Holy Cuteness!

Mira turned 11 months old today! That is insane - that means that in a month she'll be a whole year old! It can't possibly have been that long already!

Mira is starting to look less like a baby and more like a little girl. Some of her little mannerisms that she's learning - like pointing at things and waving bye-bye and doing her own little sign for "more" (she opens and closes her right hand when she wants more of something... totally not what the ASL says "more" looks like but whatever, we know what she means) - it all really looks like things a toddler would do. She's so mobile now it's easy to forget she's a baby still. She could totally walk off if she wanted to, but she doesn't (thankfully). She can stand by herself for as long as she wants, and she can "dance" without holding onto anything. She plays with toys standing unassisted and drinks a sippy cup standing by herself and she cruises all over the place as fast as anything with her hand barely holding onto the furniture, but the second she realizes she's standing by herself she quickly grabs onto something for support or squats down and crawls off. Well, like I said, I'm not going to push her to walk faster. She's on track and when she's ready to walk she'll just figure it out and when that happens it will all hit the fan!

She still loves that pink and purple car she got for Christmas. Although for some reason now she'll only push it when it's sideways. Even though it's definitely much harder that way, that's the way she wants to do it. Watch her and you'll see she's definitely ready to be walking. (Sorry it's so short.)

 She's doing well with sippy cups, although there's still nothing like a bottle at bedtime!

She's watching the cat

And since we're on the topic of bedtime... It's a constant evolution, I guess. She mostly sleeps through the night still but now that she's teething again she's started waking up in the middle of the night again. Luckily it's just once when it does happen and she's back to sleep fairly quickly, but that would probably explain why I feel so exhausted and sleep-deprived these days. I wish those teeth would just break through already! Her top left is finally through and the top right has been trying to come through for weeks but it's just having a lot of trouble. Her poor gums are all bruised and swollen and it looks so sad. I've never seen that happen before but after asking around it sounds like that's fairly normal and I should stop my PICU RN mommy freakout. Sometimes I REALLY don't like my job. Not because of the job itself but because of the things I see there. It doesn't bother me as much to take care of kids that were born with some congenital defect... There's nothing to do about that. What scares the shit out of me are the kids that are totally normal and healthy and suddenly drop dead with a dilated cardiomyopathy of unknown etiology or the kid who was run over by the parents pulling out of the driveway. You know, ignorance really is bliss.

Anyway, moving on... Mira is turning into a little dancing queen! I think that should be her theme song. Every time she hears any sort of music - a commercial on TV, one of her toys, walking through the grocery store - she starts boogieing! She's so energetic about it that she's almost jumping off the ground (and if she's in her crib holding onto the rail she has figured out how to jump). It is SO cute! And she never seems to get tired of it either! The other day I started playing some music on my phone and gave it to her. She bounced and danced and wiggled for 15 minutes - pretty impressive for a baby her age!

I'm really trying to get into reading her lots of books, since her attention span is finally long enough to last through a few pages of a book. Being the master of mimicry that she is, now she tries to read the books herself. She'll pick up a book, study it with a serious little pondering frown on her face, open the book (which is upside down most of the time but who cares), point at the pictures, and start babbling. "Ba ba ba ba... doo... dissshhh... ya ya ya ya ya.... SHRIEK!!!!!!" I've tried so many times to get a video of this but as soon as I get the camera out she crawls over to me to grab the camera.

I thought we would have to wait about 15 more years for this!

She loves playing with some wooden blocks she got for Christmas. Mostly she likes for someone to build a tower so she can knock it down. Recently she's gotten really interested in pulling toys out of the box or bucket or whatever they live in - and then she carefully puts the toys back in, and pulls them out again, one by one. I'm really afraid to make this observation because everyone thinks their own kid is the super gifted genius, but this seems a little advanced for 10-11 months. Or maybe I'm wrong, but either way she's getting a lot better about playing with toys by herself and not needing me to be in the room 5 feet away from her at all times.

The 1 year mark means it's time for more professional photographs! It's early, yes, but we have a lot of crap happening in the next couple of months. We tried out a new photographer this time, since the lady I usually use only does natural lighting, and I don't think Mira's old enough to do well with an outdoor photo shoot in the winter. We could have done a shoot in the indoor studio but it's small and Mira's getting big and harder to keep in one spot. So we tried out this studio in Draper, which is a long drive but it was so worth it! Especially since we got 70 photos (they told us Mira was the easiest baby they've ever photographed and that's one reason they were able to get so many good shots) that they gave to us the same day so we didn't have to wait for the CD to be mailed to us. Oh my cuteness!! If you'd like to see the whole album let me know, but here are a few of my favorites.

