Welcome to Winderland

First day

And just like that, our summer is over (well, the lack of school part, anyway, as it's still really hot).  Mira started preschool on Monday, which we'd all been looking forward to for weeks.  It went really well on the first day.  Here's my little preschooler on her way up the steps, bright and early at 8:10am:

She's saying "Come on!"

Here she is once inside.  Luckily, none of the other families were as eager to get to school as Mira was, so she was pretty much by herself for the first few minutes, which I think helped her adjust.

That's the main classroom area, although there's more that you can't see in this photo.  There's also a lovely back yard, with a veggie garden that the children tend, a gated pool, and a couple of picnic tables where they eat lunch pretty much year round (they're covered).  Mira got to help Miss Jan cut up the watermelon from the garden, and we've been sent home with cherry tomatoes and avocados so far!  Mira did really well on Monday and all of the other parents were amazed that it was her first day.  She came home exhausted but excited that she had gotten to play with the "activities," do some painting, go potty on the tiny toilets, and eat her very own lunch.  Each child has to bring a cloth napkin every day to use as a placemat, and Grandmom made Mira some with her name stitched on them.  Mira loves these more than I had expected, and really loves that they say her name on them.

On Tuesday things didn't go quite as well; maybe the novely had worn off or something, but Mira was a sobbing mess when we finally escaped.   Apparently she had a good day though.  Wednesday and Thursday were the same, and finally on Friday she seemed to be back into the swing of things.  A lot of it has to do with the early starting time.  Neither Mira nor we are used to getting up at 7am, and going to bed at 8pm (for her), so it was a tough adjustment.  Here's Michael in the process of waking up the little sleeper (this is from nap last weekend, but it's the same every morning).  So cute!

[She still looks like a baby when she's sleeping!]

So that's pretty much the whole week, just spent trying to adjust to the new schedule.  There was a lot of playing doctor in the evenings, though, since my mom gave Mira her very own, real stethoscope!  Here it is in action:

 

[Did I mention that Mira wasn't the only one playing doctor?  Michael loves it, too.]

[Naked doctor!  Michael's in the background with the old, improvised stethoscope.  They're in practice together.]

[Here's a stethoscope that Mira made out of silly putty while Dad was hogging the real one.  This totally cracked me up, although I was a little worried about silly putty getting stuck in her ears.]

For some reason, Mira and Michael always are the doctors and I get the assigned the role of "sick."  I have heart trouble, and my reflexes don't work, and I need lots of medicine.  Luckily Mira's doctor's office is equipped with a pink kitchen in which she mixes her own prescriptions.

Mira had some excitement this weekend since we were invited over for an open house to one of Michael's colleague's houses in Merced County.  They have a lot of land with a pond stocked with fish, a bunch of ducks and bullfrogs, some cows, and a HORSE.  Mira was beside herself with excitement, and luckily the horse was a very gentle old guy in his late 30's named Pawnee.  Mira got a carrot from Kris, his owner, and boldly walked right up to the horse and fed it to him.  He kind of nuzzled her shoulder, and she shrieked and ran back to us, but she thought it was hilarious.  She even got to "ride" him, although one she was sitting on his back, he refused to budge anywhere (which frankly was fine with me!).  It was great, and she's been talking about it ever since.  We were watching another toddler fish with his dad, and Pawnee snuck behind us and walked out of his enclosure.  Kris ran after him, and Mira thought it was the funniest thing ever that he "ran away" (this horse probably hasn't run anywhere in 10 years). 

Today we just did some errands in the morning and then spent the afternoon re-arranging some furniture and moving my sewing area out of the living room and into our home office (which is now 80% sewing and 20% office!).  The living room looks much better, and it will be nice to have the dining room table back again, since we were either using it for work or for a cutting table.  We bought some purple curtains when we were in Portland, and had to spend an entire evening hemming them and sewing in linings, etc.  They look pretty good now, though--I'll take photos soon of the whole room.

One thing we've noticed right away since Mira's been at Montessori is that she's much better at playing by herself.  She's constantly talking and singing away while playing in her room, and it's so nice to be able to do something besides constantly entertain her!  Yesterday she was yelling at me from her bedroom, and this is what I found when I went in:

She had piled everything in her room onto her bed.  She emptied all of her little organized buckets, her entire kitchen, and even her car (that's it in the foreground).  She was so proud of herself! 

Well, that's it for this week.  Now we just have to repeat this 17 more times until Christmas break.  No sweat!

Escape to Oregon

We just returned from a wonderful escape from the heat and smoke, at the suggestion of my parents who were also concerned about Mira's hacking cough and invited us up to visit.  The idea was that we would do our work during the day, but naturally as it turned out, we barely did any at all.  On the other hand, we came home really relaxed and feeling like we'd finally had a real vacation.  Since it was spur-of-the-moment, we had to drive up.  We decided to do what worked when Mira was tiny and drive during the night while she was sleeping.  We left at about 10pm and made it to a rest stop about 70 miles north of Sacramento by 1am, when we stopped to take a break.  Mira woke up and sleepily said, "Hey, I thought we going to that big zoo.  Where are all the animals?"  I guess I talked up the Oregon Zoo a bit too much!  Outside of the car, we realized that rest stop was full, I mean FULL, of misquitoes, and our brief break turned into 40 minutes of whacking at bugs inside the car, with Mira periodically screaming when one would land on her.  That kind of knocked the wind out of our sails, which combined with the observation that Mira was not going to go back to sleep, led us to stop in Redding for the night.  We had a hard time finding any vacancies at 2:30am since the town was chock-full of firefighters fighting the Shasta fires, but we finally found a room at a questionable motel and flopped into bed with our clothes on.  It was lucky that we wore our clothes, because I woke up with about 15 flea bites all over my ankles and feet which made me miserable for two days!  Gross. 

Despite the rough start to the trip, we had a pleasant rest of the drive, stopping in Ashland for a long lunch.  Here's Mira using her potty in Ashland, delighted with the idea of peeing in the car:

We made it in to Portland around 6pm on Friday and had dinner with my parents.  Mira took a bath with Gammy's help and was absolutely enthralled with Gammy's bath fingerpaints:

 

[Note Gammy's muu-muu from Hawaii!]

The next night the Thygesons stopped by for dinner, and the cousins spontaneously organized a karaoke session, taking turns standing on the hearth and singing into a hairbrush.  It was hysterically funny.  At one point, Quinn decided to demonstrate his fire-dancing, which put it over the top (at a later date, he almost made Michael pee his pants by singing a rendition of "The Warrior" with a segue into "Barracuda" including improvised, shouted lyrics like "Barracuda!  It's a fish!  It's got fins!  YEAH!")  Anyway, here are a few photos of the silliness:

[A scene during the fire-dancing.  Check out Caralee, who's practically choking on her margarita.  Did I mention that Adam made margaritas?  In pint glasses?]

[Michael does a cameo.]

At some point in the evening, Uncle Adam had a captive audience while reading a story:

Earlier in the day, we'd had a nice time with just the little girls walking down to the Alberta area, which has been almost totally revitalized and features lots of shops and restaurants.  Here's a cute photo of the girls in the wagon:

Plus a sweet photo of Mira with her Auntie Julie, who has "really pretty hairs."

[Oh, notice that we are all wearing sweatshirts.  It was SO COOL in Portland.  It was lovely.  Today it was 107 degrees...arg.]

On Sunday we headed over to Anti Jen and Brandon's, where we went to the farmer's market in Milwaukee.  It was fun, and Michael and I were "accidental gluttons" and bought way more greasy market food than we could actually eat. 

[Aren't they cute?]

The main highlight of the day, though, was taking a ride up and down the Willamette on Uncle Brandon's boat.  I had been a little worried that Mira would be scared, but she loved it, and I spent most of the time worried that she was going to jump right out of the boat!  Here are some highlights:

[West side! (Kind of).]

[Mira drives the boat.  Ackkk!]

[Enjoying the scenery, which was beautiful.]

[Mira with Anti Jen on the swim deck.  The water was freezing, and when they were standing there, some waves from a passing boat splashed a bunch on them.  Mira started screaming, pointing at the water and yelling "NO!  NO! NO!"  After calming down, she said, "I'm so silly!  Water can't talk!!"  It was really funny.]

The next stop was a trip out to The Dalles, where we visited with Nanny, Papa, Uncle Nathan, Aunt Cayenne, and all the cousins.  The big attraction here was a giant trampoline, and after some initial trepidation, Mira had a blast (and of course the big kids showed her what to do).  Here she is with Kylie:

[I like to call this "The trampoline at the top of the world."]

And here are Kylie and Mira getting a bouncy ride from Nanny.  Isn't Kylie getting so cute?  I love the hair!

After an amazing dinner (as usual!) we headed back to Portland and spent the next few days just having a lot of fun.  One of the highlights was a trip to the zoo with Kellen and Kailee, in which Mira finally got to see real live elephants and hippos, sea lions, penguins, and giraffes.  Although she was a little overwhelmed, she's been talking about it quite a bit since.  Aside from the zoo, Michael and I also got to spend quite a bit of time on the loose without Mira, since we had a willing and excellent babysitter at home.  We had an awesome time doing karaoke and sushi with Anti Jen and Brandon (and Michael hasn't forgotten Brandon's promise to sing in December!  Dynamite Hack!  Yeah!), and spent time shopping and wandering around Portland's many neighborhoods.  It was great, so great that I didn't get a single photo since I wasn't in mommy blogger mode.  The one "downside" to the whole babysitting arrangement was that Mira got introduced to both baseball and golf, and amused my parents no end by insisting on watching golf instead of baseball (she was also really interested in the practice putting hole thingie and using her "hand wedge" to get the ball into the cup).

On one shopping trip to Lloyd Center, Mira had her very first public accident, which was entirely our fault.  She had just used the potty at Nordstrom's, but told us that she had to go again while we were trying on clothes at the Gap.  We asked her to wait a few minutes, since we didn't really believe her, and she waited as long as she could before peeing in the middle of the store.  We cleaned up the puddle and then rushed her over to Kid Gap to buy some new pants, socks, and shoes.  The resulting polka-dot overload was so funny:

[Am I the only one who finds this outfit to be pure genius?]

On the last days of our visit, we were treated to two consecutive nights of Nanny and Papa, who were in Portland for a convention.  We headed to the Kennedy School, our favorite hangout, and pretty much ate until we swore we'd only ever eat brown rice and tofu again:

[Anti Jen joined us on Saturday night.  She and Mira are reenacting a billboard that Mira saw in Milwaukee that features the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" monkeys.  Mira thought the billboard was hilarious, and kept doing the hand motions while saying, "Not lookin', not listenin', not talkin'."  Jen bought her a tiny figurine of the monkeys for her "pretty shelf," so she's doing the whole routine with her.]

Somehow I neglected to get any photos of Papa Mike or Papa Foof, but they were both around, being their silly selves.  Dad and I did our usual stay-up-till-all-hours chit chatting, which I think may have adversely affected his performance in the Rock Creek Championship golf tournament, which he surely would otherwise have won!

The last day we spent with Anti Jen, since she had Monday off from work.  She had a special treat planned for Mira, since she'd bought both a big pack of play-doh and a Light Bright.  To be honest, the three of us adults had more fun than Mira, who I don't think really understood the awesomeness that is the Light Bright. 

On Tuesday morning we headed out on the long trip home, which we did pretty much straight through, stopping a few times in Grants Pass and Redding.  Mira had to go pee when we were at the summit of the Siskiyou Range, the highest point on I-5 and no rest stop for miles.  With trucks and cars speeding by, and the wind blowing fiercely, Mira peed on the side of the highway--too bad we didn't get a photo, but it was scary and exciting!  Wow!

Now we're home again, and have had a very busy week catching up.  School starts in just a week, and Mira starts her new preschool on Monday.  Today was a bittersweet day, because it was Mira's last day at Diana's house.  She has been really disliking going to daycare (crying every morning), and thinks it's way too loud, so this couldn't come at a better time.  I just hope she likes her new school!  We'll find out!  Have a great weekend, everyone!

Can I stink that?

Since this is the second week in a row that I've neglected to take many photos, I'll just catch up this week in recording some of Mira's latest doings.  The title is one of Mira's more creative verbs, and it's especially offensive when she's talking about my lotion (she's a big fan of the coconut lotion you gave me, Mom).  She's taken to "helping" me get ready in the morning and providing a play-by-play, as in "You brushing your hair now?  LOOK at all those HAIRS in the BRUSH!" She has her own empty deodorant that she dutifully applies every morning, and is already an expert on undereye concealer, as in: "And now you making those purple things go away, so you not look so TIRED."  It's a real help every day, I tell you. 

Mira has a new alter-ego that I've been meaning to write about.  She doesn't ever pretend to be Rocky or Bullwinkle any more.  Now she is often one of her friends, or else she'll be the mother of one of her friends, which is funnier.  She's also fond of pretending to be "Robot 555" who talks in a really silly robot voice and walks just exactly like a robot, if a robot were made that walked like a toddler (she thinks she's walking oddly).  I've been trying to get Robot 555 to say "Identify yourself" but so far it hasn't done it.  Sometimes we're a robot family, with Michael usually getting assigned the identity of "Robot 111" and me getting "Robot 222" (I'm not sure what happened to poor 333 and 444).

Here she is pretending to be Miss Laura, the mother of her friend Mason (whose hair does resemble this a little bit):

I've been working pretty intensively on letter sounds with her lately, and we had a bit of a break-through yesterday when she sounded out the word "cat" and really seemed to understand that the letter sounds had formed the word.  We've been building words with the fridge magnet letters, which is really fun for her.  I've heard her playing by herself with them and she'll talk just like me and say, "Now if we take away the M and put on a P, we get 'HELLO'" (or she'll make up some other word...my favorite was "COFFEE").  She still has a long way to go, but it's so fun seeing the concept start to click.

I've been meaning to make a list of Mira's current favorite things, not that it's very interesting to our dear readers, but I love looking back at these entries later on (like the one a year ago where Michael and I could list all of the words she knew).  So here goes:

• Favorite foods: raisins, Nutty Nuggets (aka Grape Nuts) with orange juice on them (it's as icky as it sounds, but it's one of Michael's favorites too), apricot yogurt, and any sort of frosting or ice cream or whipped cream.
• Favorite books: Lowly Worm books, Mouse Soup
• Favorite toys: her magnetic writing slate, markers, Silly Putty, and Play Doh.
• Favorite song: "I've Been Working on the Railroad" (ad nauseum)
• Favorite bands: Milkshake (still), They Might Be Giants
• Fears: automatic toilets, "mojitos" (mosquitos), loud voices and yelling
• Dislikes: anything "spicy," going to daycare (until she gets there), sleep (still), getting woken up (ironically)
• Favorite activities: going a "venture" (an adventure, like to Costco), going to the gym (to swim), the used bookstore or the "big" bookstore, and baking with me.

Those are all of the preferences I can think of for now, since two year olds don't get to have opinions on much!  It's interesting to look at her favorite toys, since she was so very into her "softies" and "hardies" (hard plastic animals) up until not too long ago, and now it's all about toys that she can create stuff with.  Michael and I are getting pretty tired of coloring with her, since it's all she wants us to do (that's when we practice with the letters).  She's getting really good at drawing faces that have actual eyes, noses, and mouths.  She did a fantastic rendition of Saggy Baggy Elephant and Scrawny Tawny Lion the other day: the elephant had a line coming off its face and the lion had squiggles around its head like a mane (we're not talking genius level here, but it's still cool that we can figure out what she was going for).  Michael and Jennifer are such good artists and creative people (and I've heard that Papa Mike can draw pretty well, too), so I'm hoping she inherits some artistic ability.  As it is, it's easy to confuse my drawings with hers!

The only negative thing about the past week is the bad air quality (again).  There are more fires nearby, and the air is visibly smoky.  Mira has developed a chronic cough that is likely related to the air, so we're thinking about getting out of town for a few days here pretty soon.  In the meantime, we're in the middle of harvest season in the garden.  We've got tons of beautiful eggplants (three varieties!), tomatoes (four varieties--all ugly!), and even "fancy" mini-watermelons.  We cut open our first ripe watermelon today, and it was a yellow one (we've got yellow, orange, and pink)!  Here it is:

[Mom, do you remember Michael's beloved pink striped shirt?  It got kind of icky at the neck, so I made it into this shirt for Mira, which she loves!  The watermelon is delicious!]

Well, that's it for now.  Have a great week!

Keeping a Straight Face

I'm so happy to report that, for this week at least, everyone in the Winder household is happy and healthy.  We spent the week enjoying each other's company, and mostly laughing at Mira.  She is very much a part of any conversation (in fact, at one point she came up to me and said, "MAMA.  I want to have a conversation!") and Michael and I can't say anything without her piping up, "What are you saying?  Why are you laughing?  What are you looking at?"  A typical conversation might go like this:

M: "Mama, you got a bug bite on your little ankle?"

K: "Yep."

M: "Where did that happen?"

K: (Making something up) "I think it happened in the parking lot at the bookstore."

M: "Where did that bug go after it bit you?"

K: (Making something up) "I think it flew away, maybe into the bookstore."

M: "Maybe it flew to the ZOO!"

K: "Maybe."

M: "When did you get that bugbite?"

And it goes on and on like this.  We've even had to say "please stop asking about that.  It's annoying."  She's pretty good about stopping for now.  Michael was just recalling how he once looked forward to the "why?" stage, and in all truth we don't mind it most of the time.  It is awfully cute how interested in everything she is, and the directions that she goes with things, such as the whereabouts of the bug that bit me, crack me up.  She's also getting hard to discipline because she's so funny.  She was ignoring me a few days ago when I asked her to do something, and went over to play with her pens.  Michael, exasperated, said, "If you even open those pens you're getting a time out."  Mira stopped, looked at him thoughtfully, and said, "Hmmm...should I?"  It was all we could do not to laugh.

We didn't do much that's exciting this week, so I only have a few photos.  Here's one from a trip to the gym this weekend, where we finally signed Michael up for a membership:

[I like the girl in the background, who was doing catwalk moves the whole time.]

We went to another Preschooler Art class this weekend, where the topic was markers and pastels.  Mira had a nice time, although it wasn't quite as fun as fingerpainting.  I had to laugh as we were getting ready, because I had selected some shorts to go with her art t-shirt.  She looked at the shorts and said, "Mom, do you mind if I choose a different pair?"  She's really been picking up on phrases like that lately.  She's also been using "or something like that" a lot, as in, "I could have waffles, or pancakes, or something like that for breakfast."  

On Sunday we made a trip up to Modesto, which thanks to the reasonable weather wasn't as miserable as usual.  We stopped at the mall and did some shopping and Mira got a new hat.  It's very cute, and she loves it, although I'm expecting the "what a cute boy" comments to increase:

 [The hat has a monkey on it.]

That's about it for this week.  It's been slow, but I'm just basking in the healthiness of our household, which I'm sure will go out the window in a few weeks when Mira starts her new school!  Have a great week!

All better!

Okay, I'm back at it.  That was an awful bug--I had a 100-102 degree fever for six days, my throat hurt like the dickens, and I had a constant headache.  But no pink-eye for me, woo hoo!  Oh...I guess I forgot to mention that before I had my turn with the Plague, Michael had it too, along with a doozy of an eye infection in both eyes that lasted over a week even with antibiotics (he took a photo but I just looked at it, and I'm going to spare you all the sight--ick).  So many people in our social network have gotten this bug now that it's been dubbed "Merced Fever," as in, "Where's Bob? Merced Fever got 'im?"  Well, not to spend too much time complaining about being sick (although it does seem like we've had more than our fair share lately--I wonder if "we" should stop licking doorknobs, other people's patio doors, and "just kissing" the bottoms of shoes?), because there are some benefits. 

Top ten four good things about Merced Fever:

1)  Save on AC!!  Never mind that it's 105 out!  Where're my sweat pants?  Give me a quilt!

2) Mira's helpful nursing, which involves bringing you Tylenol, recommending lots of water, and waiting until you finally ignore your total aching misery enough to doze off to holler in the most concerned way, "MAMA!? YOU FINALLY SLEEPING?"  And you can never have your temperature taken often enough, or your reflexes tested just to make sure that you're still alive.

3) Catching up on mindless reading!  Thankfully we had a trip to a used book store right beforehand--final page count: about 1050.

4) Getting to beg off from other kinds of reading, such as Lowly Worm and Mouse Soup.

That's all the silver lining I can come up with.  So now I can get on with more complaining!  Last week was our first ever "real" family vacation, in that we were going to go somewhere overnight that was not a visit to a relative.  We rented a cute little yellow cottage in Murphys, California, a tiny town called The Queen of the Sierras and voted one of the top 10 best small towns in the country (you can click on the link to see how cute it looks!).  We were going to go Tuesday and come back Thursday evening, and celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary on Wednesday.  Just to preview what happened, here are some lessons we've learned about choosing vacation destinations:

1) Do not go somewhere that is hotter than where you live (if where you live is Merced), especially if it does not have any associated beaches or at least free Mai Tais.

2) Try to avoid common forest-fire areas.

3) If you must ignore Rule #1 above, do at least ask yourself, "Will the adorable cottage have AC?"

That pretty much sums up right there what happened.  The cottage was as cute as promised, but stiflingly hot (107 degrees!).  The air was filled with smoke, and the lovely stream next to the cottage was actually quite treacherous--I'm smiling in this photo, but only in hopes that we can get out soon.  Mira didn't share my fears and was just happy to cool down for a few minutes:

Here we are inside the cottage, where we followed up on the wading with an ice-cold bubble bath:

[Really cute tub!]  After both of those activities, which we accomplished within an hour of arriving, we sat inside and sweltered:

[Cute cottage!  But HOT!  My hair was melting onto my face!  Michael's eyes were melting out of his head (oh yeah, that was the pink-eye, which is why there is no photographic evidence of him on this trip!)]

So we figured we should see the sights instead of melting, but nothing was open on a Tuesday in Murphys.  Shouldn't a town advertise that?  I mean, it's not SUNDAY.  Arg.  We ended up going to a pizzeria that had so many flies that we had to get the pizza to go and then went to a grocery store for more snacks.  We had such a meltingly hot night that Mira woke up at 11:30 and couldn't sleep, so she and Michael watched PBS until 3:30am on the ancient console TV.  The TV was so amusingly ancient that we had to photograph it:

[It was night-time, so it's not the best photo, but check out the SPACE COMMAND!  SYSTEM 3!  Zoom!  With "Color Sentry"!  The console itself also featured actual fabric pleating!]

Needless to say, we were a little late out of bed on Wednesday, and guess what?  At 10:30 in Murphys, which exists solely because of and for tourists, you cannot get breakfast or even coffee.  At this point, Michael and I looked at each other, covered Mira's delicate ears, said a few choice words, and went back to the cottage to pack our stuff.  We were gone by 11:00 am and didn't look back.  I was so disappointed, but there was no gain to be had from prolonging the misery.  We did stop at Angel's Camp, another small town, for some food.  We were walking down the street when Mira met this guy:

[What do you do when you see strange men?]

[RUN!]

We got home around 3pm on Wednesday, after taking the scenic road home accidentally, and I started feeling sick with what would be the Merced Fever on the way.  Fun times!  Happy anniversary, sweetie!

On a happier note, there was fun had prior to our ill-fated trip.  We signed Mira up for some toddler art classes at our Multicultural Arts Center in downtown Merced.  It's basically paying for some space that is not on our property in which Mira could explore her inner artist with tempera paints, shaving cream, and colored pudding.  In other words, worth every penny!  Here's a few shots that speak for themselves:

You can see that fun was had!  The shaving cream was her favorite, I think.  She mixed some paint into a big pile of it and just squished it around and around.  I was surprised that only one of the other toddlers ate some.

We also had a big success last week with purchasing a step stool for the bathroom.  Mira loves washing her hands so much that it caused her to squeal in delight, "I love going potty!!"  Here she is watching herself do the whole routine:

[No accidents in over a week!]

Mira was a little bit Jekyll-and-Hyde this last few weeks after being sick, but now she seems to have turned another corner and is doing and saying new things left and right.  One of her favorite new things to say is "MMMMM....this is the best yogurt I ever was eating!" or "You the best mama I ever was having!" which is pretty adorable, I have to admit. 

I'll keep a list this week of her other new thoughts, since there are so many and I've forgotten half of them from being sick.  I'll sign off for this week with a photo brought to you by poor Michael, who should get a medal for single-handedly keeping Mira occupied for three days during a heat wave with such smoky air that kids couldn't go outside:

Sick

Just wanted to drop a line to say that I'll be posting soon about our adventures of the last week and a half, but I came down with the flu last Wednesday and am still really tired--it's lasted longer than any flu I've had before and has been really miserable.  But, more later with photos! (No photos of me being sick, promise!). 

A noble ambition

We were playing "doctor" with the new stethoscope that Michael rigged up out of pipecleaners and a tiny kaleidoscope and we started talking about other jobs that people do.  I said, "What do you want to do when you grow up?"

Mira: "I want to drink coffee."

A slow, sick week

We're just recovering from "the plague," a virus that has been circulating around Mira's daycare and among the children of my colleagues.  Almost all of Mira's friends had gotten it and were back in daycare before we breathed a sigh of relief that we'd avoided it altogether.  But too soon, because as usual, we were not to be spared!  Mira had a very high temperature starting on Friday night and lasting all weekend.  She was absolutely miserable and achy and shivering.  We were, too, but mostly just from lack of sleep!  She felt better on Monday, but was still tired and cranky so we kept her out of daycare.  She (and we) have spent the remaining part of this week slowly recovering and being pretty crabby most of the time.

Here's poor Mira mid-fever, having decided that the best place to crash would be the hallway where there was the biggest chance of getting stepped on:

The only silver lining with her being sick all weekend is that we were forced to hang around the house and pretty much do nothing.  It was pretty good timing, too, since the air quality was horrendous because of all of the forest fires around us.  I couldn't even see campus when I was driving to work until I was nearly there, and everything was just a depressing grey.  Each afternoon, Mira's fever would subside for a few hours and we'd have some quality play time with her.  Here she is heading up the line for "tea":

And here she is learning craps:

We spent a lot of time just talking, which is also usually pretty funny.  We also sang songs a lot, and after Mira did a very nice solo rendition of "Twinkle Star," I told her that she has a nice voice.  I said that some people are good at singing, and others do not sound as nice, and that Daddy also had a nice voice for singing.  Mira then very politely said, "And you have a nice voice, too, Mommy."  It was said very sweetly, so I said, "Thank you, Mira, that's a very nice thing to say!" To which she very honestly replied: "I just say you have a nice voice because people don't like to hear you talk."  Indeed!

To add to the abuse, tonight Mira asked me what "believe" means.  I told her that it means something that you think is true, such as "I believe Daddy is a nice guy."  I asked her what she believes, and she said, "I don't believe you a lady."  O---kay.  Not sure where that came from!

I shouldn't be too surprised, though, since Mira has recently been a fount of various nonsense.  I think it's a combination of being tired but still loving to try out new words.  Just tonight she put a bunch of blocks into some drawers, and then said, "I put some blocks in these drawers just in case you poop your pants!"  In addition to "actually" and "just in case," she "suggested" something to Michael this morning, which was beyond cute.  I love when she tries to use big words all on her own!

We did manage to have some fun this week despite the sickness and the bad air.  We went over to Jake and Chely's house, some of Michael's friends from the theater, for dinner on Tuesday.  They have three very cute children who all wanted to play with Mira, and Mira even got to take a bath with them!  We'll be going back to their house for one of two 4th of July barbeques tomorrow, and Mira is already excited about it.  Last night was the third installment of our new plan to go out on Wednesday nights.  We had a nice dinner and walked around downtown a bit before we headed to our only good bar, The Partisan, so that Michael could sing some karaoke.  It just so happened that by coincidence almost all of the theater folks were there (even the ones with children!) and we had a great time hanging out with them for an hour or so before we had to be home (although I did text message our 17-year-old sitter to get "permission" to stay out an extra half-hour, which just seemed a little weird!).  As much as we enjoy spending time with Mira, these outings are really something we look forward to.

Well, that's about it for this fairly uneventful week.  I got lots of sewing done while Mira was sick, and here's one product of that (I got this cute seersucker fabric for $1 in the remnant bin!):

Actually, those are underpants

Sorry it's been awhile since I last wrote--I've been busy with (gasp!) a social life for the last week or so and haven't had time in the evenings (interestingly, I just typed that as "social lie" which is probably more accurate!).  One of the main events was a visit from the inimitable Anti Jen and Unkl Brandon, who drove down for the weekend last weekend and stayed until Tuesday morning.  We had a lovely time just hanging out and drinking summery drinks.  This is getting to be such a tradition that whenever I think of Anti Jen, the image of a tall, cool mojito pops into my head (okay, I just typed that as "poops into my head," which is probably also more accurate).  Jen and Brandon got to go to Michael's show on Saturday night, which was closing weekend for Guys and Dolls.  Mira spent a lot of time helping Jen get ready for going out--in fact, Mira spent much of the weekend rummaging through Anti Jen's Magical Bag of Really Interesting Lotions and Makeup, pulling things out and saying "what's this for?"  Here's just one shot of it:

[Moments before this was taken, Mira was seated in the middle of that ring of toiletries, in hog heaven.]

And here she is on another morning being very "helpful" while Jen got ready for the day:

[Note Mira's cute dress handmade by Gammy--Mira loves this dress and tries to wear it every other day.]

We spent most of our days with Jen and Brandon sitting around soaking up the heat and trying to get motivated to do something.  One day, we sent Michael and Brandon off to watch "The Hulk" while Mira, Jen, and I went to the fabric store and picked out fabric for some skirts for Jen to make for herself.  Mira spent the bulk of the time in her "Button House," which is what she calls the button aisle in JoAnn's--it's cute, but I can't really leave her there and she gets really upset when I make her leave "her house," so trips to the fabric store are getting few and far between!  Thank goodness for online shopping!  Jen and I also got to spend some of Mira's nap time making some jewelry, which I hadn't done in a long time.  When Mira wasn't napping, she spent a lot of her time outside with her new best friend, Maddy the Silly Dog.  I had been a little worried that Maddy (a yellow lab puppy) would be a little too rowdy for our super-sensitive girl, but they hit it off really well.  Maddy seemed to know not to jump all over Mira, and Mira adored playing with her and feeding her scoops of sand from her sand box.  It also helps that Maddy loves getting squirted with the hose (at least she does when it's over 100 degrees outside!), and Mira happens to love squirting things with the hose.  We tried to teach Mira to say "symbiotic relationship" but she couldn't.  Here's the only photo I got of the two of them:

[Mira had just helped to feed Maddy, which is why the poor dog is eating the food scattered shotgun all over the patio.  Mira would not stay out of the black bucket full of Maddy's water, and kept sticking her head in it "just like Maddy!"]

Mira has been into playing "doctor" lately, thanks to a book called "It's Checkup Time, Elmo!"  She's constantly stalking people with her Bob the Builder hammer, trying to "check their reflexes."  Last night before bed she reached up and squished my eyelids, and tried to tell me she was just "taking my blood pressure."  There's something weird about hearing a two year old talk about blood pressure!  She's also into "listening" to people's hearts with her "stethoscope" (note to Mom: would you please get Michael and Mira a real stethoscope for Christmas?  They're both dying for one).  It was so cute that I had to take several photos:

[Checking Anti Jen's heart.]

[Checking Maddy's heart.]

[The doctor is IN!]

After Jen and Brandon's visit, we had a few busy days settling back into work (wait, what am I talking about...I had a few dismal days trying to get motivated to get back to work, while Michael spent a few days enjoying his break!).  On Wednesday night we had a sitter over for no reason at all!  In fact, when we left the house, we didn't even know where we were headed!  It was Michael's idea, now that his theater gig is over for the summer.  We haven't had much (by which I mean "any") time out by ourselves for quite some time, so Michael got the great idea that we should just tell Lizzie to come over every Wednesday night for a few hours.  At first I wasn't sure about spending the money (the young lady charges $10/hour!), but now that we've done it I can hardly wait for it to be this Wednesday.  And as Granny would say, we won't remember the money years from now.

On Thursday night (yes, that makes two nights out for me in a row), I went to see "Sex and the City" with my female friends.  All but one of them have kids, and they were laughing about how they had to tell their kids they were going to see "Girls and the City" or something like that.  It never occurred to me not to say "sex" in front of Mira, whoops.  I'll probably pay for that later.

On Saturday night we went over to Tom and Anne's for some delicious tacos (and I made some delicious homemade chocolate gelato, if I do say so myself).  It was one of Tom and Anne's famous outdoor films, where they rig up a big projector and show movies after dark in their backyard.  The movie was "Little Voice" which was actually the movie that Michael and I saw together on our first real date.  I remembered very little of it (sadly, not because we were too busy making out to notice, but because it was 10 years ago...sigh).  Anyway, Mira sat very nicely through 25 minutes of it, and at one point a character called herself on the phone, and held up both receivers to her ears and said "Hello, ME!"  Mira thought this was hilarious, and not only guffawed for far longer than appropriate during the movie, but also has started saying it at odd times while holding both hands up to her ears.

Speaking of funny things Mira has said recently, I have to report on her very first "fashion police" incident.  Aunties, prepare to be proud of your niece!  Michael was wearing kind of short gym shorts around the house (since it's been ridiculously hot--107!) and we were getting ready to go out somewhere.  Mira said "Daddy, you going to put pants on?"  To which Michael replied, "I think I'll just wear these shorts."  Mira then put one hand on her hip and tapped her lip with the other while she said, "Actually, daddy, those are underpants!"  She then recommended that he indeed go put some pants on.  "Actually" is a new favorite word, which has in turn made me realize just how often I use it! 

Now for some other exciting news.  Given Mira's inquisitive nature, we've started feeling like she'd benefit and enjoy going to preschool a bit early.  Diana has also taken on a few younger kids recently, so she has suddenly found herself to be one of the oldest without a lot of things to do during the day (with the very large exception of the beloved "plip 'n' plide" in the backyard (a giant slip 'n' slide)).  So we visited the local Montessori preschool last Friday morning and liked what we saw.  They have a beautiful classroom with lots of light, lots of fun educational activites, and miniature toilets and washbasins which we knew Mira would love.  We got to bring her this morning to check it out for herself, and we anticipated that she'd be pretty shy given how she usually is with people she doesn't know.  However, it only took her about 30 seconds after meeting Miss Jan (the director of the school) to get started on some tempera painting.  She also got out a pair of chopsticks and transferred about 9 big puffballs from one bowl to another (to teach writing dexterity), did another dexterity exercise with wooden cylinders (when she finished this she looked up delightedly and said "Another!").  She used the minature potty twice and washed her hands three times, and in short, she LOVED it.  She shook Miss Jan's hand afterwards and said, "I liked it here!"  And she's been talking about it all day.  Diana is very supportive of sending Mira off to preschool since she also feels that she's ready, so we're all looking forward to Mira's first day of school on August 18th this year.  Here's an exterior shot of the school:

And here's the website for any of you interested:

http://alexanderstreetmontessori.org/

Well, that's about it for this week.  I just had to take a break from composing this because Mira popped out of her bedroom to use the potty.  She's taken to providing a play-by-play of what's going on, which becomes quite surreal when she's really tired (like right now):

Mira: "Here it comes!  The poops are on the way!  They riding in the poop car to come OUT!"

Me: "Umm...okay."
Mira: "They driving to Little Turdling."

Me: Pictures a little sign next to a quaint English village labelled "Little Turdling."

We probably need to start cracking down on the poop humor.  Today at the preschool Miss Jan was showing Mira a basket full of little plastic replicas of the life-cycle of a butterfly.  Mira told her the name of the butterfly and the caterpillar, but then the teacher pulled out a little black plastic oval and said, "And this is the pupa.  Can you say pupa?" At which point Mira turned red and started giggling, so I'm pretty sure I knew what was on her mind.

Well, this time it's really it for the week!  I'll leave you with a shot of Mira being kind of bored while Jen and I were scouring the sales racks at Target.  That's pretty good balancing!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Well, I'm writing to you all from the perspective of a 30-something, instead of the youthful 20-something gabbing from last week.  Expect the blog to get much more mature and wise, except for the continued reporting of poop jokes. 

The big event of last week was indeed my birthday, and I knew that Michael had organized a party for Saturday night, and that my mom was coming on Friday night for the weekend and to watch Guys and Dolls.  Michael did a bunch of toilet scrubbing, vacuuming, and even dusting for the occasion (at our rate, the dusting should tide us over until my 40th birthday party!).  He and Mira even made me a sweet banner for the occasion:

You can't see the lettering well in the photo, but it says (not surprisingly) "Happy Birthday." 

On Friday evening, we got all set up with the babysitter and I had decided that we'd just grab a bite to eat at a restaurant after my mom got to our house and before going to the show at 7pm.  Michael suggested that I make something at home instead, so I made an all-freezer dinner and was eating it when my mom arrived from Sacramento.  I immediately showed her the veggie garden and the butterfly garden, which I am overly enthusiastic about.  I was gabbing on about this and that when the doorbell rang.  I gave Michael the "look" that means "please go get that and deal with whoever it is," and he rudely barked out "I'M BUSY!"  So I went to the door kind of annoyed, only to find the rest of my family there!  Caralee, Julie, and my dad had snuck down with my mom as a birthday surprise!  (In retrospect, that explains the toilet scrubbing with the pumice stick, which my mom visits too often to merit!).  It was quite a surprise, and all the more so since no one spilled the beans while Mira and I were up in Portland two weeks ago, including Quinn!  After eating a quick dinner and dropping Mira off at the sitter's, we all went to the show.  I had arranged a complicated scheme with Michael to get a photo of him wearing his dapper costume, but in the excitement of having my family show up, I forgot the camera!  I was so mad, but I've made Michael promise to raid the computer at work and get some of the stills from all of the productions he's been in, and I'll post them here (they're better quality than anything I would take, anyway). 

The show was really fun and I was so proud to get to show off my talented husband to my family (Michael's still angry that he dropped the dice while singing his big number, "Luck Be a Lady," twice).  I think everyone else liked it, too--I'm still scheming to go again this weekend when Jennifer and Brandon come to visit.  However, I will not be sorry for the late nights to end!

On Saturday morning we did some errands and then got to work preparing everything for the party that afternoon.  Here is an action shot courtesy of my dad, who has over the years successfully cultivated his ineptitude to the extent that it is now his job to stay out of the way of whatever we're doing! 

Michael was really wonderful and did most of the work himself.  He and mom collaborated on some delicious marinades for chicken thighs, and we had a fruit salad with fresh cherries and blueberries (and whipped cream!), raw veggies, homemade salsa and chips, and other tasty snacks.  After the food prep, there was lots of napping:

[It's tough work staying out of the way!]

[Caralee and Julie and Mira all napped while the food was prepped!]

Finally the party started!

[The bald sexy grill master!]

[Enjoying the heat, unlike the rest of us who are used to it.]

[The play-doh table--are we awesome or what?]

[The frog pool (Kylie, Kate, Jossia, and Mira).]

[Dad and my colleague Evan discuss psychology while wearing silly hats.  I am looking profound, as a 30-year-old typically does.]

[Jared with Baby Sam, who is getting over the colicky stage quickly.  Can I just say that I love silly party hats?]

I have more photos of the party, but they're mostly more of the same.  It was a really nice, low-key party and everyone went home early so that I could get to bed by 8:30 like a mature adult (ha! Luckily Mira insists that I stay up late with her.)

Everyone had to leave on Sunday afternoon, but not before Dad got to take Mira to the famous Applegate Park Zoo.  I should also mention that in the short time he was here he manage to teach Mira some new tricks, including sticking her fingers in her ears and blowing a raspberry (which she took to surprisingly quickly, and just did again tonight when I told her it was time to go home from the pool).  He also made up a new song for her, which she loves (and asks me to sing "again, and again, and again!"):

"Icky things can be fun,

Bugs and worms and your ba-bum!"

(I should note that having had this kind of parental influence doesn't bode well for me suddenly maturing beyond the stage of finding poop jokes as funny as Mira does).  Speaking of which, Mira's latest thing this week is to insert the word "poop" into her favorite songs in random places, such as "Twinkle, twinkle, little POOP!" and then laugh maniacally.  Even I have to admit that it's getting old fast.

After my family took off on Sunday afternoon (after sitting around bored on a Sunday in Merced, home of Nothing To Do), we just relaxed the rest of the day.  Mira did well during their visit, relatively speaking, but still hasn't gotten beyond her sensitivity with people she doesn't interact with regularly.  She did enjoy Auntie Caralee's willingness to read books to her:

Thanks to everyone for coming down, and for the nice gifts (especially the handmade "old lady" shawl from Kathleen, which I suspect is retaliation for the "old lady" quilt that I made her last year).  Here are a few more photos from the weekend--have a great week!

[Finally, some resemblance to her mother!]

[The young lady prepares for a trip downtown, wearing her new handmade dress from Gammy (featuring glittery ric rac!) and garden gloves!]