The Brat Years, Part 3

To be fair, Mira is just acting her age, which is a good thing. All the traits that are frustrating now will serve her well in the future. I like to say that I want her to be curious, independent, inquisitive, testing boundaries, and able to stand up for herself - just not when I'm trying to parent her! I read a very entertaining article not too long ago entitled "3-Year-Olds Are A**holes" and this pretty much sums up the experience of having a three-year-old. I had hoped everybody was wrong when I was warned that 3 is far worse than 2 but sadly it's one of the truest things I've encountered. Luckily everyone else who currently has (or has had) a 3-year-old can easily commiserate and as they say, grief loves company!

I turn my back for 2 minutes and the level of destruction this child has accomplished is mind-blowing.

One of the more frustrating things going on now is the never-ending story of potty training. I got dumb enough to think we were pretty much done, so just to make sure I didn't get too sure of myself, Mira has been having more accidents the last few weeks than she has in months. I think most of it is a combination of being tired and having her schedule messed up (more on that later) but she still won't go poop in the potty. Very commonly she'll come up to me with a sad face and say, "Me pooped." And whatayaknow, she did, in her underwear. We finally resorted back to a potty chart and rewarding with treats for the times she does go poop in the potty, but even our success with that is sketchy. But as both my parents like to continually remind me, I had the same problem for a long time - so I guess this one is my fault.

Luckily, 3 is also very cute so there are plenty of adorable, side-splitting moments to make up for the challenging ones. Mira knows that she had a birthday and turned 3, and then last month we talked to her about how I had a birthday too.

Mira: "Me three now!"

Me: "Yes, you are three now, because you had a birthday."

Mira: (thinks for a second) "Mommy ten now!"

Since 10 is as high as she can count, that says a lot about how she views me. Ten is practically ancient, people!

Since winter is now officially over, it's been time to spend time outside again, which has been great for everybody. Winter is hard with an active child who ends up having to be cooped up inside. So we've been taking her baby doll on walks outside almost every day.

And it finally got warm enough to go to on a longer walk to the "big park."

Queen of the hill!

The story behind this next photo is pretty funny. We had brought in the carseat for whatever reason and Mark and I were doing something when we heard, "Mom! Dad! Help!" We find Mira had managed to strap herself into the carseat but couldn't extricate herself. Which, I won't lie, was kind of nice for a few minutes.

Mira is finally really beginning to talk more, which is mostly thanks to Mark's mother, who has been working her speech pathologist magic on her. We still have a ways to go, but Mira is finally speaking in mostly full sentences and her speech is not as garbled as it had been. Although her grammar takes a bit of deciphering still.

Mira: (getting mad at one of the dogs for sniffing at her food) "NO, dog! No eat me's eat!"

Translation is, of course: Don't eat my food. "Eat" can be a verb or a noun, and to make a pronoun possessive, just add "'s" to the end of the word. Obviously.

I love this next photo. We were in the garage looking for a ball to play with outside and Mira came across her ski goggles. Well, nothing would do but for her to wear her ski goggles outside, since it was "way hot" that day. Also, for Mira, "way hot" means it's bright. I've tried to teach her the differentiation between "hot" and "bright" but she's not having any of it.

And this - I have no idea where she learned to do this but this is one of the cutest things ever! One night after taking a bath and brushing her teeth, she looked at me, grinned, and gave me a thumbs up. And I think she's trying to wink but she kind of looks like a pirate. Arrrrr, matey! She's been doing it a lot at random times, which I don't mind at all.

And one of her favorite activities now is jumping on the trampoline - or, as Mira calls it, the "uppy-down." One day my dad came over for a visit and jumped on the "uppy-down" with Mira. The chickens (or rather, the "bok-boks") were wandering around the yard so Mira started imitating them and ordered my dad to do the same. By the time I could get my camera out only Mira was walking around like a bok-bok but let it be known that Mira was able to get my dad to be a chicken too.

Often what all this physical activity means is that by the end of the day, Mira is exhausted. The kind of exhausted where you offer her a cookie with ice cream and sprinkles and rainbows and unicorns and she screams and cries. Trying to make it to bedtime can seem completely impossible some days. After one particularly rough day when I was getting ready to go to work and Mira was having a Chernobl-level meltdown, I ended up just holding her and rocking her. I might now know much about being a mom but I do know that on the worst days, hugs from your mom just magically make your problems better. After a couple of minutes I realized she had stopped crying and when I looked down, she had fallen asleep. I couldn't even remember the last time she'd fallen asleep while I was holding her. It brought back some really sweet memories for me.

Sadly I had to leave for work so I couldn't enjoy the snuggles for very long. But there's photographic evidence that it actually happened!

