poop!!

as you may have heard, mia has had some pretty adult poop lately. but even now that her diet is more balanced (less cheese!) she is having a hard time. you see, she's afraid of pooping. so she waits. and waits. and then? well it's a lot and it hurts. and so, against my wishes, josh has been giving mia cherry juice (cut with water) during meals. (you see where this is going, right?)

this morning josh and i blamed the terrible smell in the hallway on each other "you farted, nasty!" and i left for work. josh called later on to let me know that it wasn't a fart we smelled - it was mia!

she pooped in her sleep (something she hasn't done since she was a wee wee infant) and it was liquid and it was everywhere.

happy valentine's day!

baby boy crazy

michaela's cousin's wife had a baby boy last month (hi, scott!!) and they sent out birth announcements with his sweet sleeping face on them (aw...). mia has been carrying that thing around for weeks now. she says "night night, baby" and gives him kisses. the other day she was telling him all about josh's yo-yo.

yesterday mia got a valentine in the mail from an internet friend of hers, henry. he's a cute one, that henry! and yes, mia has agreed to be his. she carried the card around (his photo on it, of course) and took it for pretend naps and hugged it. i told her to give henry kisses and she returned the card to me a couple minutes later with a soggy hole in it. she had been sucking on it. ew!

man, we're in trouble!

zoos and open houses and burps!

we spent a couple hours at the zoo today and had a great time. thank god our zoo is small because mia refused to sit in the stroller and had her own ideas on what was interesting. who knew that there were so many benches for us to sit in? not me! mia found great joy in discovering them all.

most of the animals were enjoying the early spring...laying around in the sun and sleeping. so mostly we just wandered from bench to bench, exhibit to exhibit, saying "shhh...night night" and "chair!" and so we got a year-long pass, of course!

after the zoo we decided to hit up a bunch of open houses in our area. at the very first one mia decided she had to go potty. and so there we were, in a strangers house, singing the potty song and high 5ing for the big poop. i was so embarassed (the owners were there) that i didn't bother to put a diaper on her on the way out. at the next house josh suggested that i throw a diaper on her but i thought that surely she wouldn't pee - she'd just gone potty! but no. she peed. in her pants, without a diaper, in a strangers house. we left, laughing our heads off! she spent the next couple open houses in her diaper. we're classy like that.

mia has a couple of new things to say these days. "big kids" - because they're so cool, you know. and "moo me" (excuse me) - she says it after each burp or fart without coaxing.

life could not be better.

mahna mahna

on our last trip to visit josie we were blown away to hear her singing the abc's and the barney theme song. seriously. she's 16 months old and can sing songs (in toddler words). the tunes are there - it's amazing!

any time you ask mia to sing she will belt out a toneless string of 4 "la"s. it's from the elmo song. it's sweet but a little sad.

so...lately josh and i have had the muppet show song "mahna mahna/lullaby of birdland" in our heads. you know the one, right? so here's how it goes...

us: do do do do do...
mia: mahna!
us: do do do do...
mia: mahna!
(and on and on)

cutest damn thing ever! thank you, josie, for letting us know that mia might be able to move past lalalala. it's no abc's but she's working on it.

science is fun

today's lesson: babies stay dizzy for a long time.

mia loves the chair in our office. it spins! whee!! every day she runs in there and screams "whee!!" until i sit in the chair with her.

yesterday i put her in the chair all alone and spun her around slowly. and then her eyes glazed over and she tipped to one side. and giggled. i took her out and held her for a while. she was all bug-eyed and couldn't sit up straight. couldn't stand up .

and wanted more.

whee!!!

"i love you" means "good bye"

when josh and i are on the phone we always end our calls with "i love you". so much so that we now take it as a sign that the other is going to get off the phone soon. so we joke that "i love you" just means "good bye" with us.

and so it is with mia.

tell her "i love you" and she'll pretty well ignore you. or get pissed if you're in her room because it must mean you'll be putting her to bed. ask her to say "i love you" to grandma on the phone? "bye bye" and she hangs up on grandma. nice, huh?

it's not like we don't tell her "i love you" all the time, either. she's just keyed in on the times when it means "good bye" and "good night". weird.

friends

2 weeks ago we headed to san francisco to hang out with friends we met on the internet (gasp!) - a good time was had by all, especially the babies.



it was the first time we'd really seen mia interact with her friends. she's at daycare all day and there aren't any kids her age on our street (oh hell, there might be, we don't know our neighbors) so we never see her with other kids. it's been a couple months since mia and josie had seen each other - they have changed so much! no more walking past each other without a glance. now they play together! there was much running and screaming and giggling and holy crap i have a daughter who screams and giggles!

josie is mia's first real friend - don't they just look like trouble?!