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: