Monday Morning Mia--Walter Edition *Updated*

Just a quick post this morning. Walter isn't feeling well so Ben brought him over to the vet. He is inexplicably limping and not acting like his usual Wally self.

We'll update with Mia stories and Walter chronicles later on.

Update:
Unfortunately, we learned that Walter has Lyme Disease. He's on antibiotics and painkillers and seems to feel much better today. But yesterday he was just a shell of his usual self. He was quiet, lethargic, and sat around all day on his chair. He has some of his pep back but is still not 100% himself. He got lots of extra hugs from Mia and a few more treats than usual, which I'm sure contributed to his speedy recovery.

Thanks for checking in!

Mia ball

Thursday night we had friends over with their daughter, who is the same age as Mia. The two girls found a ball outside and began their own version of soccer. These girls are destined for athletic greatness.

Kids say the darndest things

Yesterday I dropped Mia off at babysitting with a light lunch (sunflower butter and honey sandwich, a few tortellini, cheese) because she keeps coming home with an almost full lunchbox. I also only packed her a water bottle, as she never drinks the milk and we're shelling out hundreds of dollars on organic whole milk that we end up drinking because it tastes so good.

When I went to pick her up, she was drinking a sippy cup of milk. Happily!! I asked my friend about it, and she said Mia was doing the sign for milk, so she gave her some and Mia drank it.

Of course, I was thrilled that Mia was drinking milk. We've drastically cut back on the nursing, and she hasn't been eating as much yogurt as she used to, so any milk product she eats or drinks is a good one.

But Mia doesn't know the milk sign.

Over the past few months I've sporadically tried to teach Mia a few signs. Our music class sings a song with some of the big ones--hungry, thirsty, eat, drink, tired, happy. Each line of the chorus ends with please, please, please, more, more, more, until I'm all done! From this song, Mia has gotten the sign for more and that's about it. I've tried to teach her milk, but she has never shown me the sign for it. She is in the stage now where she is very frustrated when she wants something and doesn't know how to ask for it and has begun to whine when she doesn't get what she wants. I was hoping a few signs would alleviate this problem.

I thought it was pretty cool that Mia figured out how to ask for milk on her own. It made me a little sad, though. I spend so much time with her, I thought knew everything about her and what she knows. But each time I pick her up from babysitting I learn something new about what she knows and can do. I love that she has this whole other life outside our little cocoon, but at the same time I can't believe how quickly she is growing up and becoming her own little person. Pretty soon she'll be in school with this whole other life that Ben and I can only guess at.

(Secretly, though, I don't think she was doing the milk sign. The sign for milk looks suspiciously like the finger movements for a song we sing at music called Sticky Sticky Peanut Butter, which Mia has begun to sing hundreds of times a day.)

Portrait of an Artist

Recently we bought Mia her first pack of Crayola crayons. Mostly crayons are treated as snack items. I was, however, able to channel Mia's creative energies into her first drawing. View her handiwork below:



Tuesday we went to the New England Aquarium. Mia would have been pretty happy to stay outside and watch the seals all day, but she also really enjoyed the penguins. I think the sharks sort of scared her. She had a grand time, in spite of her fears.




The most exciting thing to report, however, is Mia's language explosion. She has clearly distinguishable words now. In the past few days, she has started saying "Bye!" to people as they leave, with a little wave of her hand. She also says knee, eye, and hat. These are in addition to dog, mom, dad, no, more, etc. She also repeated "Uh oh!" when she dropped something yesterday, and says "Bonk" when she knocks down her tower of blocks. Each day she adds a word or two to her vocabulary. I think that language development is one of the most exciting things about watching Mia grow. She still gets frustrated when she can't tell me what she wants, and resorts to jabbing her sticky little finger to point at whatever it is she wants or needs. Her face lights up, though, when we are able to recognize what she is saying.

One last photo--Mia eating a little chocolate before bed.

Monday Morning Mia

Well, here it is, 4pm and I still haven't done my Monday Morning Mia.
It was a hectic morning here. We had babysitting coop at our house this morning, which always makes for a busy time. To add to the expected craziness, Ben found a lost dog on his way home from the Arboretum-the third dog we have found in a week! This dog, an adorable dachsund, had a collar but no tags. On a typical day I would have made signs and postered the neighborhood, but there just wasn't time this morning with the babysitting and everything. So, the little dog played with Walter in the yard for a while until one of the other coop moms was able to help me get some signs on our street. Luckily, the owner was out looking for her dog and they were reunited. It turns out that this little dog, whose name is Cookie, has only been with them 2 weeks, and their 5 year old daughter accidentally left the door open and the dog got out. A happy ending to what could have been a very long day.

It's 86 degrees here in Boston--nice and sunny but very hot. Mia has been napping away much of the afternoon since her friends left, and I've been catching up on the news and emails.

We had a great weekend. Mia was a little sick but still in good spirits so we took her to the zoo on Saturday. She fell in love with the gorillas and bats. We got a membership to the zoo so now we can go whenever we like. We're lucky that the zoo is in our neighborhood, right by our old place. The past few weekends have been so busy with house-related things that it was really nice to do something just for the fun of it.

No new pictures this week. Maybe we'll manange to get a few good ones and put them up later this week.

Pour some sugar on Mia

I'll take the blame for this one. In an attempt to broaden her palate, I introduced a juice box of tropical fruit juice as part of her otherwise healthy dinner. Hilarity thus ensued, and luckily was captured on tape.

