Mylie-isms for June

June 2nd Well, we took a year hiatus while we got a new job, moved to a new state, got pregnant, took a cruise, lost the pregnancy, finished a Masters degree, and got pregnant again. But we're back and ready to rock! Keep your eyes here for new Mylie-isms and she is full of great stories lately!

Her new talents are too numerous to name, but she has recently become quite the parrot, repeating anything and EVERYTHING you say. Mommmy and Daddy are really having to monitor what they say now!

Mylie's favorite activities include dancing, singing, watching the movie "Annie", swinging, riding bikes, and loving her baby doll. She is also a fan of stickers and coloring. She knows most of her letters and what they stand for, and she is learning to count (which currently goes like this...Two-One! Two-One!). So far, she is showing no interest in using the potty, much to her parents chagrin.

Make sure you check out her photo album for updated pictures!

June 6, 2007 Every day Mylie cracks us up even more. It's been amazing to finally get inside her head after these two years, and realize the incredible stuff that's going on in there. I always knew she was smart (who doesn't think their kid is, right?) but I am truly amazed on a daily basis of what she comes up with, and can now explain to me.

One of her favorite games is to grab a bag or her Magnadoodle and head toward the garage door. She tells us "Bye!" When I ask where she's headed, she usually says, "Work," in a very matter-of-fact tone. When I say okay, then she continues with "Soon!" which in Mylie-speak is "See ya soon!" I play along and say it back to her, to which she follows up with, "Ah Luh Loo!" (or I love you). Then she promptly walks to the door to open it, which is another trick she's mastered. Luckily, her imagination doesn't extend into the garage, and she'll just look into it for awhile before shutting the door and coming home. Occasionally, we repeat these steps 3 or 4 times.

June 7, 2007 Grammie won a radio contest that got her (and subsequently, us) free tickets to the Waterfront Park at the Portland Rose Festival. So tonight we took the MAX downtown to take Mylie to see the party. Mylie LOVES the MAX, along with most other modes of transportation, thanks to her dad. She loves to wait along the tracks and say "Max coming, Max coming!" over and over.

Once at the fair, we promptly ate dinner, and Mylie convinced us to sit next to a tent where a bluegrass band was playing. She didn't eat much because she was so infatuated with the music, and as soon as we were done, she begged us to go right up front to hear them. She danced and danced as the guy playing the fiddle made funny eyes at her. When I tried to get her to leave before they were done, she refused. While I sat their listening, I thought the band sounded familiar, though they had no signs up anywhere. Finally an audience member asked who they were, to which they said "Etouffee!" Etouffee was a band that my parents had always hired to play at the Klamath River Rendevous Festivals that they held every year when I was younger. I had been dancing to them, much as Mylie was, since I was just a little older than she is! Her infatuation suddenly made sense to me.

After the music ended, we headed down to the carnival, where Mylie got to ride on the rides for the first time. She didn't know what to think at first, but by the time we were ready to leave, she was really getting into it (of course). She loved the Carousel, the River Kayak, the Car Mini-Roller Coaster, and the Giant Slide. The rest, she didn't quite meet the height requirement for. Next year, my girl, next year. See the Video!

June 8, 2007 Mylie turns two! Wow, I can't even believe it's been anywhere near two years. And seriously, though it's been said a thousand times before and will be said for eternity, I can't believe how these little people can change your life. And how much they can learn and become so quickly. So far, this is my favorite stage. I love that we can communicate, and we are truly becoming friends. Of course, she has realized that she is two, and does her best to act the part...throwing great tantrums in the most embarassing places and testing our patience whenever possible. But it seems like up until now I've been one of those parents that "can't wait" until she reaches this stage or that. Or until she can do this trick or that. For that reason, I probably haven't enjoyed the earlier stages as much as I should. And it just dawned on me recently that I won't get those earlier stages back. For some reason it always seemed that I could just make her little again, if I ever had the desire. I just realized that I can't, and she's just going to continue to become more and more of her own person who needs me less and less. However, along with this realization has come the blessing that I truly appreciate this stage. While there are still things I'm looking to share with her (can anyone say Tap Dancing? Broadway, perhaps?), I am thoroughly content to let her be who and what she is RIGHT NOW. She's just plain fun!

June 9, 2007 Even though the weather had been gorgeous all week, and there was only a small chance of rain, it nevertheless rained ALL day for the family birthday party we threw for both Mylie and her cousin Graycee, who was turning one. Being the hearty Oregonians that we are, we still packed up and went to the park we had reserved (luckily there was shelter). We had a great time hanging out with the family, and the few friends that came, including Mylie's new best friends, Landon & Brayden White. There were bubbles and presents and cake, and Mylie even talked Dad & Pappa into taking her to the swings during a small rain break. Ever since, she's been talking about her "Ahmi & Dowy Cake (Nemo & Dory)" and how she got to blow out the candles. And in wonderful Miller tradition, we had a marshmallow fight...rain or no rain!

June 10, 2007 After church today we headed over to Doug & Penny's house to meet the family to watch the OSU Beavers in the Super Regionals. They won, and are headed to Omaha next week for the playoffs. Mylie LOVES going to Aunt Penny's and this time had a great time helping Penny to water all of her flowers. Penny had bought Mylie her own special watering can, in the shape of a dolphin, and we had to physically stop Mylie from watering and remove her from the deck, or she would have water the plants into oblivion. She was VERY cute, however. And she kept telling us how she was giving the plants a "Dink". See the Video!

