The girl formerly known as ...

Since Sunday, Miss M has been going by "Sweetie-pie." I called her that when we were getting dressed for church. Then I went back to calling her other things...., gubsie-gubs, Mir-Mir...the usual. She persistently corrected me..."No...just Sweetie-pie. Silly Mommy!"

We had fun with her that evening...sugar pie, sugar plum, sweetie bum....and it always came back to Sweetie-pie. It's now Tuesday and I still have a little Sweetie-Pie upstairs. I am curious to see how long she plays this out.

St. Nicholas Day

Happy Saint Nicholas Day! We celebrate by opening stockings in our house. (We open family gifts on Epiphany- Jan 6- so we get both early and late gifts.) We exchange gifts with Dave's family on Christmas, but this lets us focus on different parts of the experience throughout the entire Christmas season and especially on Jesus rather than all about gifts.

Mirabel was most excited about the treats! treats! treats! that were in the stocking (and the Advent calendar). Her job is snuffing the candles on our advent wreath and opening one of the advent calendars.

Another funny Mirabel tale....we came in from the cold and she started dancing around but knew she needed to get her boots off before racing for the toilet. As she jumped, she said "Not go potty in my pants, not go potty in my pants...no way, Jose!" And she made it, too!

Random Musings

Recent Blessings:
- A Saturday where I had nothing scheduled except a potluck and pantry swap (swapping extra canned goods with others). My friend Sian hosted a fantastically tasty potluck and I got to trade some of my extras for goodies like blueberry jam, rhubarb ginger marmelade, and bread and butter pickles! I didn't feel rushed to leave and could really just enjoy the conversation. Note to self- quit overscheduling. :)
- I have been hitting the thrift store circuit and scoring big on shoes! I think I purchased something like 10 pairs. It has enabled me to get rid of some that really had seen their day. I've also gotten a bunch of clothes and all of it at 30-50% off the marked (thrift store) price!
- My mom continues to babysit Mirabel almost every Friday and I get a date night with my hubby.
- Mirabel is liking school instead of pulling fake sick days. Since we figured it out and did some intervention, she hasn't missed a day. My vacation balance and work schedule are happy about this.

Funny Mirabel Story:

When in the car, we sing songs to pass the time. A favorite is the Wheels on the Bus. Because I can't handle the same verses again and again, I started making up verses. The doors on the bus open and shut, the dogs on the bus go bark, bark, bark, and so on. Last week, I started singing the Mirabels on the bus go (wait for M to answer) and without missing a beat she said "I'm so cute! I'm so cute! I'm so cute!" Trying hard not to laugh, I asked what the Paulinas on the bus said. (Paulina is our foreign exchange student.) They say "I'm so cute," too, in case you were wondering. Apparently, mommies and daddies and all adult women say "Shh, shh, shh" but uncles make odd noises (which is true for my brother and brothers-in-law) and Opas and Grandpas say "Ha, ha, ha."

It was also incredibly fun to come downstairs for our first winter wonderland (fortunately on a Saturday) and see her excited little face...Mommy...it's snowing Mommy, it's snowing!! Can I see it? Can I touch it? Can I eat it?

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Mirabel Update

Some things that Mirabel is doing (just a point in time):
- Vocab explosion - sentences, repeating what we say, adding phrases and words like crazy. Some of my favorites- "No worries." "Oh, my goodness!" "Good job, Mirabel Grace." "More Jesus, Mommy, more Jesus." (when she wants another Bible story at night).
- Still in constant motion. She tires me out. She can ride a little two wheel bike with training wheels now. She swings on a regular swing by herself, pumps her legs, and lately has taken to leaning back as she swings. She loves having her dad swing her upside down and side to side (tick-tock clock).
- She is a great eater. She loves fruit and vegetables, and of late pancakes are a favorite treat.
- She still sleeps pretty well, taking a nap daily, going down well and staying asleep until 7:30 or so in the morning.
-Exciting for us- potty training since mid-July. She's been rocking on that, and is wearing diapers just for nap and nighttime.

