Goooooaaaaal!

What is that? Oh, it's a Mia Hamm jersey! Finally! She's retired, so it's hard to find her jersey any more. But we came across one at the closeout sale at Leigh's' soccer facility. So now our Mia can be like the Mia who's the greatest goal scorer of all time. Now we just have to wait, like, 10 years for her to grow into this shirt.

Sad face

Mia is recovering well from her RSV, but she still a bit of a cough. That means more breathing treatments until it goes away. She's so well-tempered. She usually just lets us put the mask on, and then she'll cry a little until it's over. We're so lucky that this is the biggest illness she's had. She's healthy, and she's so sweet. It's so sad, though.

Playing the face

If I ran the zoo

I stayed home with Mia for her last day out of daycare, and she felt so much better. It just so happened to be beautiful outside. We had no choice: we had to have a mama-daughter day at the zoo.

We saw a peakcock showing off his feathers for his lady friend.

We saw the gorillas up close!

But Mia's favorite part of all was the boardwalk inside the island section. The fence was just the right height for her to watch the ducks and flamingos.

The obvious solution

What do you do with a bored baby who's been cooped up in the house for days on end?

Let her unravel all the tin foil in the house and then dress her up like a space man.

Duh.

Grandma to the rescue

So because Mia has RSV, that means no daycare for the rest of the week. Yikes! What can we do? Call Grandma. My mom came to town to watch Mia so Leigh and I could work. We were excited. And Mia was pretty excited, too.

RSV

Mia has been getting sicker the past few days, so we took her to see the doctor. The bad news: she has RSV, which means medicine and breathing treatments. The good news: she's old enough now that it isn't as dangerous as it would be for very little ones.

She was a peach at the doctor's office, and even practiced her math skills and multiplication tables using an abacus. I told her not to worry about studying for the SAT while she was feeling so bad, but she insisted.

More good news: she is her same delightful, sweet self. She just wants to cuddle more. Who can complain about that?

Thanks, daddy!

"Oh, daddy! You always make me laugh!"

"I reward you with my love ... and a kick to the face!"

Long Johnette

We put Mia in her PJs before we came home from visiting Tiamo Jill, and when we got home we realized how truly fantastic teeny tiny long johns are. Seriously.

Pots and purses

Allow me to explain.

Babies laugh when they steal your phone. They know by the time you get it back, there will be drool trapped between the keys.


And after they've eaten your phone, they'll eat your purse next.

But don't worry. If push comes to shove, you can always put them in the time-out pot.

A voice from beyond

OK, I debated about whether to post this, but I decided to just go ahead and post it all without editing. What would I edit about this precious little girl being all adorable? The awful dog hacking at the very end. The more I thought about this video, the more I realize that it really summarizes parenthood. Anybody who says their days are filled with only sunshine and rainbows is a liar. There's always an upside down cupcake or a leaky diaper or a dog hacking in the background. But it's still all fabulously hilarious.

Mia and daddy

Crayons are delicious

Today was a really sad day at work, so Leigh took us our to supper at one of my favorite places. The hostess seated us and brought along crayons and a coloring page for Mia, who now considers herself a mini-adult, complete with writing utensils.

She celebrated her new-found adultness by drinking crayons out of her crayon cup:

Love is an alligator xylephone

So cute.

Top shelf

While my mom was in town, she couldn't help but get Mia an "early Valentine's present." The gift: a super fantastic storage shelf. It allows Mia to see everything she has but still gives us some way to keep things off the floor and out of the way when we need to. Of course, these practical wonders are lost on Mia, who really is interested in two things:

1. Yanking out the storage bins.

2. Knocking around her toys as loudly as possible.

As you can see, it's quite exciting:

Our attention hound

Skye is still, um, adjusting to having someone smaller and cuter than she is in the house. Mia is 15 months old, but that's OK. Bless Skye's heart. She still looks to take center stage whenever she can. Case in point: while Leigh reads the newspaper.

Big girl, big chair

Orange you glad?

Orange shirt? Check. Orange toy? Check. Orange face? You better believe it.

Ad oddities

OK, so for some reason our ads have been weird lately. Most days they just don't show up at all. Weird.

But thank you to everybody who's been clicking on them. We get between 5 and 10 cents a click, and this has translated to almost $40 for Mia's college fund! Hooray! So, some day, if the ads ever come back, please keep clicking. Thanks so, so much everybody!

Sweepy McSweeperson

Our cooking plan

We made a New Year's Resolution this year, and to give us a little accountability about our promise to eat at home more, I wrote a column about it. Then I decided I would post about it each week on my blog, Red Dirt Ruckus. So, in case you'd like to follow the misadventures of our cooking efforts, you can follow it here.

It's genetic, OK?

Mia had her 15-month appointment today with her super fantastic doctor. Things we learned:

1. She is still a wee tiny person. This is still cool.
2. Hitting is natural at her age, and our plan for combating it (so to speak) is a good one. When she gets older we can help her express her feelings with words, not tiny fists.
3. The tantrums are coming. Oh, how they're coming.
4. She's perfectly healthy, socially confident and sweet-natured.

Is it weird that I leave doctor's appointments beaming with pride?

World Cup South Africa, Take II

Ladies and gentlemen, this is proof that Americans are awesome! During the America/Slovenia game at the World cup, my battery died. Awesome. So the sweet folks we sat next to - a couple from Texas - offered to take some pictures and email them to us. And they did! I was so excited! The top is of us in our seat. Looks how close we are! Holy moly! The second is of the crowd. Beautiful! And the third is of us standing super close to where the players were leaving the field.

I was so, so, so excited! Really. Lots. That top picture is one of my favorites of the two of us.

The ascent

I'm sure this is what the Bergmans had in mind when they gave Mia her little desk.


But never fear. She does use it to color. She also happens to use it as a way to reach things she shouldn't.

Soft touches

Every day we get a sheet from Mia's teacher that says what she ate, what the class did and all info. It's always funny to read because they usually eat something (like enchiladas) that I can't imagine feeding one child, let alone six.

But today we got a note that was decidedly unfunny.

What does that say? Let's take a closer look.

What?!? Hitting? OK, so apparently this is what happened. Mia stole a toy from her little friend/nemesis, Troyce. Well, this flew directly in the face of the the No. 1 thing listed on the class activity sheet: practice sharing. So her teacher took the toy, handed it back to Troyce and explained to Mia that it's not OK to just take things from people.

So Mia decides to smack Troyce. And then she walks around the circle and smacks each of the other children one at a time.

Seriously? She's like a tiny, adorable mobster! I imagine that she said in baby babble, "You see what happens when I don't get my toy?" She probably makes them pay 10 percent of their snacks as a protection fee.

Leigh's mom gave us some really great advice about how to handle this. We're pulling her hand down and saying, "Ow. That hurts. I don't like when you hit me. We use soft touches in this family." We've been praising soft touches like crazy. She probably wonders why on earth we're clapping for her every time she touches us or the dogs without smacking anyone.

Hopefully this strategy will work. Or maybe she'll give us a cut of her snacktime take.