each time it wedged Mira's foot in tighter. Mira was shrieking hysterically, Mark and I were screaming at the lift operator to stop the lift, a woman who was standing in line was frantically trying to help me pull Mira to safety. I looked up for a moment to see what was taking so long and there, in the booth, was the lift operator, playing on his cell phone.
After what felt like a lifetime of screaming and trying to get this guy's attention, the lady who had been helping me ran up to the booth and dragged the guy out, yelling at him to "get off your f*cking cell phone and stop the damn lift." I was so focused on Mira I didn't hear this next part but apparently he said something to the effect of, "It would have stopped on its own eventually anyway."
I'm completely unclear as to how this guy left without Mark punching his face in, or worse - it says a lot for Mark's self control. (A friend of mine who heard this story told me Mark should have killed this guy, except that we don't want Mark going to jail, but Mark should have beat this guy to within an inch of his life for this and he probably would have had some help too.) But the operator saw what was going on, stopped the lift, and we were finally able to pull Mira's foot free. And then all I could do was sit on the ground and hug her. I honestly don't remember a whole lot of the next several minutes. I remember the lady giving the operator an earful (as she should have, and I'm glad she did because I was too focused on Mira to do it myself) and she stood with me for awhile until more people started arriving. I remember Mark helping me pull Mira's ski boot off and telling me to look at her foot to make sure it was okay. Her ankle seemed okay but she didn't want anybody near it. I remember trying so hard not to lose it because I needed to stay calm for Mira, who cried inconsolably for about half an hour. I remember seeing people stuck on the lift watching and actually felt bad for them being stuck up there but there was no way around it. I remember someone came up to me and offered to take us up the to clinic at the base so Mira could get checked out. I'm pretty sure I remember an older lady coming up to me, near tears herself, giving me a hug and telling me how sorry she was we had to go through this. I kind of remember chanting to myself that Mira was okay, just to remind myself that somehow she really was physically fine.
I remember all these upper-management-level people from the resort started to show up and I specifically remember one of them getting on his knees to talk to me and check on Mira, and he gestured towards the lift operator and said emphatically, "That guy, he WILL be taken care of." I had this random mental image of a mafia hitman getting involved when he said that. They got to work trying to fix the lift - it took a good 5-10 minutes to get it going again. Then a bunch of them escorted us into the booth to talk with us while ski patrol checked out Mira and we filled out an incident report. Meanwhile one of the managers had dragged the lift operator to stand on the concrete platform and was standing with him, forcing him to actually watch everyone get on and off the lift (as he should have been doing to start off with).
I won't go over too much what happened next except to summarize with 1) the assistant manager for the lift operations apologized many times over, assured us that it is in their policy that employees may NOT use their cell phones while on duty, they were taking this situation very seriously and "that guy" would be dealt with, and 2) ski patrol examined Mira's ankle and leg very carefully and Mira (who thankfully had finally calmed down) sat through it and even managed a couple of smiles.
I'm completely convinced that the only reason Mira still has her foot attached to her leg is because she was wearing her ski boots. Thank everything that ski boots are so rigid - if we'd gone snowboarding for some reason there is no way she would have avoided going to the hospital. I had a few panicked thoughts while her foot was stuck that we were going to end up at my work. And how is Miss Mira doing? Well, by the time we got back home she was smiling and laughing, and only once did she bring up what had happened. I think I was helping her use the potty and she pointed to the inside of her ankle (where there was a small little red mark) with a concerned frown on her face and said, "Mommy, me owie."
Me: "Oh, yeah, you do have a small little owie, huh? But it's just a tiny little owie, and you're okay now."
Mira: "Oh. Yeah."
And that was it. By the end of the day she was running and jumping and dancing around like usual and, we hope, she's forgotten about this. We haven't brought up the situation again since we don't want her to focus and fixate on that part of it, but she hasn't mentioned it either.
As for how Mira's parents handled the situation, when we got home Mark had a few beers and I seriously considered chugging a bottle of wine but I didn't. Mark also had a hockey game that night so I think that helped him too. I've heard stories about how parents get superhuman strength when their child is in danger but that was the first time I'd ever seen it. Mark honestly saved Mira by doing what he did. If the situation hadn't been so terrifying and traumatic I would have been amazed that Mark pulled that off. Mark describes this as the second scariest thing Mira has ever put us through. (The first was when we had just found out I was pregnant and I almost miscarried. I would almost disagree and say this experience was much worse.)
An interesting side note is that when Mark's daughter Jintelle was about Mira's age, she got her foot trapped in a shopping cart at Kmart and it took hours to finally get her out, after her foot was starting to turn blue from losing circulation for so long. Not too long after Kmart's shopping carts went from metal to plastic with holes too small for extremities to get stuck in. So apparently if you are one of Mark's offspring, you're going to get your foot trapped in something in dramatic fashion. Mark also mentioned that since he's so accident-prone it was really only a matter of time until one of his kids showed the same tendencies. I'm not sure I can handle Mira being this kind of accident-prone!
But anyway, we're going to follow up with the resort in the next few days to make sure they're going to do something to ensure something like this doesn't happen again. We don't want money or free lift tickets or anything like that - we're not one of those people that like to go around suing for millions of dollars because the coffee cup doesn't say "Warning Hot Coffee" on it. We just want to make sure the resort takes this seriously enough to encourage a culture of safety with its employees. Otherwise I'm happy to let it go. Mira is fine (she's tough stuff, that's for sure), we're still going to take her skiing (but maybe not for a little while), and we're still going to keep skiing. Accidents happen, but the issue is that lift operator was not paying attention and the situation could have been handled much faster and not gotten out of hand had he been doing his job.
Well, moving on. I mentioned that the binkie would go away when Mira turned 3, which it did. She got ready for bed and asked for her "pink bink." I mentally took a deep breath and told her that binkies are only for little babies, and when babies turn 3, like Mira, they're not babies anymore, and the binkies just disappear and we can't ever find them again. She didn't believe me at first but when I put her to bed without the binkie... boy, she wasn't happy. She screamed for about 45 minutes while I shut myself in my bedroom. What I didn't expect was after that 45 minutes, she fell asleep, and she stayed asleep. And she hasn't asked about her binkie ever since then. Um, wow, that went A LOT easier than I expected! I'm going to miss her sweet little hum that she would do when she was falling asleep with her binkie, but as I said, babies grow up and don't need binkies anymore.
The other big change was Mira finally graduated from a crib to a toddler bed. Mira was beyond excited about her brand new bed.
I was also anticipating a huge battle getting her to stay in bed at night, but the first night she only came out once, and that was it. Ever since then when we put her in bed at night, she stays in bed! That's two big surprises for me (that I'm very excited about).
"Mira" is a Russian name that means "peace" but it must have been Opposite Day when we decided on that name because she is anything but peaceful!
For Mira's birthday, instead of getting her a present that she would probably forget about in a few days, Mark and I took Mira skiing. In retrospect it may not have been the best idea, since she's at the age where trying to get her to do even the simplest thing (such as keep her gloves on so her hands stay warm or put her hat on or even just walk in the direction we tell her to) is a huge battle. But since she falls into the "4 and under" age category, her lift ticket was free, and her ski equipment rental was only $15, so money-wise it was a good choice. And she's so active I'm always trying to find physical things for her to do. It ended up being a bit more hassle than I'd anticipated (don't get me wrong, I definitely figured it would be a hassle, but I keep forgetting just how difficult it is to take Mira in public until we get out in public) but it was still fun.
