Easter and Some Catching Up

This feels like it's been a busy busy month! It may not have been but it seems like it's just flown past and I have a ton of catching up to do!

First order of business is what we did on Easter. I was scheduled to work the entire Easter weekend so it meant we couldn't really do a whole lot, but luckily the elementary school in our area had an Easter egg hunt so at least I didn't have to organize that! It was nice the way they had it set up. They covered the basketball court with plastic Easter eggs filled with candy and divided the kids up into age groups. There was ages 1-4, 5-8, and 9+, or something like that. They'd blow a whistle and the kids could go collect 3 eggs, then everyone had to come back and wait, then when they blew the whistle again it was a free-for-all. That way everyone got at least 3 eggs. Mira actually did really well. One of her things right now is picking things up and putting them into something else so I only had to show her once what she had to do and she had it. Obviously the older kids got a lot more eggs but luckily Mira didn't care too much. Here are some pictures of her stash:

Unfortunately most of the candy wasn't safe for her to have - there was some hard candy and some chewy candy but there was a little bit of chocolate and she can handle that. She seemed more interested in opening the eggs and then trying to close them again versus what was actually contained in the eggs. She doesn't get candy very much so she doesn't really know what it looks like yet. That, of course, will change. :)

Then on Easter we went to Mark's parents' house for a family dinner, which was very nice. I left straight from there to go to work, and found out later that when Mark got home that there had been a bit of a disaster. We'd been keeping the baby chicks in a big cardboard box on top of our dining room table so the animals couldn't get to them. I guess the cats could have if they'd wanted to but the cats have been largely uninterested in the chicks. Anyway, Mark got home that night and found on the floor a lot of feathers and blood and one of the chicks was missing. We never have found the carcass so apparently she was eaten by one of the dogs. Sad but honestly chickens have so many natural enemies because they're too stupid to defend themselves so I always expected we'd lose at least one of them. So sadly our flock is down to 8 now but that's all right. It was one of the yellow-orange ones. At least it wasn't our big egg-layer.

Like all babies our chicks are growing amazingly fast! Just look at the difference in size and appearance a few weeks makes:

Mark finally finished the chicken coop a few days ago so over the weekend the chicks graduated to living outside. They're at that awkward in-between phase where they still have some fluff that's falling off in clumps and random feathers poking out everywhere, and a couple are starting to get little feather tail-stumps growing in. One is getting a little bit of a comb too! They still cheep but in appearance they're definitely looking more like chickens than chicks. We still have some fine-tuning to make to the coop, like building little nests for them and such but otherwise they're on their own. They spent the first day or two completely huddled together and refused to go anywhere without the rest of the flock because they weren't used to so much open space, but they're much more comfortable roaming around their fenced-in area now. Now we just have to keep them happy and healthy and wait for the eggs to show up!

And speaking of happy and healthy:

This child of mine is not a baby anymore - she looks like a little girl now! (Although whenever we go out in public people, especially kids, will point to Mira and still call her a "little baby" even though she's walking.) Sometimes I watch her walking around like she's always done it and chattering away to herself and I just feel so bewildered because I swear she was a little baby just yesterday and to me she really doesn't look like a baby anymore. She definitely doesn't act like one anymore. She's basically self-sufficient with eating now. She's not great about using her fork or spoon all the time (most of the time she holds the utensil with one hand and picks up the food with the other hand) but I can set her food in front of her all cut up and she digs right in and eats like a freaking horse, I swear. I cannot believe how much food this kid eats! She can eat an entire banana and at least half a slice of bread for breakfast. Once she ate an entire slice of pizza for lunch! She'll eat a whole plate of dinner and then still eat most of an entire kiwi for dessert. And yet she's below average for weight! I guess she has my metabolism. Although with how active and busy she is it doesn't surprise me that she's always hungry. She never stops or even slows down. My sister Sara was over visiting and was trying to take a picture of Mira on her cell phone and she couldn't get a good shot because Mira was moving too fast! I told Sara she needs a really good camera with a super fast shutter speed to get pictures of Mira these days - I have to put my camera on "sports mode" if I'm going to try to get a decent picture of her. Video is the best way to handle photographic memories of Mira right now. She's exhausting to take care of - I love this age and she's absolutely hilarious, but she's busy and I'm getting some Mommy Guilt dilemmas because I get excited about the prospect of someone else watching her for a couple hours but then I rush back without getting done everything that needs to happen because I feel bad leaving her for someone else to deal with.

Here's a video of Mira walking - it's amazing how just a few weeks of practice can improve walking ability!

She still reminds me of Maggie Simpson - walk, fall on her face, pick herself up and keep going.

She loves to have her teeth brushed and when we wash her hands she thinks it's hilarious for some reason. At least hygiene ranks high on the list of good experiences for her. She ends up in the bathtub almost every night now that the weather is nice and warm because we spend a good part of the day outside and she gets sweaty and dirty, not to mention her table manners still leave something to be desired for awhile. One of the first things she does in the morning when she's gotten dressed is point to her shoes because she wants to go outside. We haven't been reading books or playing with toys much at all lately because all she wants to do is run around outside. It's still busy chasing her around but at least she's getting exercise, which wears her out. She's been sleeping much better these days. Maybe once or twice a week she'll wake up in the middle of the night because she's hungry and she won't go back to sleep until she gets a little snack, but otherwise she sleeps through the night. Yay for sleep! I've noticed that even though I'm tired a lot from working night shifts, I still feel much more rested because I'm finally getting longer stretches of uninterrupted sleep. It's been a long time - you forget how awesome sleep is.

I don't know why this video makes me giggle so hard but it does. This will be great blackmail material when she's older.

I have lots of plans for pictures and videos that I want to get of Mira but it's getting tricky to catch her in the act. I just need a camcorder on her 24/7.