Christmas present is past...

The time between Mia's second birthday and her third Christmas flew by so rapidly and with such busy-ness, I almost let December pass undocumented. A quick run down of the events since my last post is in order:

November 20: Mia turned two. She will proudly tell you herself all about her age.

This photo is a jump-ahead, but I thought it would be a good way to introduce the birthday series. Icing, anyone?

Three of the four "babies" who invaded my mother-in-law's house for the birthday celebration are in this photo: from rear to front we've got baby Reagan (my eldest niece's youngest child. For reasons of which no one is quite certain, her site has a photo of her big sister on it), Kennedy (my cousin/oldest friend's eldest daughter. The link is to her baby sister's site, in which she is featured prominantly) and the birthday girl.

Here's Mia staring down the candles on her cake; she knows that blowing them all out is 50% mental.

Mia can eat cake like no one else! Note the determination in her eyes.

Eating cake at that sustained velocity quickly exhausted Mia. There were fragments of cake everywhere! It was like someone used a chainsaw to slice the cake. Amazing!

Since I bravely handled cake duty, it was mommy's turn to supervise The Opening of the Presents. Newly wiped clean of cake particles (mostly), Mia got into it.

Plied with sugar and drunk with present-opening glee, Mia looks a bit dazed. We are dangerously close to baby-melt-down time....

"Christmas Morn" is a wonderful time...

Demonstrating her "old soul," Mia displays the Christmas morning angst it takes most people decades to develop. Actually, she seemed to have a good time Christmas morning. I just thought that this photo was funny because the room looks empty, aside from Mia in the floor, and because of her facial expression. Did Stacy take this photo as a commentary on the relative emptiness of our collective modern American, commercial Christmas experience? Nah! Mia just hadn't awakened fully when the shot was snapped.

Now, despite the fact that our little family has two large Labradors whom we ignore and neglect, and who subsequently tear up the backyard of our new house (it looks something like what I imagine the trenches of WWI looked like back there, but we are proudly now mole-free), and disregarding the number of times--at three in the morning, above the barking and howling--that my bride has said something like "We are getting rid of those dogs in the morning!", Stacy surprised Mia and I with the above-pictured baby lab on the morning before Christmas. That makes the dog population equal the human population at our house, and this one will be as big and rowdy as the other two soon.

After getting over the lifestyle change having another baby inside our house will mean, as well as my displeasure with my wife's impetuousness, I have really taken to Abby. She rides in my lap and comes to work with me (not being potty-trained means she can't stay home alone for eight hours each day). In the week we have had her, she has become my buddy.

Mia wrestles her new puppy-friend on Christmas morning (or "Christmas Morn," as Stacy put it this year!). Abby LOVES Mia; Mia is a little nonplussed about having competition for cutest in the house.

"Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays"? Can we crap up good things any more in this country?

At the risk of offending by not using one religious tradition's lingo, our family sincerely hopes that you all had and have very happy holidays. May you and your loved ones find peace and blessings, whatever your concept of God might be, and whatever your language.

The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night,Ya-honk! he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation: The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listen closer, I find its purpose and place up there toward the November sky.

--Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855, I Celebrate Myself, Line 238

This coming weekend, Mia will officially be 2 years old. For two years she has grown and breathed and learned, each day changing my life a little more. Who could have known how amazing she would make things?!

Last year, her aunt Suzy came up with the idea of taking photos of Mia (then nearly one) in a pumpkin patch at a Methodist church near my parents' house in East Tyler. We agreed that Punkin Patch Photos (note the cute way I write "Punkin" for the less endearing "Pumpkin") would be great, and birthday party invitation history was made.

Here's a photos of her scarfing down pumkin-shaped/colored cake last year. This baby likes her cake!

Below is a photo of her in the patch last year, for comparison's sake.

This year, we decided an interesting sociological experiment would be to create a tradition of photographing Mia in that same pile of gourds each year to chronicle her growth and the hideous "pumpkin patch sprawl" that is taking over our fair city. Below are some of the best of our efforts (and by "our" I mean Suzy's, of course...)

Is this little girl growing up, or what?!

The best part is that Mia is super-good-natured. "Terrible 2" is beginning to show its head, but over all, she handles everything we throw at her with sweet grace.

I guess this means that birthday photos will be in the next post. I do have some great pictures from a weekend campout that Stacy and I went on with Sherry (a girl Stacy works with) and her husband Stacey (I was surrounded by Stacies!)--they'll show up soon enough.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MIA!

"Reasons to Survive November"

See how pensive Mia looks in the mornings!

Even in Texas, Autumn is a special time of year. The fresh smell in the air and the cooler tempatures sort of give people extra energy, and even as early as October, our thoughts begin to turn toward hot cocoa in front of a fireplace, and to the snow-frosted Christmas that inevitably arrives in our imaginations (though rarely does it really snow here).

Yesterday, Stacy, Suzy and I took Mia back to the pumpkin patch where we photographed her last year for her one-year birthday invitations. Suzy took tons of photos because Mia has already learned to ham it up for the camera, and she was really cute and cooperative. I will add sample photos soon.

Last Sunday evening, we went to Nacogdoches to have dinner with Brooks and Camille. Mia went to feed the ducks, but ate about as much bread as she fed, in typical Mia fashion! It was good to be back in Nacogdoches, even if we don't have a house there anymore. It was great to call that town home for a few years--there isn't tons to do there, but that just means you rely more on good friends to make special times.

Why waste yummy bread on ducks?

Left: Mia shows off her "Elvis" lip curl.

Mia is such a grown up! She is talking almost non-stop and sings and plays by herself a lot. She is doing well in therapy (both physical and occupational), though she still has a long way to go. Every day during the week (except for some Wednesdays), Stacy brings Mia to me at work, so Mia an dI get to eat breakfast and watch "Dora the Explorer" together before I take her to therapy or to daycare. Even though it is often rushed, that is precious time. She is a great friend, and cuddling and feeding her is a great way to get the day rolling.

Mia really looks up to her cousin, Kennedy. Kennedy is almost a year older than Mia, and she is smart and lots of fun. She will likely teach Mia how to walk, if we give her time--there's no telling what kind of trouble those two will cause, someday! Chad and I deserve whatever we got in that department....

Right: Kennedy demonstrates the art of writing to Mia.

By the way, today's post title comes from a poem by Tony Hoagland by the same name.