Here are some pictures of Mira getting ready to hit the slopes.
 |
| Her snowsuit was a present from Mark and me too. |
 |
| Oh the cuteness! |
The other really time consuming part was when she decided she needed the potty. We put her in a diaper, just in case, but she wanted to use the potty and I'm not about to discourage that. But of course by the time we could get to the lodge, get her to the bathroom, get all her layers off, get her on the potty, get her layers back on, wash hands, get back outside and get all her equipment back on, it took about 7 hours. Okay, clearly that's a slight exaggeration, but it still did take awhile, and she went potty twice (but I should point out how impressed I was that she stayed dry for the whole outing). The point is that ate up a lot of time and energy for Mira, and then she wanted to eat lunch, so the end result is after just a few runs down the beginner hill she was pretty much done. So we got back on the gondola to the base. She actually had a lot of fun on the gondola - she got excited watching for the other cars coming from the opposite direction and when the gondola jiggled as it passed over a pole she thought it was absolutely hilarious. Observe.
She had a lot of fun with that so we took turns sending her down the small hill several times until she started to get tired again and we decided to call it a day. So we got on the open gondola lift to the parking lot.
That's when it got scary.
I'm not always very good at describing things so here's a picture of what this lift looks like.
 |
| The top part at the resort base. |
 |
| The bottom part at the parking lot. |
It was one of those moments that dragged but yet in reality things were probably happening faster than we perceived. I jumped off onto the platform and tried to wrench Mira's foot out, tried to unbuckle her boot to pull her foot out, but it was too tight. Mark managed to brace himself halfway off the lift and somehow, somehow pushed against the lift hard enough to keep it from going any farther, but more cars kept piling up and banging into our lift and each time it wedged Mira's foot in tighter. Mira was shrieking hysterically, Mark and I were screaming at the lift operator to stop the lift, a woman who was standing in line was frantically trying to help me pull Mira to safety. I looked up for a moment to see what was taking so long and there, in the booth, was the lift operator, playing on his cell phone.
After what felt like a lifetime of screaming and trying to get this guy's attention, the lady who had been helping me ran up to the booth and dragged the guy out, yelling at him to "get off your f*cking cell phone and stop the damn lift." I was so focused on Mira I didn't hear this next part but apparently he said something to the effect of, "It would have stopped on its own eventually anyway."
I'm completely unclear as to how this guy left without Mark punching his face in, or worse - it says a lot for Mark's self control. (A friend of mine who heard this story told me Mark should have killed this guy, except that we don't want Mark going to jail, but Mark should have beat this guy to within an inch of his life for this and he probably would have had some help too.) But the operator saw what was going on, stopped the lift, and we were finally able to pull Mira's foot free. And then all I could do was sit on the ground and hug her. I honestly don't remember a whole lot of the next several minutes. I remember the lady giving the operator an earful (as she should have, and I'm glad she did because I was too focused on Mira to do it myself) and she stood with me for awhile until more people started arriving. I remember Mark helping me pull Mira's ski boot off and telling me to look at her foot to make sure it was okay. Her ankle seemed okay but she didn't want anybody near it. I remember trying so hard not to lose it because I needed to stay calm for Mira, who cried inconsolably for about half an hour. I remember seeing people stuck on the lift watching and actually felt bad for them being stuck up there but there was no way around it. I remember someone came up to me and offered to take us up the to clinic at the base so Mira could get checked out. I'm pretty sure I remember an older lady coming up to me, near tears herself, giving me a hug and telling me how sorry she was we had to go through this. I kind of remember chanting to myself that Mira was okay, just to remind myself that somehow she really was physically fine.
I remember all these upper-management-level people from the resort started to show up and I specifically remember one of them getting on his knees to talk to me and check on Mira, and he gestured towards the lift operator and said emphatically, "That guy, he WILL be taken care of." I had this random mental image of a mafia hitman getting involved when he said that. They got to work trying to fix the lift - it took a good 5-10 minutes to get it going again. Then a bunch of them escorted us into the booth to talk with us while ski patrol checked out Mira and we filled out an incident report. Meanwhile one of the managers had dragged the lift operator to stand on the concrete platform and was standing with him, forcing him to actually watch everyone get on and off the lift (as he should have been doing to start off with).