So, on to a change of subject. Last month Mark interviewed for a couple of law enforcement positions. I felt that it with his 10 years of experience it was very unlikely he would not get a job offer from at least one of the departments but we had to consider all our options. In law enforcement, you get a nice retirement after 20 years. Mark has been adamant from the beginning that he absolutely does not want to work longer than 20 years - that is plenty of time to work in law enforcement, and I don't blame him there. The problem that he recently pointed out is that even though the retirement is nice at 20 years, it wouldn't be enough to support us, so he would still have to work somewhere to supplement my income. Starting over at 50 is not impossible but, let's face it, it's not easy or ideal either. So from the beginning of this whole mess with his job we have tossed around the idea of getting him out of law enforcement now and cutting our losses (including the retirement) so that he could get into another career earlier that would be less stress and more money in the long run, even if it means he has more years of working. He decided that he would interview for 2 departments that we thought he had a good shot at and if neither of them worked out, he would take that as his sign that it was time to change careers.

I was honestly very shocked when he didn't advance in the interview process for either of those 2 departments. I'm sure Mark was too. But now we were being steered in a clear direction. Mark is officially done with law enforcement. Here's how I feel about it: a part of me is very angry and sad about this. I'm angry about how this came about. Mark was a wonderful police officer. Law enforcement needs officers like Mark. Mark was doing everything right and stood up for what was right, and he lost his job for it. A part of me cannot be okay with that. And on a selfish note, I love a man in uniform - it was what caught my eye about Mark at the very beginning when he was working security while he was in the Academy. Boy, does he look good in a uniform. Told you that was selfish.

But here's what's good about the whole thing. He is SUCH a different person now that he's out of law enforcement. He's so much more relaxed now, probably more relaxed and happy than I've seen him in... well, years. Being in law enforcement messes with your head. There's no way that it can't. Your survival at work depends on you being paranoid and not trusting anybody - and that attitude comes home with you. Police have almost a 100% divorce rate and it's no wonder. It's been hard to watch Mark's career eat away at his personality - and it's been so wonderful to see it come back in the last few months. Mark says he hadn't noticed a difference but everybody around him sure does! And now I don't have to worry that he'll go to work and get hurt or killed for doing his job. I'll always have a huge respect for police but I'm selfish and I'm glad it's not Mark who's at risk anymore. It might have been the uniform that initially attracted me but it's certainly not the only reason I've stayed with him all this time.

So where does that leave us? Mark had tossed around a few career ideas, all healthcare-related, and he finally made his decision a few weeks ago to become a surgical tech, which will be a perfect fit for him. He's mentioned that the reason he went into law enforcement was so he could help people, so now he'll get to focus on that aspect without all the danger. He'll definitely need some adrenaline in his job after what he's used to, he likes blood and guts (or at least doesn't get grossed out by it), he'll get to work inside a building (I know he's excited about that), and as far as working with a surgeon goes... please. I heard this great joke:

What's the difference between God and a surgeon?
God doesn't think he's a surgeon.

Mark can totally handle someone yelling at him and belittling his job performance and not even get rattled by it. In fact, he might even give it right back to the surgeon, and let's face it, some surgeons need to get off their high horse and get a reality check. (If you don't know, that's good, but take my word for it that plenty of surgeons actually think they are GOD.) I'm even a bit jealous of what Mark will be doing - if nurses did what surgical techs did, I would be all over that. That would be my dream job. But OR nurses grab supplies and chart. That's it. B-O-R-I-N-G. I couldn't do that. That's why I work in an ICU.

And you know how we know we're making the right decision? Everything is just falling together, and while I'm not a religious or even a spiritual person, I have noticed that when things are supposed to happen they just fall into place without much effort on your part. Mark has to get his CNA first, which he'll be done with soon after a few clinicals and the state exam, which he'll pass without a problem. Then in August he can apply for the surgical tech program and once he gets in, that takes about a year to finish if he goes full time. In the meantime we're hoping he can get a CNA job while he's in school to help out with finances, which are really tight right now. But it will definitely be worth it. And with financial aid and grants, his entire schooling will be 100% covered. That is pretty darn cool.

So despite how it came about, this will be a great change for us. Mark said at the very beginning that in a year we'll look back on this and wonder why we were so upset because things will be so much better, and he's already right.

If you're ever unsure of how to handle curve balls that life throws at you - just relax (like our cats, the paragons of relaxation) and things will work out for the best. Somehow it always works out.

Birthday Bash, Vegas Style!

Weeks later I'm finally able to sit down and write about our Vegas vacation... Mark's daughter Jintelle turned 21 in March and as we'd promised, we took her and her boyfriend Erik to Vegas to celebrate the event appropriately. We stayed at a condo not even a block off the Strip, which was pretty awesome, and quite honestly a lot cheaper than staying at one of the big casinos. The first day we were there was St. Patrick's Day, which happens to be Jintelle's actual birthday, and let's just say that having your 21st birthday on St. Patrick's Day in Las Vegas is about as awesome a birthday as you could ask for! It started off with a healthy amount of alcohol... and besides having a blast watching all the people walk down the Strip in various green get-ups, I don't recall a whole lot of the night. It was awesome.

Starting things off right!

Telley and me in front of the Excalibur.

This could have been part of the reason why the night was a bit blurry.