June 11, 2007 It's funny how toddlers like to have the same conversations over and over, like they can't really believe that people can finally understand them, and they just have to keep doing it over and over to make sure that they're not crazy. Mylie has different triggers that set off various kinds of conversations, that we typically have on a daily basis (anyone seen Groundhog Day the Movie?...that's my life these days)!

For example, when she sits down to eat lunch at her "special" table (a kids table we bought to keep her gooey hands off of our nice new dining table), she'll start having a babbling conversation, where she looks at me with her eyes raised, shakes her head from side to side, and tosses her hands around while she speaks. Eventually, she'll come around to saying "I don't know" which sounds more like "Idun ooo", while she shrugs and throws her hands up. Then, for added measure, she shakes her head while she says, "Mamma...I not poopy." "Oh really," I ask. "No, I not poopy," she confirms. For the life of me, I have no idea what sparked this daily conversation, but it continues to crack me up.

June 17, 2007 Mylie has a few carryovers from her birthday. Today was Father's Day, so when I asked her to take Daddy's present to him, she politely obliged, but then sat down in front of him and opened it herself. When she realized nothing in there was of any interest to her, she turned back to me and asked for "moh peasants" (more presents). We're working on understanding that OTHER people get presents too sometimes.

June 18, 2007 Summer break has officially begun, and so have swimming lessons! It's been almost a year since Mylie's last lessons, and she has only been in a pool once since then, so she is pretty timid about the water. This is especially odd because she gets really excited when she finds out we're going to the pool. She loves to put on her "soo" (suit), and get her "tao" (towel), but once in the water she clings on for dear life. I think the excitement mostly stems from the fact that she is completely outfitted in head to toe with "Ahmee Doowee" or Nemo & Dory paraphanelia. It makes the whole experience much more exciting.

June 22, 2007 Mylie's aunt Anneka & uncle Jake came to visit us for the first time since we've lived in Portland today. We took them to eat at Costa Vida, since it is very similar to Jake's favorite restaurant - Cafe Rio. Mylie took a little time to warm up to them, since she hasn't seen them since Christmas, but once Anneka brought out presents, Mylie realized they were okay people. And to top it off, they gave Mylie some dress up shoes, and Anneka even tried them on and danced around the living room with Mylie. From that moment on, Mylie was in love. "Ahh-kah, Ahh-kah!" was a frequent shout throughout the weekend.

June 23, 2007 The five of us drove out to the coast today. Even though we have lived here for nearly 9 months, and are only about 70 miles from the beach, we hadn't even gone there yet! Mylie was instantly entralled with the sand, and getting her to walk on the beach was a challenge, because she'd go about three steps, and then squat down to dig some more. We're looking forward to going back there for a week in July, when hopefully the weather warms a bit.

June 27, 2007 Today after swimming lessons, we came home and were playing play-dough for awhile, when Mylie got up out of her chair, walked over to me, patted me gently on the back and said, "Mamma, friend." I wasn't sure I was totally getting it, so I asked, "Am I your friend, Mylie?" This was surpising to me because friend is a word that is typically reserved for other children her age, and it seemed like a simple age descriptor. I had no idea if she knew the true meaning of "friend." But she nodded and said "Yeah, Mamma friend." I was only slightly teary when I said, "Oh thanks Mylie, you're my friend too." Then things got really funny when she would take breaks to come over and tell me again and again that I was her friend, each time patting me on my back. So I decided to ask her who else was her friend. "Is Daddy your friend?" "Noooooo," she replied in her "that's the silliest question I've ever heard" voice. "Is Grammie your friend?" "Nooooo," the answer came again. I listed Brayden, Landon, Dayna (her swim instructor), Brooke, Anneka, Cheri and even Holly the dog. Each one was met with the same "Nooooo," which, if she was a teenager would have been accompanied by an eye roll and the word "Duh". Instead, she stuck her chin out, nodded her head and just said defiantly, "Mommy!" Which I interpreted as, "Don't you get it mom? This is a special moment that we're having where I'm telling you just how much I care for you. It probably won't happen very frequently, and even less as I get older. And here you are wasting it by bringing all these other people into the picture!" So I dropped it. For right now, I'm perfectly happy being your one and only friend, kiddo.

June 29, 2007 Yesterday was Daddy & Momm's 5th Anniversary (wow!) so we took a day today to go to Skamania Lodge to celebrate. We had gone there for a night of our honeymoon but hadn't been back since. Mylie got to go spend the night with Aunt Penny, and she was sooooo excited. But first, we had to go to our last day of swimming lessons, where Mylie got to go down the BIG slide that she had been asking for all of the last two weeks. But afterward she had different ideas about the slide. Apparently, it's better from a distance!

After swimming, we also had a Make & Take It craft class we had signed up for, which included making some 4th of July crafts. This was more stressful for mom than it was fun for Mylie. Mostly, it involved Mom making the crafts, while Mylie tried to pour glue all over everything. Why these people thought that giving tacky glue to 2 & 3 year olds was a good idea, I'll never know.

Finally, after class Mommy was able to convince Mylie to get into the car only by enticing her with the promise of going to Penny's house. But we had to stop by the house first to pick up clothes and Daddy! As soon we turned on to our street, Mylie broke down and started screaming, "No home! Penny house! No home, Penny house!" She even refused to come in the house while we got ready to go. Once we did finally make it to Penny's house, we expected Mylie to get a little upset when we left, but it was all to the contrary. She gave us hugs and kisses as an afterthought and then looked at us like, "What? Aren't you guys gone yet?" Wow. That Penny has something special!