Death from above

First of all, let me just say that I promise to post fewer pictures of us at the zoo. Sorry. This blog should be titled "Mia Goes to the Zoo."

Anyway, we took my mom to the zoo with us, because apparently this is all we do with our friends and family. We went to the lorikeet exhibit, where you buy a little bowl of nectar and the birds land on you to eat it. Long story short, I screamed as usual. My mom: not at all.



In this picture, my mom is explaining to me why it's totally ridiculous to be afraid of the birds.


I finally agree to stop being a wimp. I open my little nectar bowl and who lands on me? This poor little guy. Where are all his feathers? My mom says he's molting. My mom, however, is a liar. We ask the zookeeper, and he said it's because this little guy isn't liked. Basically, other birds beat him up. Notice in this photo that while I'm feeling sorry for this poor bird, another bird flies in to attack him!


The attack continues! I'm petrified!


The beat up bird eventually gives up and flies away, so I'm stuck with the bully bird, who I'm pretty sure gave me the you're next look.



We left the lorikeets before someone died and went on to enjoy other parts of the zoo.

It was a long day for Mia. And grandma.

Car seat safety first

Leigh's mom got Mia this hilarious little doll car seat, and Mia absolutely loves it. Mostly, she enjoys buckling and unbuckling the strap. This supersafe car seat might actually be dangerous for her doll. Yikes.

Salisbury steak

I walked in to pick up Mia from daycare, and this is the conversation that happened.

Me: "Oh my goodness, Mia! What is all over your shirt? How on earth did you get so messy?"

Her teacher: "Well, today was salisbury steak day. It was also the day when Mia discovered that she can flip her bib behind her like a cape."

Just dance

Sometimes you've just gotta dance.

The countdown

Confession time: I'm running the Memorial half marathon. Holy smokes. There's a little countdown clock that I added to the blog there on the left. It's like a countdown to doomsday. Here's a column I wrote about it.

The sun hadn't risen and the sky was a cool gray. I shivered. Downtown Oklahoma City is even more beautiful before sunrise.

Hundreds of runners gathered in the faint light Sunday morning in front of the Oklahoma City National Memorial.

I felt pretty short and pretty out of shape, but I decided I'd go ahead and pretend like I knew what I was doing. No one except for my friend next to me knew this was my first time out with the Landrunners Oklahoma City Running Club.

I've been training for the past few months, and my goal is to run the half marathon May 1 during the 11th annual Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon.

After the birth of my daughter in 2009 and knee surgery in 2010, I hope for 2011 to be the year of the comeback.

I trained alone for several weeks, and then I felt brave enough to run with a pair of runner friends a few times. Sunday was my first time on a training run with the
Landrunners.

The group runs each Sunday morning. Most are training for the marathon; some are running the half.

My goal was to stay within sight of the pack, though that only lasted a few miles. I walked and jogged. I took a wrong turn. I huffed and puffed.

I decided to add an extra block to make up for getting lost, so I was alone for the last mile and a half.

The wind was still and the streets were nearly empty. The birch trees filtered the morning sunlight. The only things that seemed to move were my feet and my mind.

I thought about how afraid I was to tell anyone that I wanted to run a half marathon. I thought others — especially real runners, real athletes — would scoff at my goal.

Alone on Robinson Avenue, I realized I was the one who thought it was impossible.

Others didn't.

Runners who passed me on the route gave me smiles or thumbs up. Volunteers waved me on. My friend finished long before I did, but she waited dutifully for me to complete the 6.5-mile run.

Runners encourage one another because everyone has the same goal: to finish. The only person who thought my goal was out of reach was me.

Then I started crying.

Turns out, crying while running is even harder than just regular running.

So I shut up and saved it for the finish line. Then I cried some more, which probably made my friend feel pretty awkward. But that's what she gets for having such an emotional running buddy.

Sunday marked 11 weeks until the Memorial Marathon. I have lots of days and lots of miles ahead. I'm ready to run now that I've dumped my biggest naysayer: myself.

20 1/2 pounds

This weekend we went with our pal to the zoo, but we decided to make one more trip out there. (It's free to go if you have a membership, and we're all about doing free stuff.) Mia slept most of the way there and then started to stir as we pulled into the parking lot. Leigh and I were chatting when all of a sudden BLEHGHHHEHGHH!

Oh yeah. She puked. Everywhere. The volume was almost inconceivable.