Our little princess

I love this one

This might be our favorite

A bowl full of ruffles!

Watch out, she's in-bound!

Ooh... This looks good...

Hmm... I should taste some more to make sure it all tastes good

The smash cake was so funny. At first she poked her fingers into the cupcake and looked at us like she wasn't sure what we wanted her to do with it, so I took some frosting on my finger and put it in her mouth. Then she got into it! She didn't go completely crazy with it but she definitely enjoyed it and boy was it messy! It was so funny though, she had everyone in the studio laughing. I think some of these pictures will have to be printed off and framed very prominently in our house. :)

Dedicated to a Fallen Officer

Well the year has been off to a bit of a rough start. Not anything really horrible but just a lot of things all at once. The first thing isn't really a bad thing. Last week everyone came down with a respiratory virus and because of all the meds I had to take to function, Mira is now weaned. So it's not a horrible thing like I said, because she was losing interest for the last month anyway and she doesn't seem to miss it at all, plus because I dried up I didn't have any engorgement pain (which I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy). So really it was the best way it could have happened. I had been starting to worry about how I was going to wean her since we're coming up on a year (ack!) but this took care of it for me. There is a part of me that's the tiniest bit sad, because this is another reminder that she's getting close to no longer being a baby anymore. But there's a lot of me that's happy. I've talked to women who gush about how much they love nursing and they may as well have been saying that they love to gouge their eyes out with a rusty nail - that's how much sense it makes to me. I did like the cuddle time, but other than that I hated every second of nursing. I only stuck with it for so long because I know it's what is best. Looking back I'm surprised I stuck with it for almost 11 months - I had lots of problems and I didn't like it and when she was little it would take Mira an hour to feed, and when she needed to eat every 2 hours, that was all I did, plus I had no support from Mark at all through the whole thing. I won't air my dirty laundry here (as tempting as it would be to get some sympathy), but at least it's not an issue we need to worry about anymore. So that's done, and now I can wear dresses and turtlenecks and whatever I want to wear again (now that the last of the padding has fallen off I'm less than my prepregnancy weight) and I can ingest whatever I want without worrying about how it will affect another little person - basically, for the first time in almost 2 years, I have my body back. And that is certainly something to celebrate! :)

My free time (what little I have) has been spent studying for my Advanced Metabolic Module test next week. My unit has some advanced educational opportunities for the nurses so we can train in different pt populations. We can have specialized training in Advanced Respiratory, Neurotrauma, Cardiac, and Metabolic pts, plus there's ECMO (extracorporeal membranous oxygenation, which is basically heart-lung bypass, which I will never touch). It involves class time, research, presentations, plus of course hands-on training with that pt population. Besides ECMO, the metabolic pts are the sickest and busiest and have a million things wrong with them - which means there's a million things I need to know for my oral testing next week. I'm sure I'll test out and wonder what I was so worried about, but right now it's stressful to try to learn everything and try to remember what an elevated GGT indicates and what electrolyte imbalances occur with a metabolic acidosis. Since Mira is mobile, the only times I have to study are after she goes to bed (which is when I'm ready for bed), or at work (which doesn't guarantee I'll have time to study). So this is a cause of more stress - I think I'll have to find a babysitter for her for a couple days in the next week so I can leave the house and cram.

The sad stuff involves funerals - not anyone very close to us but you'll see why these are sad. This weekend I went to the funeral of a child I took care of a LOT last summer. I calculated that I spent well over 200 hours taking care of him and he was hands down the sickest pt I've ever had. From a completely detached point of view, this poor boy needed to die. He was so sick for so long - I can't go into details because of HIPAA but he really is in a better place now. But it's beyond devastating for parents to lose their child, especially after going through so much. The parents both hugged me and told me "Thank you for all your help." That was so validating for me - the end result was the same, but at least I helped get him better so he could be at home with his family when he died. Maybe I did make a difference.

