Why babies have pockets, 10

To keep their teeny tiny hands warm! (Leigh had to help her out.)

A snow day

Because all is right with the world, we had a snow day today. Last year, if school was closed, I was home alone in the quiet. I napped. Cleaned up. Got things done. It was amazing. Now, Mia is home, too. So is Wren. And by a stroke of good luck, Leigh was here, too. It has a been a loud, loud day. But Leigh took Mia outside to play. Wren and I stayed inside and watched.

If I was in charge of playing outside, it would have been short-lived because the ground was really covered mostly ice with a little snow on top. But Leigh was running the show, so the four-wheeler and sled were involved. And then Leigh had a brilliant idea.

He took Skye outside on a leash. Mia sat on the blue plastic sled and held on to one end, shouting "Hee-yah!" as Skye dragged her around the yard. I would have taken a picture, but I was too busy trying not to wet my pants from laughing.

The Valentine's castle box

Mia's teacher sent home a little note last week about the class Valentine's Day party. Students were tasked with creating their own Valentine's mailboxes. But Mia's teacher didn't want them to just decorate a box. They were supposed to "think like engineers" - come up with a design first and then figure out how to make it. This is Mia's design: 

She decided to make a castle using three boxes, Christmas wrapping paper, duct tape, stickers and markers. She said her box was tied with a classmate's for the biggest mailbox in the room. I'm just glad she was able to carry it into school unassisted.

Our neighbor Matthew

I couldn't wait for Matthew to come home from the hospital.

The week our second daughter was born, our neighbor went to the hospital for a host of unusual symptoms. He was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that affected his duodenum, a part of the intestines. The prognosis was horrific: a month at best. Get hospice care. Go home. Wait.

Nothing could be done.

But Matt wouldn't accept that. The diagnosis? Fine. Hospice? No. He was transferred from an Indian hospital back to an excellent hospital in Oklahoma City. His second doctor proposed a treatment plan that included surgery, which was successful. As soon as Matt could keep down liquids, he could come home.

His home is right next to ours.

Matt has been living in his house longer than I've been here. A few months after I moved in, he spotted me outside one day. He asked if I worked at the newspaper. He worked there, too, but over in the press room. Usually we missed each other because I worked the first shift, and he worked the second shift.

Both of us were single when I arrived, but we both have since married. His wife, Pam, is a delight. They dote on Mia, and Mia absolutely adores them. If we pull out of the driveway when they're outside, we must - without exception - roll down the back window so she can shout. "Bye, Mr. Maffew! Bye, Miss Payum!"

They always give her little gifts they pick up here and there. Once they even brought back a hula skirt from one of their many trips to Hawaii. The gifts aren't even the great part; it just touches me so much that they think of her and of us when they're out and about. They let us put a bounce house in his yard for Mia's birthday party. The last one was a giant, pink castle. He just laughed. It was huge. Kids were rolling around all over the place in his yard.

Matt and Pam have been so sweet to Mia ever since she was born, and they have dubbed her Princess. So when we brought Wren home from the hospital, I was disappointed that Matthew was still in a different hospital himself. Even though he hadn't met her, Pam said he had already decided she would be called Little Princess.

Matt had surgery, and we debated whether to go visit him in the hospital. Wren had been sick and had a hospital stay of her own. Mia came down with the flu. We didn't want to visit a hospital and either make him sick while his was in poor shape, and we always didn't want the girls to catch something from other patients.

So we have been waiting for him to reach that all-important milestone of keeping down fluids.

That didn't happen.

Matt would have been 56 next month.

Death rarely seems fair. It is especially unfair now. I just read a story this morning about how two-thirds of cancer cases are probably caused by nothing more than bad luck. I thought of Matthew. A few hours later, he died, most likely of bad luck.

It feels unfair for someone who was such a survivor. Before I moved to the neighborhood, his wife died after a long illness. His mother died recently. Two years ago, he lost his job in the press room at the newspaper after 37 years.

But Matt was resilient; he cobbled things back together quickly. He secured two part-time jobs: one as a concierge at a downtown hotel and the other as an event photographer. Both were excellent fits for a talented photographer who loved talking to everybody and loved Oklahoma City.