It's not a proper trip to Vegas without a Cirque du Soleil show, and this time we saw the newest one at the ARIA, called Zarkana. Compared to all the Cirque du Soleil shows we've seen (which is several), this one wasn't my absolute favorite, but Jintelle and Erik hadn't ever seen Cirque live so this was a real treat for them. And it's always a good night when you see Cirque du Soleil.

We tried to convince Mark to get the Zarkana ringmaster's hat - he should have.

Lovely young couple.

We look pretty good too.

We saw the fountains at the Bellagio, which, come one, everybody has to watch the fountains at the Bellagio while in Vegas. The song they played was "Time to Say Goodbye" by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman - can you say chills up your spine?

Jintelle also conquered her massive fear of heights and jumped off the Stratosphere. I am SO proud of her - getting anyone to step off a platform and fall straight down for 855 feet is hard enough, but for her, this was big! Mark had already done it a couple years ago and Erik and I were plenty happy to sit back and be cowardly chickens. I'll own it, no problem!

Getting suited up.

We were all a teensy bit worried she wouldn't be able to do it.

She proved us wrong! Yay Telley!

One of the best parts of the trip was this little restaurant on Fremont Street called the Heart Attack Grill. We'd never heard of it before but this place is hilarious!

If you weight 350 pounds or more, you eat for free, and there's a scale outside the restaurant for you to step on to make sure. (Not pictured: vintage ambulance.)

 You have to wear a hospital gown to eat, and they give you wristbands to wear.

The Bypass is what they call their burgers. The Single Bypass is a single hamburger patty, the Double Bypass is two patties and so on up to the Octo Bypass - which you can get with 40 slices of bacon. And in case you weren't sure, everything on their menu is purposefully unhealthy. Besides a Bypass burger and french fries, your only other food option is a ginormous hot dog onto which they dump piles of chili and cheese.

Their decor was awesome. You can't really read it but you could get your alcohol served to you in a prescription bottle. And speaking of alcohol, our Jello shots were administered by our nurse waitress in 60 cc syringes, and our wine came to us in an IV bag. (Actually, to be technical, it's a tube feeding bag, but close enough.)

Poor Telley had had too much to drink the night before so her shot didn't sit so well.

The doctor and nurse getting our IV wine set up.

If they could just invent something like this for caffeine, we'd be good to go!

Quick! More vodka, stat!

Erik on the fast track to wine consumption.

Here was the best part:

If you don't eat all of your burger, your nurse spanks you! At first we thought it would be a light little tapping, but these girls don't mess around! This poor guy at the table next to us had the misfortune of not finishing his meal and this is what he got.

And yes, that is a midget. You can't make this stuff up, people!

Mark had been planning on not quite finishing his burger on purpose just so he could have the experience of getting spanked by a naughty nurse (let me clarify that that is NOT part of my job description) but after seeing that he decided that maybe he didn't want to be punished after all. So we were all determined to finish our burgers - which were big.

It was one of the best burgers I've ever had though. We all managed to eat our burgers when our nurse came back to the table, looked at Mark's plate, and noted in a disappointed tone that he'd eaten all his food.

So the rest of us dumped our leftover fries onto Mark's plate.

Okay, so maybe it was a bit underhanded, but come on, we couldn't pass up this opportunity!

And yes, he got spanked HARD.

Here's the view from the webcam they have set up to get the expressions of the unfortunate spankees.
Mark Gets Spanked

Mark complained for a couple hours afterwards that he couldn't sit down and he was actually worried the skin was broken. But he forgave his nurse anyway. (She did feel bad - she told him afterwards that she doesn't usually hit that hard but her first hit was exceptionally hard and then she couldn't let the rest of them be any less so she had to keep it up.)

And then we got the bill.

So. Freaking. Hilarious! We are definitely going to have to go back on our next trip down.

We walked through the Rio one day, and although we didn't get the chance to see the real Chippendale's dancers we got the next best thing.

Another fun activity we did was go on a zipline tour in Bootleg Canyon, about 30 minutes out of Vegas. It was a nerve-wracking bus drive up a narrow, steep, windy road, followed by a short hike, followed by 4 ziplines down to the bottom, the shortest of which was a quarter mile in length. It was so much fun and on a couple of the ziplines we got going over 60 mph.

We also went to see Tournament of Kings again, since Jintelle and Erik hadn't seen it before, and on our last evening Jintelle and Erik went to Madame Tussaud's while Mark and I had a date night at a restaurant called Japonais, one of those restaurants where a tiny slab of fish costs $20, but it was excellent food.

Plus I enjoy the opportunity to get dressed up.

It was such a fun vacation but, as always, too short. But even though it was nice to get a break from parenting, I was definitely ready to see Mira again by the time we got back. Mira got to spend a few days with her Grandma and a few days with her Grandpa and it sounds like everyone had a great time. And that's a big relief for me to know that Mira spent several days without Mark and me and she wasn't upset about it at all - the most worrisome part of the trip was wondering if she'd be okay and if she would miss us too much or get homesick or something. Apparently Mira was ready for a vacation from Mommy and Daddy too so that worked out for everyone!

I will dedicate the next post to Mark and his job situation. Don't worry, it's not bad, but what happens in Vegas, gets its own blog post. :)