This next funeral made national news so everyone is probably already aware of it but I'll review the basics anyway. On January 4th, 12 officers from various Utah agencies went to serve a drug-related search warrant and the suspect shot 6 of them, killing one, Officer Jared Francom of the Ogden Police Department. Ogden is about 20 minutes north of us. The suspect, in a perfect just world, would have had his brains blown out at the scene. The department would have had a lawsuit from the family and they would settle out of court because it's easier and cheaper than going to court, but at least a jackass who had the audacity to purposefully shoot 6 police officers, who were doing their job to protect and serve, would be gone and taken care of. At least the prosecutor will be going for the death penalty, which he should. Obviously this is a subject that is very emotionally charged for me, as you might imagine. We don't personally know any of the officers involved but law enforcement is a very tight-knot brotherhood and you don't have to have personally known an officer killed in the line of duty to lose a brother. Mark goes on calls like this all the time. It could have been any officer. Every day an officer goes to work, they don't know if they'll come home safe. Most of the time they do. But there's always the chance that they won't, and they know that. Maybe that's one reason these police funerals are so hard - but they are absolutely incredible at the same time. It's worth seeing, if it didn't mean an officer had to die to see the amazing show of support from the law enforcement community. Apparently there were officers from Chicago and Philadelphia at this funeral. When an officer from Mark's dept was killed on duty a few years ago there were officers from as far away as Florida. Law enforcement is the perfect definition of a brotherhood. We weren't able to go to the funeral, even though we wanted to - Mark had to work his regular shift and that was when I was really feeling under the weather and I could barely get off the couch. But we watched the procession on TV and there were some amazing and beautiful pictures and videos posted. Here are some pictures.

Notice the firefighters saluting on the ladders

Just to explain this next video so it makes sense to everyone: at a police funeral they do something called a final 10-42. You'll hear a long beep, which alerts everyone on the radio to stand by for emergency radio traffic. Weber Dispatch calls on the radio for Officer Francom, whose number is Whiskey 12. Whenever an officer signs off duty at the end of his/her shift, they tell dispatch they are "10-42." Dispatch calls for the fallen officer 3 times, and when they don't get a response, they announce that officer is 10-42 and the end of watch. I can hold it together during a police funeral until the final 10-42 and then I lose it and bawl uncontrollably because it's so sad. Click on the link to see the video.

Officer Francom's Final 10-42

Here's another really touching video. Just to make it even sadder, someone put Josh Groban as the background music.

Officer Francom's Funeral

I will put up another post with more updates on Mira in a few days. I'll have more pictures and videos organized by then and I don't feel like adding them on here. I don't know why this has been so emotional for me, except that it's a harsh reminder to me, again, that who's to say something like this won't happen to Mark someday? Don't worry, I'm fine, I just need some more time to reflect and I'll be ready to have some cheerful posts again soon. And believe me when I say there will be some AWESOME cute pics! But just not here.

I'll end this with a poem - I think it sums everything up well. I'm sure most people who read this blog have some respect for police anyway, but maybe you can take an extra moment to truly appreciate what law enforcement does for the community.

"The Final Inspection"

The policeman stood and faced his God,
Which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining.
Just as brightly as his brass.

"Step forward now, policeman.
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My church have you been true?"

The policeman squared his shoulders and said,
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't,
Because those of us who carry badges
can't always be a saint.

I've had to work most Sundays,
and at times my talk was rough,
and sometimes I've been violent,
Because the streets are awfully tough.

But I never took a penny,
That wasn't mine to keep....
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep.

And I never passed a cry for help,
Though at times I shook with fear.
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.

I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fear.

If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand.
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't.....I'll understand.

There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod.
As the policeman waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.

"Step forward now, policeman,
You've borne your burdens well.
Come walk a beat on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in hell."

Author Unknown

Christmas

Christmas just seemed to sneak up on me this year! We opened presents with Mira on Christmas Eve because Mark had to work on Christmas Day. She won't know the difference for awhile, after all. Here are some pictures:

Mira loves froggies, just like her mommy!

You mean all this stuff is for ME???

Mira and all her loot

Playing with Kermit

As you might imagine, Mira really had no idea what was going on. I tried to get her excited about unwrapping presents but it really fell flat. Normally she loves playing with paper and plastic but it gets taken away so she was confused and suspicious as to why I was suddenly encouraging her to play with all this paper. Next year will be more fun, I'm sure.

Her favorite toy, if you can't guess from the pictures, was probably the pink and purple push car. She's getting really close to walking, so here was our chance to help her along. (Don't ask me why I'm trying to get her to walk sooner. Bad idea. I have friends with babies the same age as Mira that aren't even crawling yet and worrying that something is wrong with their baby. *snort*) So we put her behind this little push car and she grabbed onto the handlebars and walked that thing all the way across the room, very first try, didn't fall over or anything. Aren't babies supposed to fall over a few times when they try this out???? What I've noticed about my daughter is that once she's set her mind to do something, she figures it out really fast and does really well at it. Not altogether a bad trait to have, of course. It'll serve her well throughout her life.

Here she is pushing this car around like she's a pro at it:

Unbelieveable!

I hope everyone else had a great Christmas! I'm just glad the hype and excitement is over for the year. As for New Year's, I'm scheduled to work so no fun plans for us, but that's okay. Here's to a happy and healthy new year!

