I filled the Olympics-shaped void in my heart with Stranger Things last week. I highly recommend it. The first couple of episodes were super stressful to me, but I still loved it, and I think the ending was fantastic. And now I'm obsessed (and I don't use that word lightly) with Gaten Matarazzo, the kid that played Dustin. If you hear that I've been arrested and thrown into prison, you can 100% trust that it's because I tried to kidnap Gaten. I just can't help it. He is the funniest, most adorable non-Millie kid I've ever seen. He gives me hope for the future of our world. But the main thing you need to know is that he sang Bring Him Home from Les Mis (and P.S.- he used to BE in Les Mis on Broadway!!!) at a karaoke birthday party and it is the greatest video on the internet. So go watch it.
In less creepy news, Millie is as sassy and hilarious as ever.
She has buckets of opinions and personality and she keeps us in stitches most of the time. A few times recently, when I've gone into her room in the morning to wake/get her up, she jumps up in her crib and yells "I AWAKE!!!!!" as soon as I enter the room. And she has that same happy enthusiasm for pretty much all of life.
Well, except for the things that she doesn't like or doesn't want to do, including but not limited to: being offered a sippy cup that offends her. Being offered a different cup that is also terrible. Not being offered any more cups. Being thirsty, but not finding any acceptable drinking vessels in the whole world. Going outside (because of bees). Not going outside (want outside!!). Wanting milk, but only from Mommy's Yeti, which IS NEVER AN OPTION BUT IT IS THE ONLY THING IN THE WORLD THAT MIGHT MAKE HER HAPPY. And um...some more things. You know. It's tough being two.
If we can navigate those tricky scenarios properly, though, she really is just the happiest kid. And right now she LOVES her babies. She is quite a little mama, and it makes me so happy to see her model what I can only assume are the amazing parental models she sees at home. ;) Although I don't feel like Matt and I run over Millie with huge dump trucks quite as often as she seems to with her babies, but I'm sure she'll grow out of that some day.
I've been busy hitting up all of the local "fall" (hahaha lol Georgia) consignment sales lately, and I got this building set thing because it seemed STEM-y and smart and what-not. It was super fun and all but maybe I'm not quite ready for toys like this because a) I almost had a heart attack at all of the PIECES all over the floor, and b) I couldn't actually let Millie help or touch it because the whole thing was very fragile and everything had to be just so in order for it to stay together, and her bulldozer approach to life didn't really work with that. But she was nice enough to smile for a picture inside my finished product, moments before I put the whole thing away and said "maybe we can get it out again in five years."
She's doing really well with potty training. She's wearing pull-ups most of the time during the day at school and is successful on the potty probably 75% of the time, maybe? At home she mostly wears undies and I'd also say she's maybe 75% successful. I told her that when she doesn't wear any more diapers or pull-ups and wears her undies ALL of the time (well, not at night), she will be a Big Girl and she can get her ears pierced. This is a big deal- she LOVES my earrings and is always putting things on her ears, pretending she has earrings, so I figured it would be a good incentive. So far it is, because I hear "no dipe-dipe. EARRINGS!!" and "yay undies. EARRINGS!" many times a day.
The swing set is still a big hit and also the biggest hurdle to potty-training, ha. Most of her accidents occur out there because she can't be bothered to go inside to take care of business. So I guess we need to get a porta-potty installed or something. Gotta set her up for a win so she can get those earrings, right??! (P.S. Browsing the toddler earrings on Amazon is way more fun than it should be. I'm as excited about this as she is! But I can't decide if we should get her ears done at like Claire's or at a tattoo/piercing place. Our peds office doesn't do them. I've heard good arguments for both options...any opinions or experience with that?)
We had a scary day last week- when Millie woke up on Wednesday morning, she couldn't walk. Like her right knee buckled out and she screamed in pain any time she tried to put weight on it. It was horrible. I have videos and they will make you cry. She was slithering on her belly to get around. I was scared to death because she was totally fine the day and night before, hadn't had any unusual falls or injuries- how on earth did she hurt herself badly enough to be unable to walk overnight??! We took her to the pediatrician, and he wasn't able to figure it out, so he sent us to an orthopedist. They did several knee, leg, and hip x-rays, but also couldn't find anything amiss. Through the course of the day, though, she'd gradually gotten better and was walking again- first with a severe limp, and later on with hardly a limp at all. By the next day, she wasn't even limping. It was the weirdest thing. We had a follow-up with the orthopedist two days later, and she was still completely fine. So he said it was probably toxic synovitis (scary name, not scary condition) or (my theory, which he said was also plausible) she may have slept with her leg caught in her crib slat and had a severe 'crick' in her hip or knee that took awhile to wear off. I don't know. But I sure am glad she recovered quickly, and I am so thankful for her good health in general.
And that's all the news from here. I'm looking forward to the weekend and "moving in" to our new attic that Matt recently finished building- now all the