More House Photos

My apologies for the poor quality. It's dark here today and the lighting isn't ideal. But, you can get a sense of the space.

My office:





The tv room/guest room/playroom:





The kitchen (just so you can see the color):

Monday afternoon Diggle-diggle

She's gone to a smurfy place these days. There are still some things she'll call out by name, "Dad", "Ma", "Dog", occasionally "flowah", but there is a constant background chatter of a soto voce "diggle-diggle". Might spice it up with a"DEEE..........gel", but for the most part it's a running commentary on all things diggle related.

Beyond that, I've been trying to get her on video hugging the hound, but she's been camera shy so far. In lieu of that though, and by request for more house photos, here are two quick ones of the window seat that is finally starting to come together. Still some blue tape around the trim as a third coat is needed, but you get the idea.

Monday Morning Mia-Thursday Night Edition

Sorry to be late--we were in Chicago and only returned today, after being delayed in Cincinnati and having to spend the night in a not-so-pleasant hotel in a Kentucky border town. We lived to tell, but we are most certainly happy to be home again.

Mia had a wonderful time touring Chicago with Ben. While I sat in presentations, the two of them saw the Sears tower, Millennium Park (does millennium have one n or 2?), several museums and galleries. Monday and Tuesday were gorgeous, but we got stuck in a little midwestern snowstorm on Wednesday. Mia traveled incredibly well considering all of the challenges we faced. She's quite a trooper.

We're beat, and the Office is on, but here's the promised photos.

Mia uses Walter as a stepladder:






Mia learns to hug (It's a new development and we love it. She'll hug on demand.)


Who's your daddy?

Too many fishsticks

A short post, this time with pictures.
We have discovered after very scientific and rigorous research that Mia loves fried fish. So, in an attempt to get as much food into her as we can, I broke down and bought fishsticks at the grocery store. Sure, they are "healthy" and "organic" and sold at our local food coop, but still...fishsticks. I never thought I'd feed my toddler fishsticks. But, Mia has a typical toddler palate--true, she'll eat edamame and calamari now and again, but for the most part she's perfectly happy eating bread, peanut butter, bananas, and yes, fishsticks.

We went for a long walk with friends today, and on our way home stopped by the playground. Mia went on the large slide, instead of the baby one, and absolutely loved it. She also found a pine cone on the ground that she dragged around in her sticky fingers for a good 20 minutes. The combination of fun on the playground and an abbreviated afternoon nap left Mia in this condition:

Monday Morning Mia

It's 7:30 am and Mia is still asleep. Seems the only problem with her sleep over the last year has been her room. After a rough start that involved Mia waking up at 8, 9, 10 and 11 on Wednesday night in our new house, she has settled in nicely to her new digs. I suppose it could be that the street is virtually silent and we took out her very bright clock radio. For the last three nights she has slept at least 10 straight hours. Last night after an exhausting and incredibly fun brunch with our babysitting coop and a long afternoon of shopping and upacking Mia slept from 6:45 until, well, still sleeping. She got up at 6 and nursed but went right back down. It's beautiful and I know she'll be much happier for it.

The sleep also could have to do with the fact that Mia is now full-on walking. For the past 10 days or so walking has become her main mode of transport, whereas before it was just a fun thing to do. She's become quite adept with turning, picking things up, avoiding the dog and turning corners. I would guess that while she was struggling to become a walker her sleep patterns became all screwy. Her mind can finally rest now that she has resolved this major milestone.

When I watch Mia now, I no longer see a baby. She is the true definition of toddler. She has a very silly personality and loves to make people laugh. Poor Walter is really taking the brunt of her antics--over the last few days I have seen her try to climb onto him at least three times. He loves it, even if he puts on a little show of annoyance now and again. They are getting along much better than we could have hoped.

As I mentioned before, we went to a brunch yesterday with our coop friends. Twelve parents, six babies, one dog, and an amazing spread of vegetarian breakfast treats. The kids were all running around the house while the parents drank hot coffee and sipped mimosas. The kids all know the adults so well that more often than not I found myself with someone else's kid in my lap. When I envisioned having a child, I dreamed of a scenario just like this one. We've been very lucky to meet some truly wonderful families, people I don't know that we ever would have come across otherwise. It's a diverse group, and one of the great privileges of living where we do in Boston is that Mia gets to meet so many people who are both so similar to and so different from herself. It's one of the reasons I don't ever really want to leave this area--so many places lack such diversity, and I'd hate for Mia to miss out on learning so much.

Pictures will follow soon, once we get fully situated. Happy April!

We're home!!

Wow, what a week. Haven't posted in awhile as we've been swamped with packing, moving, unpacking, painting, etc. Just finally feel like we're at a point where, though the house is an unbelievable mess, we can find our way through the mess. It's going to be months before it feels like everything has been put away. Corrie can do a longer recap for her Monday Morning Mia, but in short, rough couple of nights as both Walter and the kid were uncomfortable with the idea of sleeping in a new home. We just found our cutlery in a bag in a box underneath empty boxes in our shed in the backyard. No longer finding clothes for work in one of four large garbage bags. Internet connection is obviously up, and we've actually cooked something in our kitchen.

For a visual of what the week has been like, we went from this:



To this:



(enough to turn a good man towards OCD)