He was a prolific runner - marathons and half-marathons left and right. He did a bunch of those timed runs, too; runners set off a block of time, usually 6 or 12 hours, and see how far they can get. He encouraged me with my running and often checked to see what I was training for next. It was so nice considering he had done a million races and I am ridiculously slow and new to running. He was proud of me, and that made me feel proud of myself.

Matt always did a long race at the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. But his real payoff was the Honolulu Marathon. He ran that race every December, and he spent the other 11 months of the year thinking about Hawaii. He ran the marathon for the last time in 2012. Last year, finances kept him home after the layoff. This year, he was sick.

Now I feel crushed that he never met Wren. I'm second-guessing our decision to wait for him to come home. I presumed things would work out. How could they not? How could someone so tough, so kind and so healthy be mortal?

Sometimes I take comfort in statistics and logic. It's my go-to place when I'm scared or nervous. Life expectancy in the United States in 79 years. Matt was supposed to have 24 more years, so cancer felt irrelevant. I was scared of how sick he was and how the sickness swept in like a storm. It never crossed my mind he wouldn't come home.

Pam came to our house tonight and told us Matt had died just a few hours before. All we could do was hug.

I'm sad to lose my neighbor and my friend. For him, I know heaven looks like Hawaii.

America!

All right. I'm pretty proud of myself. Please admire this American flag snack tray. It's cheese, strawberries and chocolates. I, too, am impressed.

We hosted a watch party for the U.S.-Ghana soccer game. Aside from a super-exciting game and array of American-themed snacks, the most notable thing was the plethora of babies. There were seven children. SEVEN! We lamented about our past parties, when BYOB meant bring your own beer. Now it means bring your own baby.

Speaking of babies, here is ours. We let her wear the traditional Coppernoll international sporting events hat: a Hog hat with the American flag draped down in the back.

 Then Mia stole Leigh's camera and snapped a few selfies.

10,000 miles

So when we first bought our car, it only had 3,000 miles on it. In my mind, I would take a picture of us at every 1,000 miles, to show where we go and how we change over time. Of course, I immediately forgot about this plan until yesterday, when the car hit 10,000 miles today on our street. 

I was by myself, which doesn't make for the most exciting photo, unless you're a Millennial. A selfie will have to do. (I think this might be my first selfie ever. It felt creepy taking it.) So hooray for 10,000 miles!

Go Greece!

Obviously, our family is a tad excited about the World Cup. Well, imagine our joy when we remembered that Mia has a Greece soccer jersey! My dad and stepmom brought her back a whole kit from their last trip to Greece. It's still a little big for her, so she's only worn it a few times here and there. But today - today! - was the perfect occasion! Things didn't turn out so well for Greece. They lost 3-0 to Colombia. But Mia has at least two more times to sport the white and blue. Opa!

Well then

A lot of change is on the horizon for Mia. She's only got another week of daycare. Then she'll spend the summer at home with me. Then she'll start a new school. And then a few months later, Socks will arrive. Long story short, she's still processing quite a bit of this. Then this happened. 

In a fit of rage, she pulled out every single toy and every single piece of clothing and threw it all on the floor. It was the worst fit of her life. Really. This photo doesn't even really do justice to the craziness. We have started cleaning a bit, but it's a slow, slow process. We are helping her, but she has to do this herself. Maybe she'll be done by the time she goes to college. Let's just hope we can all survive all the change that's ahead.

Ahhhhhhhsemayaaaabodeebesibabaaaaaa

I go to make toast; I come back to Leigh and Mia reenacting the opening of "The Lion King." It was much easier when she was a baby. 

The world's loudest sleepover

Mia and her pal Scout have been having sleepovers for quite a while. They. Love. It. So when Scout's moms went to a concert in Tulsa, it was sleepover time at our house. Here is a video of them during dinner. I thought they were screaming at random. Turns out, they were singing. Sort of.



Lovely, ladies. Lovely.

They acted crazy, played a bunch and stayed up late. I took this photo of them the next morning. So much party. So much happiness. So much passing out.

Senior Walk

This weekend, my Uncle Kelly took us for a trip around campus. I graduated from the University of Arkansas 10 years ago this May. (Um, what? How did that happen?) A lot has changed since I was there, obviously. So many lovely improvements have been made, but there were still many places that were the same. It felt nice to be on campus for the first time in a long time. Of course, we had to stop and see my name on Senior Walk. (For those of you who don't know, Senior Walk is one of the very best traditions at the U of A. The name of every graduate in the history of the school is etched into the sidewalks. No other school does it. It's really special, and something that graduates feel very proud of.) This is Mia and I sitting next to my name - Carrie Rebecca Coppernoll. My name fit in the letter limit by only two letters. Eep!

