a new friend.

this morning i asked mia who her friends would be today and her response was an emphatic "dirt!". and then she declared "mia happy." which made my day. mia is happy.

***

there's no more chacha and it's kinda sad. mia says charlie's name loud and clear. yesterday i asked her if she wanted to go home and see charlie or go and visit her daddy at work..."charlie!!"

we went to visit josh anyway.

what's new.

mia's done with her first week at her new school, she got her first haircut and memorial weekend came and went. we've been busy with a bunch of nothing.

one week later.

mia's in love with her new school. by day 3 she was no longer crying when josh dropped her off in the morning and is so worn out at the end of the day she just wants to go "hooooommmme" when she sees me.

• she has now pooped 3 times without screaming or blood. she still has the initial fear of going but that's it. once she gets going it's not a problem. you can't imagine the kind of stress this is taking off of all of us - it's wonderful. yesterday she was in the bathroom with me while i was taking a shower and needed to go poop, i would open the shower door to check on her every now and again and she yelled at me to close the door. she needed her privacy to make her "wow! stinky poopoo!" hee hee - she's growing up.
• her vocabulary is growing more and more. she says "potty" now instead of the weird "fafa" thing she had going on. i give complete credit to the daycare as they actually take her all day long.
• she has discovered the joy that is the sandbox. my house is compeltely covered in sand. the other day i went to pick her up and she was playing in the dirt and when she saw me she splayed out and pretended to be swimming. in the dirt. that's my girl.
• she drinks from a cup instead of a sippy every chance she gets. just a week ago she was all choking and covered in water. ah, but now she's a big kid.
• no more sippy cup at nap time!!

the haircut.

she loves it. some of you out there are all "it's crooked. it's too short. it looks weird." and to you i say - BAH! mia loves it. it has to be this short to keep the hair out of her eyes when she's in the water. and it's not crooked - it's curly. so there. last night mia spent her entire bathtime pouring water over her head. she is a different kid with the bangs. but holy moly she's not a baby anymore.

memorial weekend.

yardwork, gymnastics, swimming and the zoo. that pretty much sums it up. we slept in as much as mia would let us (we're teaching her to snuggle and relax in the bed instead of jumping on our heads - it's a long process) and just lounged around all weekend, really. a pretty perfect weekend, all in all.

my aunt nancy invited su over for a bbq and a swim - so much fun! lat year mia was a little lump in the pool. she enjoyed it but wasn't overly impressed. this year she turned into one of those kids that insists they're not cold as they're shaking and turning blue.

mamma jamma. damnit.

for the past 2 weeks mia has been saying "damnit". at first we thought it was just something that sounded like damnit. surely our little angel hadn't picked up a curse word from her parents. no, that wasn't it at all. but then the pronunciation and context couldn't be ignored.

she would be playing with her something and when she couldn't get it to do what she wanted she would scowl and say "damnit". "uh-oh" has been replaced by "damnit" whenshe drops things. she tells the dog "damnit". sigh...it's all my fault.

but during the past 4 days there has been another development. now she says something like "damma" at random things. it's not damnit but it also has no meaning. it is the first word she's used that we can't put a meaning to. she screams it while she points at the counter, looks otu the window, eats her food, runs in circles....there's no pattern.

mia: damma!!
me: pajamas?
mia: yeah. damma!!
me: frogs?
mia: yeah. damma!!
me: mamma jamma?
mia: yeah!!!

my only guess is that josie has taught her a bit of her crazy language.

damnit.

starting over.

yesterday was mia's first day at her new daycare and it went GREAT! she cried for all of 10 seconds when josh dropped her off and then quickly forgot that she had parents at all.

when i picked her up that afternoon she merely glanced my way as i walked in the door. per usual. when i asked her if she had a good day she exclaimed "YEAH!" and showed me all around, telling me how they danced and played and went potty.

she took her first nap ever without her sippy cup and...get this...she even pooped. i almost fell down dead when they told me. they must think i'm a big liar. mia played "independently" and was a happy kid all day long, they said. no problems at all.

and when it was time to say goodbye? she cried. wasn't ready to leave all the fun behind and go home with boring old mama. and then she sang "E I E I O" all the way home. my kid sings now (of course this probably has a lot to do with josie singing the same song for 2 days, but whatever).

and then this morning she slept in. josh had to wake her up so they could leave. i'm in love already. who knew i would fall so fast?