I won't go over too much what happened next except to summarize with 1) the assistant manager for the lift operations apologized many times over, assured us that it is in their policy that employees may NOT use their cell phones while on duty, they were taking this situation very seriously and "that guy" would be dealt with, and 2) ski patrol examined Mira's ankle and leg very carefully and Mira (who thankfully had finally calmed down) sat through it and even managed a couple of smiles.
I'm completely convinced that the only reason Mira still has her foot attached to her leg is because she was wearing her ski boots. Thank everything that ski boots are so rigid - if we'd gone snowboarding for some reason there is no way she would have avoided going to the hospital. I had a few panicked thoughts while her foot was stuck that we were going to end up at my work. And how is Miss Mira doing? Well, by the time we got back home she was smiling and laughing, and only once did she bring up what had happened. I think I was helping her use the potty and she pointed to the inside of her ankle (where there was a small little red mark) with a concerned frown on her face and said, "Mommy, me owie."
Me: "Oh, yeah, you do have a small little owie, huh? But it's just a tiny little owie, and you're okay now."
Mira: "Oh. Yeah."
And that was it. By the end of the day she was running and jumping and dancing around like usual and, we hope, she's forgotten about this. We haven't brought up the situation again since we don't want her to focus and fixate on that part of it, but she hasn't mentioned it either.
As for how Mira's parents handled the situation, when we got home Mark had a few beers and I seriously considered chugging a bottle of wine but I didn't. Mark also had a hockey game that night so I think that helped him too. I've heard stories about how parents get superhuman strength when their child is in danger but that was the first time I'd ever seen it. Mark honestly saved Mira by doing what he did. If the situation hadn't been so terrifying and traumatic I would have been amazed that Mark pulled that off. Mark describes this as the second scariest thing Mira has ever put us through. (The first was when we had just found out I was pregnant and I almost miscarried. I would almost disagree and say this experience was much worse.)
An interesting side note is that when Mark's daughter Jintelle was about Mira's age, she got her foot trapped in a shopping cart at Kmart and it took hours to finally get her out, after her foot was starting to turn blue from losing circulation for so long. Not too long after Kmart's shopping carts went from metal to plastic with holes too small for extremities to get stuck in. So apparently if you are one of Mark's offspring, you're going to get your foot trapped in something in dramatic fashion. Mark also mentioned that since he's so accident-prone it was really only a matter of time until one of his kids showed the same tendencies. I'm not sure I can handle Mira being this kind of accident-prone!
But anyway, we're going to follow up with the resort in the next few days to make sure they're going to do something to ensure something like this doesn't happen again. We don't want money or free lift tickets or anything like that - we're not one of those people that like to go around suing for millions of dollars because the coffee cup doesn't say "Warning Hot Coffee" on it. We just want to make sure the resort takes this seriously enough to encourage a culture of safety with its employees. Otherwise I'm happy to let it go. Mira is fine (she's tough stuff, that's for sure), we're still going to take her skiing (but maybe not for a little while), and we're still going to keep skiing. Accidents happen, but the issue is that lift operator was not paying attention and the situation could have been handled much faster and not gotten out of hand had he been doing his job.
Well, moving on. I mentioned that the binkie would go away when Mira turned 3, which it did. She got ready for bed and asked for her "pink bink." I mentally took a deep breath and told her that binkies are only for little babies, and when babies turn 3, like Mira, they're not babies anymore, and the binkies just disappear and we can't ever find them again. She didn't believe me at first but when I put her to bed without the binkie... boy, she wasn't happy. She screamed for about 45 minutes while I shut myself in my bedroom. What I didn't expect was after that 45 minutes, she fell asleep, and she stayed asleep. And she hasn't asked about her binkie ever since then. Um, wow, that went A LOT easier than I expected! I'm going to miss her sweet little hum that she would do when she was falling asleep with her binkie, but as I said, babies grow up and don't need binkies anymore.
The other big change was Mira finally graduated from a crib to a toddler bed. Mira was beyond excited about her brand new bed.
"Mira" is a Russian name that means "peace" but it must have been Opposite Day when we decided on that name because she is anything but peaceful!
