It’s fall here so I swept some leaves up yesterday. Mirabelle saw her broom and started sweeping away today. I love this picture because she looks just like an adult here, just a lot smaller. Of course if Mirabelle could read this she’d be correcting me right now, “No, I’m big Momma; a little bit big.”
As someone born and raised in California, I deal with 6 months of winter pretty well. I like the snow, I am fairly hearty in the cold. The clear, crisp, cold winter days raise my spirits as much as a nice sunny summer day. Still, I have my moments. A couple of weeks ago I was having nightmares that the first snow would happen any day. The changing of seasons from summer to fall was in the air. I couldn’t believe summer was ending.
Now that fall has clearly set in (ignore today’s hurricane influenced weather), I actually caught myself day dreaming about the winter. I am now looking forward to cooler weather, a bit of snow, coming home to a warm house (it’s been a bit chilly inside since it’s too early to turn on the heat yet). It is funny how the mind works. One minute I am dreading winter and wondering why I live out here, the next I am looking forward to the change of seasons. Actually I think it has more to do with my thesis than the weather. I know that by the time winter really sets in the thesis should be done. Let’s hope that really happens.
An update on the toddler bed. We are also glad to report that Mirabelle now prefers her own bed to ours. She still wakes up at least once a night, but if she is having trouble sleeping we now threaten her with bringing her into our bed. I realize that wouldn’t work for many people, but it does for her so far.
We’ve done a lot since the last entry. We went to a wedding in California and Govind’s sister’s family came to Ithaca. There was a lot of people to visit and places to go. Needless to say we’ve had a great two weeks. Now back to business at home.
Mirabelle’s new academic year starts on Monday. Cornell has already started it’s fall semester.
Mirabelle has switched to a toddler bed. It was her idea and it was a good one. We have been putting her to sleep in a crib and then moving her to our bed in the middle of the night. We had tried to make her sleep in the crib all night months ago with no luck. However, she really likes her new bed and it is WAY easier to comfort her without getting her out of the bed now. So, we decided that we wanted our bed back! We got her a new pillow for her bed and have been really talking up sleeping in her bed all night. And she slept in her bed all night last night! Sure she woke up a lot, especially after 5:30 am, but I could easily put her back to sleep with a pat on the back. I bet she’ll be sleeping like a pro in a few nights. We’re really happy for her.
Also, did you notice her hair in the last picture? I cut it for the first time. Sorry I didn’t mention it before. It looks nice and is a lot easier to handle. Makes her look older, but oh well, she isn’t really a baby anymore.
More pictures soon, I promise.
We had another fun, but busy weekend. We camped overnight on a friend’s property, had breakfast and said goodbye to other friends who are going to be abroad for a year, and went to a birthday party. Govind and I are tired, but Mirabelle loves hanging out with lots of friends.
We went to Maine to go to my high school best friend’s wedding. The wedding was a blast. Our pictures didn’t turn out that great, but I bet they had some beautiful ones. Here is one of the new couple and their dog. I think it’s cute! Congratulations Beck and Stuart!
We have more pictures of the wedding, some old high school friends and a lot of great pictures of Mirabelle in and around Portland. So check out the Flickr site. Just click on the picture and it’ll take you there.
In this picture she is showing off one of the many starfish she found at the tide pools. We took pictures of the animals, but unlike California, many people were collecting the animals in their sand buckets and showing them off to everyone. I think I saw at least 10 people with 20-50 starfish in their buckets! That’s a lot confused starfish. I feel sorry for these tide pools. Their inhabitants must have a hard life.
This is not intended to be a political blog, but I can’t help it:
For some reason, we had some problems posting to the blog in the past few weeks. That problem is now resolved. We’ll try to post more.
Mirabelle is now a Teddy Bear at the IACC Day Care. It has been a hard couple of weeks adjusting. She spent a week in limbo after her old day care provider, Gia had her lovely daughter, Alma. And she had to adjust to not seeing, Iago, who is almost like a brother after seeing him 5 days a week for 17 months.
But, judging from her ability to go to bed at night and willingness to go to daycare in the morning, I think we can say that she has made new friends in her class of 10 kids and 3 teachers. She is also getting use to having a bit stricter schedule than at her in-home daycare. I think we are smooth sailing from here on. She likes the “new place” and we think they have lots of fun activities for her.
We loved Gia, she was her second mom, much to Govind’s dismay, but we are also very happy to have her in a place with more children to play with and a set calendar for us (no more trying to get daycare over long vacations or worrying about Gia getting sick). Now that this transition is over I feel like summer can really begin.
Mirabelle had an exciting birthday. She went to her new day care for the first time, she opened lots of presents and got to play with a few neighborhood kids after she got home. Thanks everyone for the gifts. Mirabelle is having a great time with her toys and I am scratching my head to figure out a place to put everything!
Mirabelle loves to take our camera and take pictures. However, we rarely get one that we can keep. She still doesn’t understand how to point the camera. She did manage to take this nice self-portrait though.
Sushi is one of Mirabelle’s favorite foods. I make it for her once a week. She eats it without soy sauce or wasabi so I think it is a bit bland, but she can’t get enough of it.
What a great wedding. My college roommate Jennifer (in the dress) married Sarah. It was beautiful weather, a nice ceremony, and great wedding cake with ice cream. We really like Sarah and are ever indebted to her for taking great 3 month pictures of Mirabelle.
It was also nice to see some friends from college and spend some time in San Diego
It’s amazing what you find in upstate New York on your way to the airport.
We went to the vet school open house today. Mirabelle has been afraid of many animals lately. She hates spiders and insects and large animals. She tolerates snakes although she currently doesn’t want to touch one (she did a few months ago). And she seems to love birds. She really liked the raptor room and tried to pet the peregrine falcon even when it was flapping around.
I can’t remember if I wrote about them when they left, but there was a family that came to Ithaca the same year we did. The mother is Chelsea, who is a great photographer as you can see on her normal blog, which was inspired by us! However, now she has moved back home to Tasmania and is starting a photography business. To kick it off she has put up a new photography website which is awesome. You can even go through her music playlist and pick your favorite song. Mine is Time After Time. It is great to see all of her best photos. It makes us wish we’d hired her before she left.