A Lesson in Tolerance

Mira did something so funny today I just had to share it.

In our living room we have a playpen with a changing table built in. Very handy to have. I rearranged the room a little bit today and the playpen ended up with the changing table end near our kitty tower, where our cats love to hang out. I went into the dining room to feed Mira breakfast and when I came back out this is what had happened:

I don't know how cats know just where to place themselves to get in the way, but they all have this radar that lets them know exactly how and when to be obstructive. I don't know how I got any studying done in nursing school because the second I got a textbook out a big hairy cat would sit on it. I love my kitties.

So that was funny enough, but then I put Mira in the playpen.

I'm impressed that he just sat there and let this happen! Stewie is usually super skittish and we joke all the time that he's going to die of a stroke from being stressed out all the time. Plus the cats have learned to run in the opposite direction as soon as they see Mira. This continued for a few more minutes until I picked Mira up so she could try to "pet" the kitty. Off he went. But he was awfully tolerant of the annoying baby interrupting his snooze time!

I Know I'm Biased, But...

But I do have a very talented little baby. :)

I'll be the first person to admit that I'm no expert on how normal healthy babies are supposed to behave. I'm definitely more familiar with critically ill children that are hooked up to monitors and machines! So I have no idea sometimes if the things Mira does are extraordinary or if I just think they're pretty amazing because I'm her mother and immensely proud of everything she does. Well, either way, she does have some unique talents - like her dancing ability. I've mentioned her "dancing" talents before but I've had a hard time capturing it on video. She likes to dance to lots of songs on my phone but I can't play the music on my phone and record her dancing on my phone simultaneously. Finally we found a solution - play music videos on the TV! Check out little Twinkle Toes:

Pretty amazing (and darn cute) if you ask me! I guess I better start researching dance studios. I should mention that she also likes Lady GaGa songs - so she also has good taste in music.

Well, despite me trying to ignore it, time marches on and the holiday season is upon us. Christmas can be a big source of stress for me because of how commercialized it's become. There's a lot of pressure to buy presents for people, even if you don't know them very well or have no idea what to get them, just because it would be rude not to buy them something. So you end up getting this person something that they will probably just forget about but it would be worse to not get them anything at all because you have to be able to say you bought them something. Anyway, there's no help for it. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Mira will get a few cool things this year but really, she'll be happy with the boxes and wrapping paper and she won't remember this Christmas anyway. Next year will probably be more fun for her (and therefore for me as well).

But there are a few fun things about the holidays. Last week was my work Christmas party. It was held in this big barn with a large amount of empty floor space. We set Mira down on the floor so she could crawl around and the funniest thing happened. As soon as we set her down, about a dozen little kids, probably all about 2-4 years old, gathered around her and started smiling at her and trying to play with her. And Mira loved it! She smiled and reached out for everyone, and then she took off crawling. And every one of those other little kids got on their hands and knees and crawled after her! She had her own little entourage. I just couldn't believe how social (and popular) she was. She was the center of attention. SO CUTE!!! It was so fun to watch. My work friends couldn't believe how fast she crawls (she may as well be running, she's so fast now) and kept saying they couldn't believe she could do that already - she seems too small to be able to crawl that fast. Oh, and stand unassisted. That really blew everyone away. (I should note that a couple days ago Mark was able to get her to take a couple of steps on her own!! I've tried to get her to do it again but you have to distract her and trick her into doing it. Again, not sure how she falls in the spectrum here but keep in mind she's doing all this at 9 months old.)

And what's a Christmas party without a visit from Santa Claus? Now here was a great chance for a photo op! over we went and plunked Mira down on Santa's lap - she did awesome! He had some jingle bells on a leather strap that she tried to eat and then she pulled on his beard. And she didn't cry or get scared at all - next year might be different though.

Tonight Mark and I took Mira to see the lights in Temple Square. I personally disagree with about 98% of things that come out of the Mormon Church (compounded with the fact that I'm atheist and that Prop 8 crap pissed me off like you would not believe), but I can still appreciate how pretty Temple Square looks this time of year - just like you can appreciate a Catholic cathedral or Muslim mosque or Jewish synagogue without being of that religion. It was FREEZING so we went through really fast before Mira got frostbite or something, but I still managed to get some good pictures.

Mira wasn't overly impressed but it was close to her bed time and she's probably too young to really appreciate the lights anyway. Maybe next year.

And one last video. One day just for fun Mark put her on a banana chair just to see what she would do. We were blown away that she figured this out:

My baby is pretty darn awesome. :)

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: