Mireya's First Trip to the Park

Yesterday, I had a dental cleaning appointment and Mireya and Lane went with him. The dentist had recommended that we start getting Mireya used to being in the dentist's office. She was scared at first, especially when the hygienist turned around with his mask and gloves. She nearly cried. Eventually, after we made a big deal about how "fun" it is and how "exciting," she really had a good time. She went up and down in the chair and she even got to pick a toy (a Care Bear coloring book.)

After we left the dentist, we stopped by Great Harvest to get some lunch. We bought a sandwich and took it to the park to eat, considering it was such a beautiful Spring day outside. While we split the sandwich, Mireya ate the complimentary piece of bread from Great Harvest. Our sandwich came with a pickle that we let Mireya try. She loved it!

Once we were done with lunch, we headed over to the swings to let Mireya have her first experience with them. She was too small for the baby swing, even with her blanket behind her, so Mommy held her while they swung. I swung next to them and took lots of pictures and videos. She had a lot of fun!

As we were leaving the park, we let Mireya roam around on the grass. It took her a bit to get used to walking on uneven ground, but she was cruising around in no time. She found a piece of bark that we took as a souvenir. The wind was picking up by this time, so we then headed home.

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Mireya Playing on the Grass

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Mireya Swinging with Mommy

Guess What Mireya Can Do!

She sauntered into the bathroom right as I was finishing cleaning the toilet. She watched me wipe off the handle and as soon as I turned my back, I heard the toilet flush. I turned around and she was staring at the toilet with her hand on the handle. She then flushed it again and giggled. She flushed it over and over and over! Man! I am so glad that we installed toilet lid locks a couple weeks ago. Otherwise we could say goodbye to anything that she can carry. She already throws all our stuff in the garbage. She's a cute little stinker! Check out the video of her flushing the toilet right after she learned how.

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Mookie's Sick :(

Poor Mireya has been running a fever since Monday evening. We were watching it closely, but it wasn't improving and she has been clearly miserable. We took her in to see the pediatrician yesterday and it turns out she has another ear infection. They gave her an antibiotic, so she should start feeling better in a day or two. She has always had different symptoms with ear infections, so we didn't pick up on this as quickly as usual. Normally she'll tug at her ears, not fever, and usually the infection is preceded by a lot of congestion. This time, she hardly bothered her ears at all, ran a high fever and she hasn't had much congestion at all.

She hasn't wanted to eat or drink anything and that's been the worst part. Just knowing that she is already really skinny and I don't want her to get dehydrated, but you can't make a toddler eat. She's down to 17 pounds 12 ounces. I've been bribing her with big girl cups and straws instead of sippy cups and that seems to work pretty well. Her sense of balance has been off, so I haven't been letting her walk around and that makes her frustrated. Poor baby girl. I just want her to feel better! It's really hard to look at her and see how pale she is and how clearly miserable. I wish I could be sick for her, as I'm sure all Moms do.

Scaredy Baby

Mireya is changing so much, so fast. She is growing and getting bigger, but her personality is changing too. I have noticed that in the last few months she has become quite shy and she is getting more fearful of various things. She is much more wary around strangers and she takes longer to warm up to people. That's pretty typical of her age group I'm sure. The other stuff that she's afraid of here at home is what surprises me. She is deathly afraid of the printer. If it makes any noise whatsoever she starts to panic and if it spits out a paper, she starts to cry. We've tried to show her it's fine, but it never fails to produce the tears. Sometimes something I would never expect scares her and it's so sad to see that little pouty face! She can definitely be a bit of a booby.

She has also been having several nightmares a night for the last 10 days. It's so awful. She wakes up screaming and we have to soothe her until she falls back asleep. Normally she only gets a couple of nightmares in the few nights before a tooth pops through the gums. This time, though she is teething, I don't know why she's having so many nightmares. I wish I knew the cause, so that I could at least try to prevent them. :( I am having sympathetic nightmares of my own and Jason and I are losing a lot of sleep.

We had a family birthday party yesterday and one of my nieces (who is actually older than me) has a 4 year old boy, Alex. After Mireya warmed up and we had all eaten, she was toddling around and she and Alex noticed each other. They were so cute! Alex chased Mireya around while she giggled and  squealed and he kept saying the funniest things! "Look! She's leaving!" "What a cute baby!" "She's walking, look!" "She hasn't gotten any bigger." They had so much fun. That was the first time Mireya has really gotten to play with another child. Poor girl is stuck at home with boring "old" people.

Toddler Trouble

Hey! What's this?



A few days later... Toilet Paper!



 

Mireya is also very helpful when you need your fridge cleaned out... toddler style of course...



I thought I spent a lot of time cleaning up after Mireya before she learned to walk. Oy! The other problem is that she not only pulls everything out of every shelf, off of every counter, etc, she then carries it all around the house. I am starting to lose things. Half the time all I have to do is check in her toy box and voila! Clothes, books, Dad's missing slipper, Mom's missing phone, and everything else I've been looking for for two days. Good thing she's the cutest, sweetest baby ever!

 

 

12 Month Wellness Visit

Mireya had her 12 month wellness visit today. She did not want to be there or cooperate. The minute we started undressing her down to her diaper, she knew what we were planning. She freaked out when they listened to her heart rate, when they weighed her and again when they checked her height. She is such a little drama queen! She had the tears flowing, the red face, crying as loudly as she could, the whole bit. Good grief! That was all just with the nurse too. The doctor hadn't even come in yet!

After the doctor did come in, he asked about her mental and physical development and she is meeting or exceeding everything. She always does, because she's a smarty pants and incredibly strong. He checked her ears and they look great. Then he wanted to look at her teeth. She has 5 all the way in and another 3 that have just broken through the gums. Mireya of course started crying again and it looked like she tried to bite the doctor. Not surprising, just ask Jason...  The doctor said that she is really tall and skinny. Her head is growing fine, her height is great, but she is definitely on the skinny side. It's normal for weight gain to slow somewhat when the child is walking everywhere. With Mireya however, when we were looking at her growth plotted on a graph, the doctor said that she is supposed to follow a certain curve and at this age if she drops below one line, that's ok, but two is concerning. Mireya is just barely above the second line. I wasn't too surprised that she wasn't as big as she is supposed to be. She eats pretty well, but not as much as I would like her too.

These are her stats:

• Weight: 18 pounds, 6th percentile


• Height: 29 1/2 inches, 60th percentile


• Head Circumference: 17 1/2 inches, 29th percentile

Mireya had an anemia test done, where they pricked her little finger. She HATED that. It was completely normal. She also got three shots, her 12 month immunizations. The doctor warned us that these particular immunizations were ones that she hasn't had before and that will probably make her run a fever. One of them is Varicella or chickenpox. Apparently our pediatrician has seen 10 kids recently who have had chickenpox, 7 of which were not vaccinated. Those that had been (3) only had a few spots. The others were quite ill. Even though that one European study was completely debunked and there is no scientific evidence to support all the autism claims and such, some people are still afraid to immunize their children.

Anyway, Mireya is doing well. I can tell she is feeling fatigues from the doctors visit and the immunizations, but that's about it. She isn't showing any signs of a fever yet. She usually feels crappy for a day or two after immunizations, but we'll see.

As you can see immunizations can't keep a busy girl like Mireya down or out of trouble. She's always looking back to see if Mommy's watching.





 

Mireya is a toddler!

Mireya has become a great walker! She goes everywhere and rarely falls down now. She is clearly loving her newly found freedom. It's so strange to have this little tiny person walking around the house with us. It is fun, but it is creating new challenges for us as parents. She gets into EVERYTHING. Thankfully she minds me pretty well when I tell her to do something. If she is feeling particularly spunky, then I really have to be on my toes. She tries to open every cupboard and drawer. She pulls anything she can reach off of tables and shelves. She even chases the cats around now. I'm just grateful that she doesn't try to eat the cat food.** I have caught her chewing on furniture though. I know the following photos are blurry, but I can't get Mireya to stop for a photo so...



She is trying to climb things now too. We have a baby gate in the doorway to her nursery, so we can put her in there to play without worrying about her disappearing. I have caught her trying to climb out several times in the last couple of days. She has even been trying to climb out of her playpen in the front room. She tries to climb up on the couch and into bookcases. If she figures it out we are in big trouble.

Mireya still loves music and dancing. We listen to music off and on pretty much everyday. As soon as she hears a beat, she starts to bob up and down. She even dances as she walking around. It is so cute! I wonder if she will always enjoy dancing. If she does, then I hope she gets more grace than I ever had.

She still loves to watch her DVD's. She specifically asks for them every morning. I only let her watch a couple, because I don't want her glued to the screen all day. She has learned quite a bit from them already. She has learned new sign language signs and how to stomp her feet to the song, "If You're Happy and You Know It." She also watched a puppet eat out of a bowl with his mouth and she mimicked that for while, which wasn't so great.

One of the new things she's doing that Jason and I think is so precious is when she gets sleepy and she's ready for a nap, she will find a blanket and sometimes a doll or pacifier and lay down on the floor with them. It's so sweet! Sometimes she'll even get her nap time things and come over to me and want to get in my lap with them. *Big Smile*



I can't wait to start taking her outside when the weather warms up. She's old enough to go to the park to run around and swing. Jason and I even have plans to go to the Aquatic Center here in Cedar and take her swimming. She LOVES her baths, so I think she will really like the pool. (She actually goes into her bathtub several times a day and points at it trying to convince me to put her in again.) This is going to be the best spring and summer. I can hardly wait!



 

** I spoke to soon. While I've been writing this post, Jason's been watching Mireya. He decided to get our dinner started before feeding her, and apparently she didn't want to wait. He caught her with her hand in the cat's water dish. He yelled, I ran out and he started to tell me what had happened. I just wanted to know what she was eating, so I stuck my finger in her mouth and it was full of cat food! Yuck!!! She must have liked it, because she cried when I took it out of her mouth. Ugh. Gross.