She's starting Montessori preschool/daycare next week Monday. I think she will really like it a lot. I'm excited to see how it ends up going for her.

Feet that go where God sends

Before I was pregnant with Mirabel, I heard a sermon that talked about blessing, not cursing. One thing that specifically stood out to me was an admonition to parents to intentionally bless their children and not curse them. While most parents don't actually curse their kids with swear words or phrases like "you'll never amount to anything," they do say hurtful things like "I can't believe you did that" or "Why do you always ..." or "That was a stupid decision" etc. It stuck with me. I have tried to specifically bless Mirabel each night when I put her to bed and try to avoid cursing behavior.

For the past few months, I have been praying for her this way- God, please bless Mirabel with a strong mind, eyes that see, ears that hear, a mouth that speaks truth, a kind and compassionate heart, hands that serve, a strong body, and feet that go where God sends. For the past few weeks, she has been saying "baa-dee" along with me and "fee..go...God...senns" when I say the last two phrases. It's a sweet memory for me.

Little Mirabel- may your feet always run along the path where God sends.

Big, big, big BOOM!

We had a great 4th of July celebration yesterday- church, then a BBQ party after church, then hanging out at home, then off to the Party in the Park. Mirabel saw a few fireworks set off by individual households during the music session and was dancing all around, but when it came time for the real display, the booms scared her. Last year we watched the show from someone's yard, and it must have been far enough away that she could just enjoy the show without being scared of the sound.

We went to the park with my friend Lisa and it was great to be able to bike home faster than the cars! We finally tumbled into bed around 11:30...the latest she's been up since she was a little skipper!

(Note the excitement of my day...I bought an Old Navy tank top in 2003, which has been my goto shirt for the 4th ever since. I found a matching tank for Mirabel for 50 cents at a garage sale and it made me smile all day long.)

Our little bean counter

I was eating dinner with Mirabel the other night and she took a handful of her green beans out of the dish and plopped them on the table. Slightly frustrated, I said to her that I thought it might be better to keep them in the dish. (I'm sure that's exactly how I said it, too.) I went back to eating my meal and heard her talking. Vun, too, free, for, fiv!! Clap, clap, clap. I looked over and she had lined up five green beans right in a row. I didn't even know she knew how to count, but I guess she has been paying attention to her number books and puzzle.

Our little wonder turns two next month and we're looking forward to other wonders this spring and summer. I'm hoping one of them is potty training. :)

Baa

So....we've been doing Advent preparations at our home over the past month or so- Advent calendars (two of them), Advent wreath with candles, Advent devotions. We have several nativity sets that are Mirabel friendly (and several that aren't). Mirabel has been having a lot of fun with the Christmas decorations- lights, tree, ornaments, Advent, baby Jee and the whole bunch. We also have a lot of books about the nativity and of course, there are lots of animals on the scene. Mirabel loves to make animal noises, but she isn't very good at baa. So I've been making the sheep sounds and she has been focusing on the cows, horses, cats and dogs.

A couple of days ago, she transitioned from calling me maa to baa...apparently in response to the fact that I had been baaing quite a bit lately. Several days later, she's still doing it...probably in response to the immense laughter coming from her father. It's now been reinforced with my whole family as we spent our Christmas celebration with them today...she totally knows that isn't really me or my name, but she gets an impish little grin on her face and sweetly points to me and says "Baa" to get my attention. Baa- baa!

Happy Halloween!

We had a nice Halloween yesterday. I love the dress up and imagination portion of the holiday (as well as the candy- who can turn down sweets?) Mirabel is still too young for candy, so she just dressed up and ran around. We sent her to a festival party with my parents and she loved looking at all the other costumes.

We went down to visit my sister, her husband and their new little baby, Korbin, who was born exactly 18 months after Mirabel. He's wearing the little pumpking tshirt and socks we got for him. He was a peapod for the evening (same costume that Mirabel wore last year.) What started as an odd family joke has now turned into a mini-streak. Let me explain. My brother's birthday is on May 22. He married someone whose birthday is on March 22, and they decided to get married on July 22, which was a Saturday the year they wed. They told me I should have my baby on the 22, which I actually did. (April). Now Korbin popped out on Oct 22. Kat (my sister-in-law) said she can't handle the pressure. They aren't expecting or anything, but it will be interesting to see if anyone else manages to get a 22nd birthday!

Anyway, Korbin is in the picture with us. Frankly, I can't imagine heading back into the newborn days right at the moment. My sisters are almost exactly 18 months apart and my mom had two other kids at home...but I'm just now feeling like I'm emerging from the baby fog tunnel and I would like to enjoy a little bit of time there before heading back in.

Mirabel update

Just a little update on what Mirabel is doing now...I don't remember the little things and it's nice to look back on a snapshot in time. She was sick for the first time yesterday- vomiting and fever. When I came home last night I just held her for the whole evening. She really slowed down, but today she is back up nearly to full steam.

She is walking, sometimes running. She loves to climb (chairs, couches, cupboards, tables- whatever).

She enjoys looking at books. She dances to music by swinging her arms and shaking her hips back and forth.

She signs more than talks right now, but she does have a handful of spoken words- Jesus "thh, thh," Hi, dog "duuhg" or barking, dad "da," tickle, tickle "thickl, thickl," mom "ma," duck "duh," and piercing shrieks and screams for good measure. We try to discourage the latter. There might be a few other words she says, but it's hard to know for sure.

She makes animal sounds (dog, cow, duck and maybe others- I struggle with identifying live animals let alone imitations- others have mostly worked with her on these) and she can identify a good share of her body parts. She understands what we say to her and many times follows our directions. She helps to pick up her toys and books (most of the time).

She brushes her own teeth but doesn't like us to help and she started using the potty chair (going on it much of the time...we're not in formal potty training mode but when we change her diaper we often put her on the potty chair and praise her when she goes. Figure it's good to start when she shows an interest and maybe we'll get out of diapers a little early.)

She loves to eat and does well with veggies, fruit, dairy and grains. She has definite favorites but nothing that has been summarily rejected. We haven't given her sugar things yet and she doesn't seem to be skewed toward sweet fruit (at least, not to the exclusion of all else).

She is getting to be a lot of fun, and I enjoy being around her. I am excited to see how her personality continues to change.

In non-Mirabel news, we're hoping for another 1/4 percent drop in home interest rates so we can refinance our house, Dave has been working like a madman around our home fixing up all kinds of things (including redoing our front yard with good dirt and sod) and I've been trying really hard to keep the house less cluttered. We said goodbye to Betsy, Eric & Candace (our renters for the past year, 4 years, and 8 months, respectively) and hello to Dorene. God has really blessed us with great housemates. We still get to see Betsy as she's still helping to take care of Mirabel and we get to see Eric and Candace for breakfast and an REI scratch and dent sale tomorrow morning. Dorene has been a fantastic addition to the house. We even got to see our former nanny, Ellie, this evening as she popped by for a quick visit. Life is full and we feel blessed to know so many great people. Now we've got a whole wonderful weekend in front of us- hooray!

Time flies....

Goodness, we've been busy with life. Nothing tremendous to report- but it's been a long while since I posted. Mirabel has been working on showcasing her personality lately. A funny story from yesterday- she signs several words (more, eat/food, please, milk, all done, washing hands, toothbrush, and cheese). Well, I was trying to feed her supper, which included some bananas mixed in yogurt and some cereal. She is not a fan of bananas with yogurt, though she'll gobble each independently. So, she was vigorously signing "all done" as I tried to get her to eat the yogurt. She tolerated the cereal. When I attempted to put some of her yogurt in the cereal and offered spoon with mostly cereal and a little yogurt, she watched me do it, took a sniff, and again signed "all done." I dumped that spoon, took only cereal, and the little bugger leaned forward, stuffed her nose in the spoon, and then lifted her face, smiled, and ate up. Then I gave her some sweet potatoes, which she really likes, but she pushed those away and started signing cheese. I told her she needed to eat some actual food before getting cheese, at which point she started double-fisting the sweet potatoes in her mouth and then emphatically signing cheese, cheese, please, please. What a happy little camper when the cheese finally came.

Things like this, laundry, working in the basement (got all the baby clothes organized!), helping alter our nanny's wedding dress, finding a new nanny to replace her when she moves out, work, processing cherries from the cherry tree, and other such things have been filling my days. Dave and I are looking forward to celebrating our 6th wedding anniversary this coming Sunday. And I'm attaching a picture of Mirabel at a recent Civil War outing and one from when she was 2 months old. Some people at church gave us their climber set, and Mirabel has spent many a happy hour playing on it.

Happy Birthday, Osita!

Here is a birthday picture of our "little bear." Dave calls her Osita in honor of her grrs and crazy arm and leg flopping. She's also very into wrestling. I took this picture of her dressed in her little bear coat (Christmas gift- check out the ears on the hood!) Our little Mirabel is one year old today. We love her smiles, giggles, and coos. Her exploring and climbing, her love of books and shoving things in her mouth. Mirabel, may you grow each day into greater wisdom and knowledge, and favor with God and with people. We love you! Mom and Dad

Peekaboo

The video I'd previously promised...Mirabel hides behind furniture and thinks it's fun to play peekaboo. We like it, too.

Fun Mirabel information

Mirabel has been growing up fast! She zooms around with her stroller, has discovered her feet anew in the last few days (for example, she sits on her butt and spins around only using her feet, she knocked down a block tower I built yesterday with her feet, and she stands on on one foot and holds out the other, like a baby ballerina.)

She discovered grinning with her full face (the requisite smile where kids crunch their whole face up into their nose), which is very cute with her three (closing in on four) teeth.

She has very definite food preferences (on the absolute best list is cheese; likes a lot include squash, yogurt, avocado; touch and go is cereal and spinach, and green beans are the bottom feeders. She will eat them if mixed with cereal or if she doesn't spy any other food options.

She plays peek-a-boo back with us by hiding behind the sofa or chair and popping out, then dropping down (I have a video I'll upload later).

She absolutely loves books and will amuse herself by looking at her stack of books.

She vocalizes and makes sounds like "OOH" "Dih, dih, dih" and "AAAHHHH" along with mamamamamamamama but that doesn't appear to be connected with me (or anything else.)

She's still a really happy baby and we're glad for that. She sleeps great through the night, takes naps, amuses herself a good deal of the time when we need, travels well, and reminds us that she still suffers from original sin by intentionally ignoring our instructions to avoid pulling her cloth diapers down from the drying rack. (It makes for a good theological discussion.) :)

Our little girl is one year old in three weeks...it's hard to believe it's gone by that quickly!

Sick of Snot

Mirabel has had a snotty head cold for what seems like forever...it appears to come with new teeth for her and we now have a bottom tooth to join her top two teeth. But I've also been sneezing and snotting myself for the past few days. This experience has reminded me of the little ditty from childhood - "Don't kiss your honey when your nose is runny, you might think it's funny, but it's (s)not."

We're trying to figure out where we'd like to go for a vacation and whether or not to take or leave Mirabel or try to travel with someone else. We've wanted to go to London for a long time, and with the dollar being stronger against the pound than it has been in a long while, it seems like a good time to travel. But if we went there, I'd want it to be for at least 10 days, which seems like a long time to leave our little one behind. So then the question is how to take her, or if we go somewhere else....has anyone else had this kind of experience? If we left her, she would be in our house, with her normal care providers, and we'd probably have them care for her in the evenings along with grandparents (who she knows). Other options would be Guatemala or somewhere else in central America. I've also heard there are some babysitters that you can hire in another country (e.g. associated with the hotel) but that seems a little odd to turn over your kid to a stranger in another country.