And here is Mia with my dad's name, which is on the lawn of Old Main. My dad earned his law degree five years before I earned my bachelor's. Two Coppernolls on Senior Walk! And hopefully there will be a couple Coppernoll descendants there some day with the name Jacobs.

That's enough of basketball

 

Welp. Glad that's over. Mia finished up her first season of basketball today. She never scored, and I'm still not quite sure if she ever took a shot. She did, however, have a spectacular time. She had the world's greatest coaches. The Jonses are here with the whole team. They have hearts of gold. God bless them to wrangling all these children this season. We'll see if Leigh and I can be so gracious when we take on Mia's soccer team in a couple weeks.

It's a marshmallow world

Mia has now been in dance class for four months. It's just the cutest darn thing you've ever seen. This half of the year, her class learned lots of basic dance moves and even put together a routine. They performed to "Marshmallow World" by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, who I now realize was probably drunk every single time he was on television. It was impossible to find a video of that song on YouTube where Dean Martin wasn't drunk. But whatever. Leigh and I didn't know it, but it turns out that the last class of the fall semester is the day when the children put on their performance for the parents. I was so unprepared! I would have taken the Canon and the zoom lens to shoot photos from, you know, across the room. Damn it! That's OK. We snapped some photos on our phones, and I shot a short video of a bit of the performance. It was so darn cute. My word. 

Below, Mia is to the right of the little boy in the gold jacket. She was in a make-up class, so she wasn't with her normal group of kiddos. She was feeling a bit shy.

Mia is that little face next to the girl in the back who has her arms out.

And here is Mia performing an arabesque with her teacher, Shannon Calderon Primeau, who is a super impressive woman and an incredible teacher. Mia adores her, and even though she looks totally miserable in this photo, she was quite excited when it was her turn to do a move with Ms. Shannon.

And here's a little snippet. Mia is standing to the left of Ms. Shannon. 

Skye Bojangles

This took this photo of Skye in the backyard, and it is the perfect illustration of that dog for so many reasons. The main ones:

- Whenever we let her outside, her first order of business is to relieve herself, obviously. But her second order of business every time is to take a flying leap onto her back to roll around on the ground. She covers herself in as much dirt and grass as possible and then brings it all inside. Every. Single. Time.

- Her tongue is slightly out. She's always sticking her tongue out at least a little.

- She looks suspicious of me. She is usually suspicious of you because she thinks you're keeping snacks from her.

- She looks totally submissive because she is. From the first day she met Deter, she always embraced her role as the beta dog. Most of the time, Deter didn't even really seem to care. I don't think he was socially advanced enough to know he was the alpha dog; she just reminded him all the time, as if he cared.

Teeny tiny foot

Mia is growing every day, but this morning I spotted something that made me feel like she's still so small. Her teeny tiny foot was sticking out of the blankets on our bed. She still crawls in with us if she's feeling scared or lonely. She's so big, but she really is still so small.

A tiny astronaut

Mia may become an astronaut some day. Let's hope there isn't a height minimum.

Storage

I'd just like to point out that I can't ever just have a box empty for more than 30 seconds.

I bought this to store some artwork we have, and Mia immediately confiscated it. She and Scout found a new use for it the other night: crib. In this picture, Mia is the baby while Scout is off somewhere being the mommy. I think it's safe to say that neither of them are ready to be mothers.

Sign from the Kiwi gods?

So the Thunder drafted Steven Adams, a native of New Zealand. Then we discovered this in our kitchen! WHAT!

Sweet, quacky victory!

This is the second summer that we've done the Metro Library's summer reading program. (For kids like Mia who are too young to read, you track how much time you spend reading with them.) Mia met the first goal, which was to read for 3 hours. The prize: a squeaky duck. Jackpot!

You've got a little something there

 

We went to supper with our lovely friends Lauren and Marc and tried out a new restaurant. The review? The wait was long (above) but the food was tasty (below). Um, Mia: you've got a little something right over, uh, there.