Miriam+Mac=Mayhem and some Marvelous Masterpieces

First off, Mac is potty training. We started on 1/17/11, and it has been a little rough. We finally decided to hard line her, and just refused to put a diaper on her. And then I may have refused to feed her breakfast until she put on some underwear. After lots of crying (an hour?) about not wanting to be a big girl, she, ahem, 'put her big girl pants on' and ate some breakfast. Repeat at naptime and every day since, although the time spent whining about wanting to remain a baby has decreased every day.

That said, she's doing well. Really well. Better by far than I thought. She's only had a couple accidents. My biggest complaint? She literally tells me she needs to go potty every 5 minutes. I think that first day she went 15 times by the time she took a nap. That too, is getting a little better here four days later. My next biggest complaint? She won't do anything but urinate in the toilet. I guess one step at a time.

With Miriam, it's always something. She's either getting into stuff, or I have some other installment in the saga that is her life. On 1/18/11, we took a little trip to the doctor with suspected pinkeye. I knew a day or two before that, but we're trying not to pay out our entire deductible in the first month, so we waited to be sure. Well, not only does she have pinkeye in both eyes, but an ear infection. That would explain some of the whining for sure.



The doctor prescribed eye 'gel' instead of drops because he thought that would work out better. I think any way you look at it, they just scream until it's done. She has perpetually shiny eyes now, as it kind of melts and goes everywhere. And her little eye is still bruised, so she just looks great.



And then there's the getting into stuff that has increased exponentially since she's been moving a lot more. I came in to the kitchen to see this-- Miriam 1/20/11:



She managed to scrounge some Cheerios out of the virtually empty box and poured them on the floor. And then ate them. I think it's been a few days since I mopped...



and then I get this: she's coming for the camera, and look at that (blurry) face of deviousness!



Later that same day, I found her in the hall by the bathroom with an entire roll of toilet paper that had found it's way out of the bathroom. I interceded before things really got rolling.

If Mac doesn't close the bathroom door, she crawls in there and pulls all the toilet paper off the roll.


And little Leiden: still loves to draw, color, and otherwise exercise her artistic abilities. Birthday cake:



a swan:



They keep me on my toes, if nothing else.