We took the first spot we could find and tried to pull off her clothes without spreading the muck even more. It was horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible. People always say, "It's not so bad when it's your own kid!" While that might be true on some occasions, this was not one of those occasions.

Long story short, Mia ended up standing in the parking lot in nothing but a diaper and socks for a few minutes while we tried to bag up everything that could be washed. We dug up old clothes of hers from the back, and of course they were all too small. But a clean pair of high-waters is better than a pukey pair of fitted pants.

We scraped everything out as best we could, but we had no other option but to plop her back down in her gross car seat. There was no way I was not buckling her up to drive all the way home. She kind of whimper-cried the whole way, and I rode in the back with her.

Leigh took her inside for a bath while I pulled out the entire car seat, which was soaked through to the base. The sheer physics of the puke's reach were amazing.

After trying to rinse it out, I went inside to talk to Leigh. There was no way to clean the straps, and Mia was getting really close to the threshold where she could ride in her big girl car seat. She's not quite 22 pounds, but surely she was close enough for the seat to be safe, right? There was no way we could afford a whole new car seat for a two-pound duration.

We reluctantly agreed to install the big car seat. As I was strapping it in, I was delighted to find out that the threshold is actually 20 pounds! And Mia is 20 1/2 pounds! Mia was quite excited about this development. Here's a picture of her first ride as a big girl:

Seriously, though. She better not puke on this car seat. This is the last one she gets.

She'll grow on you

When Mia first met Kelli Dupuy, she was a little suspicious. (Refer to this photo of their first meeting.) But then again, it's easy to understand why. (Refer to this moment on our trip to the Oklahoma Noodling Festival.) She loves giant catfish, rattlesnakes and men who wear cut-off jean shorts and cowboy boots. But Mia has completely come around to our fabulous pal.

To help further their relationship, Kelli bribed Mia was an awesome personalized place mat:

Air Baby

Tonight our super awesome friends, Kimball and Susanne, hosted a party in honor of the NBA Dunk Contest. Even though our hometown favorite, Serge Ibaka, was robbed, we still celebrated our beloved Air Congo. Leigh and I were in charge of dessert, so we brought an Air Congo cake. The woman at Sam's Club was a little confused when I spelled it out: "First word A-I-R. Second word C-O-N-G-O." I explained that it was Serge Ibaka's nickname. I'm pretty sure that confused her more.

In honor of Serge's amazing dunk from the free throw line, Mia celebrated with an amazing feat herself:

Up your nose with a rubber hose

Apparently Mia has decided that she doesn't want us to use the bulb to clear out her nose any more. She'll do it, thank you very much.

Reading before bed

Sometimes the tension of "The Chronicles of Narnia" is too much to handle!

Daddy dancing skillz

This is where Mia has learned to dance. So much is explained.

Why babies have pockets, 8

To carry around their frog finger puppet so they can help start the dishwasher. Duh.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Mia's class had a Valentine's Party at school today, so I thought I'd use my lunch break to swing by and see exactly how 1-year-olds have a party.

Cheetos, mini-cupcakes and festive bibs. You have yourself a party.

The fuzz

Sometimes you just have to wear a fuzzy hat. Thanks, Grandma.

When devil otters strike

So today we went to our favorite place ... the zoo. We especially enjoyed the otters.

Mia and Leigh wait for the otters.

Here they come!

Otters are so cute!

Look at how they frolic and swim! Adorable!


DEVIL OTTER!


Look, bears!

Not impressed. We just saw a devil otter. This is nothing.


We are briefly surrounded by a flock of peacocks, who were apparently in cahoots with the devil otter.

Justin was so frightened, he laid an egg.

We decide to go home. Mia pushes her own stroller.

Love on the Plaza

Tonight we took Mia out to one of our favorite events, Live on the Plaza. (In honor of Valentine's Day, it was Love on the Plaza this month.) We met up with Leigh's college friend and groomslady, Tammy, and her partner, Suzanne. Tammy hadn't seen Mia since she was really little, and it was Suzanne's first time to meet her. It was so much fun! Mia gave Tammy the sideways glance for quite a while, but she thought Suzanne was fantastic right away. Leigh thought this was very appropriate.

We walked around all night and visited all the shops. We had the best time. Plus, The Spy radio station had a photo booth. How could we resist? We couldn't.

The red pen of a dictator

Mia loves pens, and she loves telling people what to do. Why not combine those forces? Well, she has. She uses her red pen to give Leigh and I the business.