I'm getting a little cabin fever and am looking forward to warmer weather and more sunshine.

Ok...off to exercise and then off to bed. We're doing a mini-challenge with some people at work where you set a goal (mine is to lose 5 lbs) and then have weekly goals during the week. If you meet the weekly goals, you're good. If you don't, you pay a $1 penalty. You pay $2 to participate in the challenge and whoever meets their goal at the end splits the pot. My weekly goals center around limiting sugar and exercising, and I need only one more exercise session to avoid paying $1. So...off I go!

Life update

We've been doing the normal life stuff- eating, sleeping, working, Bible study, errands, etc. Tirzah got married a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to update some photos but we didn't take many and the official ones aren't ready yet. Mirabel was a mini-me of the bride. Welcome to the family, Adam!

I was running around today to a bunch of different places and came home and Dave made this movie this afternoon. It's Mirabel's beginnings...so it's from awhile ago but I thought it was awesome. Now I have to talk him into making one for each year....

Trick or Treat!

Here's a picture of us from Halloween (I was Dr. Crusher from Star Trek: the Next Generation, Dave was a construction worker, my friend Lisa was a woman from the 1950s, and our little sweet pea!)

Mirabel also had her 6 month appt today. She is long and lean...85th percentile for length but only the 5th for weight. But she's hitting her developmental milestones well and I'm not really worried about it. Breastfed babies are often behind the curve on weight gain. She's a little under the weather after getting her flu shots (and the 6 month series). Poor little thing.

Come on, baby, do the locomotion

We went to our first ECFE class this morning. (Early Childhood Family Education). It meets at our local school- close enough that we can walk. We had a nice stroll outside on a beautiful fall day and we also got to learn some fingerplays and songs- things that help you interact with your baby and help them develop. We also met some nice parents. While we were at class, Mirabel fixed her eyes on her rattle and couldn't quite reach it. She pushed off her feet and did the classic "scootch" forward. Then she repeated several times when we were at home.

Must babyproof...must babyproof...we haven't much time, I'm afraid....Really we just have to pick up some things that we've been lazy about leaving on the floor in our living room. We've got the list of what to look for- I think that's what I'll focus on tomorrow afternoon.

In other news...I'm going on a road trip to Chicago Mon-Wed. I have a conference there on Tuesday, and my friend Lisa is coming along with me and will take care of Mirabel. I get to see one of my college friends and also stay with the family I babysat for through my four years at college. I'm looking forward to that (and the conference, too!)

We've moved to solids

Mirabel had her first taste of squash yesterday and I'm uploading a video of it. She made the funniest faces! But she ate all of the teaspoon or two we gave her. Her sitting up skills have increased exponentially over the past few weeks and she can do it for multiple seconds at a stretch, she has been watching our food intake intently for weeks, she's almost 6 months old, and she started waking up at night after months of sleeping through. Signs pointed to starting solid food. We're going with veggies first, then cereal, then fruit in an attempt to gear her taste buds toward less sweet things...we'll see if it works. She does have a mom with a monster sweet tooth (but I also love my veggies!)

Going for the Gold

It's been Olympic fever here. We hardly ever watch TV, but we've been tuning in pretty much every day since the games started. With all the furor over the young Chinese gymnasts at the Olympics, Mirabel told us she was old enough to go for the gold. She has been practicing on the double arching bars and is working really hard to stick her landings. We told her it would help her scores if she could stand on her own and she assured us she was working on it. Her practice was cut short by a round of spit-up, but we've been very impressed with her work ethic. Go for it, sweetie!