Tubular

We just found out this morning that Mika's surgery to have tubes put in her ears is scheduled for October 5. I am dreading it, but it has to be done. If the kid wasn't allergic to penicillin, we would just deal with the ear infections as they come.

It's going to be a wild couple of weeks. We take possession of our new house this Thursday. We move this weekend. Mika requires a physical prior to her surgery and we have that booked for the morning of Oct. 2. That's the same day that we give up possession of our condo to the new owners at noon. October has yet to arrive and I am already wishing it was over with.

More youtube

Click to see Mika push the shopping cart, jump to the rhythm of a bell, then head off to find something breakable to play with at Baba's.

Jumping

Sorry the quality is so lame.

Happy 19-Month Birthday, Mika!

And Happy Birthday's to Baba and Grandma Sherman too!

Mika mayhem as of late has been putting pants on her head and calling them hats to get a laugh from Mama and Daddy, chasing the cats in order to kiss them, trying to share cookies with the cats, making her beloved stuffed kitties eat, kiss, and, of course, kiss the real cats. Shopping in the cupboard is apparently a great time too, but Mika gets frustrated about why she can't huck cans of cat food at the cats. Poor cats..chased around by a toddler exclaiming "Kitty food!" while seemingly attempting to knock them out cold with unopened cans. Scooter had a malignant growth removed from his head and is recovering well (no recurrence expected), aside from being tended to by Nurse Mika. She's quite concerned about his hat(cone) and making sure he feels loved by launching herself onto him ("night night kitty mika") and pinning the poor cat to the couch or floor.

A potty has been purchased. Not intending to start training seriously quite yet, but the one we had intended to get went on sale. Its setup in the upstairs bathroom. We've managed to get her to help pull down her pants, remove her diaper, sit down and say "pee!". Then she got up after a microsecond, pulled up her pants sans diaper, and took off running for her room. The best part was that she pulled her pants up all the way in the front, but didn't pull them up and over her butt As she ran, she mooned the world.

We went to Baba's for supper on Sunday to celebrate her birthday. Good times had by all, but especially Mika. Her cousins Alice and Jamie were there and they hadn't seen each other in over a year(!). Let me tell you, those girls played hard! The ages range from 6 years to 19 months, but the three of them got on just fine. There was the expected tug of wars and yelling as thing periodically escalated (every 30 seconds), but they still got on well and had a blast. Alice was the babysitter and was trying to simultaneously teach and control the toddlers. Very amusing to witness...right down to Alice pretending to take calls from friends, getting whatever info was important, and then letting her friend know that she would call her back to talk later as she was babysitting and it was getting out of control. The chatter, screeches, and giggles were constant and it was hard to follow exactly what was being communicated between them, but they seemed to have a handle on it. I caught that when Alice rang the bell, the Jamie and Mika were supposed to come to Alice's chair and say "Yes, babysitter?", but Jamie had to drag Mika over everytime. And neither Alice or Jamie could get Mika to say Yes or Babysitter, but she was 'excused' each time anyway for being a "small toddler".
The girls taught Mika to jump and it almost had me crying with hysterics. Mika can't quite jump yet, but not for lack of trying. She looks like frankenstein moshing. Her head bobs, arms go up and down, and she stomps for all she's worth while laughing like a maniac. I have a really poor quality camera vid that I might youtube.

Hauling everything out of my attic sucks. It's beyond amazing how much we packed into that space. Mary Poppin's bag, I tell ya.

There's a seemingly maniacal cat killer, mutilator, and potentially torturer on the loose in my soon-to-be new neighborhood. Lovely.

Sunday's Simpsons episode rocked. Bart "Tick Tock" Simpson.

I had an ultrasound today. Mika is going to have a little brother! At least it sure looked to be a boy. Was kind of hard to miss. Have to see the doc again in a couple of days for the full result. Whee.

Go Go Go

Mika's developing like mad as of late. We discovered the scary way that she can get down the stairs from the second floor to main on her own. Her gross motor skills have gone bonkers as she climbs into, out of, on to, etc. everything. Fine motor skills are also coming along well as she unscrews water bottle and other caps without a problem. I know that I should be pleased, but it kinda sucks. Especially when she dumps milk and juice into the car seat. Anyway...Door knob? No problem. Latched patio door? No problem. Open the car door? Sure! Click and unclick the latches on high chairs, car seats, etc.? Not a problem whatsoever. Mika has also entered her independent phase of having to do almost everything on her own with no help. If you attempt to help her in a task, she up and takes off a few feet away to resume her quest in peace. Dressing takes awhile now unless you get really spanky with the distraction skills. Vocab is wild. Mika easily strings together words now ("Daddy shoes on?" "Mama go upstairs. Bye Bye Mama.") and babbles even more incessantly than she did even a couple of weeks ago. We can't keep up and are not entirely sure how to translate each and every word from mikanese to english, but we get most of it. Mika still seems to favor kitties, puppies, shoes, boots, and books over most other things, but her range is slowly expanding. She likes her 'bike' (a three wheeled sit and scoot) and gets excited when she spots bikes of any kind on the road, Harley, Schwinn, or other. Another on-the-road-spot-'em fave are blue busses. Driving home during rush hour gets about 20 different "blue bus!" exclamations from the kid. At Kristeen's Discovery Toy party this afternoon, I thought Mika was going to lose her head over not being able to articulate her discovery that Vina and I had the exact same pair of shoes. Poor Mika. It was like watching a puppy bark and spin in excitement, except her bark was a string of nonsense words peppered with "2 shoes" and 'mama' and "there, over there".

Pregnancy-wise, all seems fine. I have an ultrasound and dr. appt. week after next. I'm finding it hard to believe that I'm already past the halfway point.

On other fronts, we're moving at the end of the month. Purchase-wise, its a done deal, so nothing to jinx by posting. We bought an older bungalow a little north of here. Sale-wise, its been nerve-wracking, but we have an accepted offer pending with conditions to be lifted (or not, depending how it goes) on Tuesday. If that falls through, we have a backup offer without conditions, so it's more or less safe to say its a done deal. Hellish. Buying, selling, moving are all hellish. We're soon to find out how hellish living with renos or the need of renos is. :)

Stopping to smell the flowers

Stopping to smell the flowers
Originally uploaded by scarlitwitch.

We decided to take a pause from home buying and selling hell and head to the lake for the day. Much needed break that was much enjoyed.