***

in other news, we had a fun filled weekend with josie and her moms and new friends from inside the computer!

we started out by going to a baby gymnastics class with mia's friend, katia. holy moly was that ever fun! mia ran and jumped and played and watched all the big kids on the balance beam in complete awe. we're totally signing up for this class!

then there was naked baby swimming - and hoo boy those girls had fun! i certainly didn't think that they'd have enough energy to go to the park and then out for dinner. but they did. and how.

low attention span.

mia loves for us to sing to her. she's particularly fond of "wheels on the bus" and will spin her hands around each other and insist "mama. bus." and so we sing:

us: the wheels on the bus go round and round..round and...
mia: shh. shh. (finger touching nose)
us: the mommies on the bus say...
mia: daddy. shh. daddy.
us: the daddies on the bus say shh...
mia: woof.
us: the doggies on the bus say woof...
mia: mama! la la la (the cue to sing the elmo song)

and so on and so forth. she can't be bothered to hear the whole verse. i suppose i should be grateful that i don't have to sing the whole song but geez, she's so rude sometimes. :)

mia did it!

no, she didn't poop...

she's growing more and more independent these days. every day when we get in the car she has to clip the carseat buckle herself. same with her booster seat. "mia do it" followed by "i did it!"

of course last night i couldn't tell if she was wandering around the house saying "do it" as she tried to shove a vhs tape back in it's case or "damn it" because it wouldn't go in. hee hee.

***

today is mia's last day at her daycare center. she's been loved and spoiled there since she was 3.5 months old and it's a sad day. she's completely in love with her teacher, ms. bonnie, and ms. kimberlee does her hair for her everyday (since josh can't figure out the rubberbands yet). she has friends that she hugs and kisses and plays with and fights with everyday.

but it's also a really exciting day. it's time to make a change. we're moving to a much nicer facility and into a class where she already knows some of the kids. so it'll be fine. right?

wish us luck.

chatty cathy

mia's been talking up a storm lately. more than just her usual chit chat - new words are flowing out all the time and it's hard to keep up with how much she's learning. she knows some of her shapes and colors, she can remember things from days ago, she can is learning to recognize emotions and can put on a happy/sad/angry face if you ask her to. and really? it's all freaking me out.

mother's day 2006

we had such a nice weekend. josh's parents came down friday night and woke up with mia, letting us sleep in until the unthinkable 8am. it was wonderful! later in the day josh's brother and family came by for a bbq. mia was so excited to see her cousins. the first thing she asked me for on sunday was to go outside with the big kids and splash. she cried and cried when i told her that they were gone.

sunday we cuddled in bed until mia got too bored. and then we just sat around and enjoyed the day. it was perfect.

what i can't get over is how much more of a KID she is these days. and an awesome one, at that.

daddy's girl.

suddenly mama isn't good enough anymore. mia has figured out that her dad is pretty darn fun and that he doesn't always know that mama has said no already. twice she has not wanted me to take her to read her final book of the day "no mama. dada." and if she needs the bathroom in the middle of the night she cries for him to join us in the bathroom. maybe i should be sad that i'm not always her parent of choice anymore but honestly? i have been waiting for this - mama needs a nap :)

she’s a good mama, that baby.

mia has taken to wrapping everything she can in a “baby blanket” ... when she’s done with her dinner she wraps it up in her napkin, rocks it on her shoulder. then throws it on the table and yells “all done, mama."

she's finally fallen for a stuffed animal. two actually (because everything is TWO! these days). first there was yoyah (grover). i have been wanting to get her a grover doll like the one we sent her cousin and internet friend for a long time, but i knew that she would just toss him aside. well i finally did it - and she's in love. she force feeds him dinner (which she then yanks out of his mouth and gobbles up noisily), makes him drink out of her sippy cup and even sleeps with him.

a week or so ago she noticed a teddy bear that has been sitting on a shelf in her room since before she was born and insisted that i bring it down for her. she hugged it like it was a long lost friend and it hasn't left her bed since. every night she places grover on one side of her pillow and te-ey baur (teddy bear) on the other, puts them both in the strangle hold and says "two."

outside!!!

it's all we hear these days. she has to be outside or life is simply not worth living. we were doing yard work this weekend and she was a great help - even offered to fix the drip system for josh.

towards the end of the day she screamed bloody murder until we put her in the truck. and so we did. we rolled down the windows and closed all the doors and left her in the truck while we finished up the yard work. weird baby.

allergies.

mia's got her mama's allergies, it seems. they knocked her out for a day with the puffy and goopy but for the most part she seems to be ok. she's like a little mutant baby evolving past things one at a time. good thing, she looked pretty pathetic.

poop. and.

tonight mia pooped a big poop. a poop that made her angle herself in strange ways on the potty and strain and cry. but when it was all over she stood over the toilet and exclaimed...

WOW! POOP!

it's progress, the more proud and the less afraid she is of pooping the better it is for all of us. so...all together now...WOW! POOP!

***

i forget exactly how it went but i'm quite sure that mia used the word "and" while talking to me today. she's amazing.

first day of summer.

yesterday marked the first day of summer here (as far as i'm concerned, anyway). it was 80 degrees, mia slept in something other than full body footie pajamas for the first time in god knows how long, we kept her ceiling fan on all night and this morning there was no need for a jacket.

it's summer. and it's only going to get hotter. ugh.

we decided last minute to go out to dinner and had already taken out mia's pigtails - we took her out in public like this:

one day she will pay us back by wearing her hair like this on her own.

after dinner we walked past a hair salon and mia stopped dead in her tracks. she stared inside for a bit then looked at us and pointed inside - grunting to be taken in. i asked her "do you want a haircut?" (like i have done a handful of times before when i have attempted to trim her bangs - to which she has always screamed no and run away) she grabbed the nest on top of her head, nodded and said "haircut." and cried all the way home when i wouldn't take her into the salon to have her hair did. for the next hour all i heard was a very pathetic cry for a haircut.

***

mia's latest and greatest saying:

(as she's running away) "ninny! ninny!"

bossy miss

mia woke up from her nap yesterday screaching. which meant that she woke me up from my nap (which was quite rude but i will forgive her because she's so cute). i brought her back into my bed to grab a few more minutes of sleep and after gifting me an additional 15 minutes in bed (not sleeping, mind you - there is much to much poking me in the eye and giggling to be done) she'd had enough.

"up, mama!" (poke poke)

"a GO!"

"no blanket! NONONO!!" (yanking blanket off of me)

"UP!"

yes, mia. of course, mia.

my heart, it swells.

i've been singing mia her own little song for months and months now, it goes a little something like this (feel free to sing along):

mia rose! with a booger in her nose!
mia rose! with a finger in her nose!

over the weekend the light finally came on and she jammed her finger in her nose. i couldn't be more proud.

two weeks later...

passover
josh's parents came over for passover and we had a very relaxing dinner and visit. josh and i cooked and recovered from another night of screaming from mia while babi and zadi were trapped in the playroom with mia and her blocks. everyone got to visit and josh and i got some peace and quiet. until around midnight...

mia is now 19 months old
in only 4 more months she will be 2. that can't be right...

easter
after another night of screaming (this one a good 3 hour block) we had my aunt nancy and uncle bill over for brunch. yet another relaxing holiday! mia's too little and doesn't have any cousins around to teach her the goodness of the easter basket so we have been handing out the candy sparingly. she loses her mind when she sees the basket "BITE! BITE! BITE!" so we keep it hidden. yes, we're bad parents.



baby ballet
what? i didn't mention that we're taking a mama and baby ballet class? well we are. stop laughing.

it's 3 saturdays of mia and a handful of other girls in a gym. they dance and since and run in a circle. not really ballet. except for the outfits. oh the outfits! tulle and sequins and tights oh my! but not mia. mia is in sweat pants (what? they're pink!) and a tee shirt. again, bad parents.

so far the two times she's walked into the class she's had this look on her face like we're playing a joke on her. "no really, where are we going? and why are these girls dressed so silly? can we go outside now?" but then 20 minutes in she starts playing along and has a good time.



maybe tumbling instead?

and last night...
it's been so nice the past couple days that we can go outside and play in the yard when we get home. last night mia spent an hour running around the yard with various sticks, rotting oranges, leaves, etc. singing her name over and over. "mia mia...mia mia...mia mia..." for an hour. too funny.

and she slept!!!! all the way through the night like normal. whew. so now i plan on wearing her out but good before bedtime.

run run run!

very funny - now go to sleep.

daylight savings time and west facing windows suck.

mia's not tired. ever. she's been on a steady 6:45 bedtime with 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep for a long time now. and all of the sudden she's not tired. not at all. and has no intention of laying in her bed until her body relents and she falls asleep. none at all.

last night she was up until just after 8 with the screaming and the giggling and the lying about needing to go potty. i guess it's time to up the bedtime. that's really going to cut into our tivo time... ;)

the best part of last nights shananigans is that mia has taken to tickling us. so as we're rocking quietly in her room a tiny hand comes creeping up to my neck followed by a sweet little "tickle tickle, mama" followed, of course, by the giggles.

busy busy

despite all the rain that's been dumping on us we've managed to get out and do some fun things. we went to fairytale town and the zoo a couple weeks ago and this last weekend we went to a friend's birthday party at the bowling alley. mia's an awesome little bowler!



she's growing up so fast and furious these days. her vocabulary is getting too much to keep up with - we're surprised every time a new word pops out of her mouth (and that none of them are curse words!).

lately she tells us "shhh...babies..." - the infant room is right next door to her room at school and they must shush them when the babies are napping. and now we're getting shushed.

she's also started hitting us. not out of anger (yet) but when she's tired or over excited she'll give us a good smack. sigh...

and she's a big fat liar, too. when she doesn't want to go to sleep (thanks, daylight savings time!) she'll cry and carry on about how she has to go potty. and when we take her to the bathroom (we can't say no - don't want to discourage using the potty) she giggles and giggles and doesn't pee. LIAR!

look, no talk of poop!

the kid needs a sibling.

we picked up a table and 2 chairs for the little one and oh how she loved them! the only problem is that she can't sit in 2 chairs at once.

the first time she sat down at her "big kid" table with her snack and juice she ate a couple bites, got up, pushed in her chair, moved her food and drink to the other side of the table, pulled out the other chair, sat down and had a couple bites, got up, pushed in her chair...you get the idea...she did this for a LONG TIME before i finally had to go and sit down in one of the chairs. she just couldn't sit in one chair more than the other - she loved them both so much!

weirdo.

***
mia is now the proud owner of 5 lovely fishies. when we first got them 2 weeks ago she just stood there making fish faces at her new friends. as though they were having a conversation only they could hear.

"EEEAT! FISHHH EAT!!" and there is much shaking of the fish food and screaming. and so we feed them.

every night she kisses them goodnight (scaring the bejeezus out of them when she bangs her noggin on the glass) and every morning the first words out of her mouth are "goo moanin', fishhhh"

***

latest greatest phrase: oh, dada... (very exasperated like)

you really have to hear this to appreciate it (note to self to get it on video before it's no longer cute but just snotty). she's obviously aware of what complete idiots we are.

***

mia's understanding possession now. everything has an owner.

chair? mama's chair!
sock? dada's sock!
pants? mama's pants!

all. day. long. what's funny is that nothing is "mia's", which is nice for now because soon i know that all we'll hear is "MINE!"

18 months old. and more talk of poop.

mia turned 18 months old on wednesday but we were too busy having fun with uncle james to comment on it. happy 1.5, baby girl!

it's been busybusybusy at the klapow house these days. last weekend more internet friends came to play! 6 parents, 2 toddlers, one baby, one dog and 5 cameras. yes, the cameras DID out number the babies! it took seeing mia with lilja for me to realize that she's really not a baby anymore. she's a little girl. a little girl with a shoe obsession.

on wednesday uncle james came into town! we rarely get to see him in person and mia hasn't seen him in 15 months so it was a treat for everyone. plus we got to take time off in the middle of the week to hang out - bonus!



mia wasn't sure what to make of uncle james' tattoos. i don't think she was impressed, though. she kept looking at them like "um, you've got crayon all over you, dude. do you want a napkin to wipe that off?" outside of the tattoos uncle james is the most exciting thing around, though. he's all fun all the time! mia woke up this morning and the first thing out of her mouth was "uncle james!!" it was sad to see him go but we take what we can get.

****

and now we'll talk poop.

the constipation isn't going away. she's afraid to poop so she holds it in. making it worse. same story, different day.

our friends suggested that we try fruit-eze as their nephews use it with great success. we checked it out and it sounded like the perfect solution. so we ordered it! hope is a powerful thing and it was coming in the mail! wednesday night there was a package at the front door - the pooping solution was here!! all 5 lbs. of it! yes, 5 lbs of a raisin/prune/date/prune juice paste. so much pooping paste!

it tastes like raisins. mia loves raisins. mia will not eat the pooping paste. not in her yogurt. not on toast. not on a cracker. not from a spoon. not in a pb&j sandwich.

meanwhile josh and i have been eating small bites of it to show mia how yummy it is (it really does just taste like raisins) and we can tell you first hand that it works. even in small doses.

cabbage patch days

mia just rediscovered the cabbage patch kid that aunt nancy gave her for her birthday. she has spent the last hour totally involved with her.

she's so interested in the dolls parts - it's really cool. she'll point to the belly button, then find hers, point to her eyes, then to her own, and on and on it goes. and the baby has SHOES! take them off! put them on! MEASE!!! A CHOOO!!!

right now she is "napping" with her baby in the tent.



god i love this kid.

she dreams of snow.

even though she doesn't know what snow is and has never met her east coast internet friends, mia dreams of colder climates.

today was another day where mia cried until we let her walk around the house in her flannel pajamas, snow boots, daddy's gloves and mama's snow hat. for hours.

and how do we not have a photo of that?!

***

for those playing along: baba now also means "pocket". yes, mia has discovered the joy that is pockets. things go in! things come out! hooray!