She's working on her street cred

Today Mia and I went and watched our friend's two little girls. They are about a year and a half younger than Mia. In the past Mia has acted like they don't exist and she isn't very careful around them. And it's so hard because they really want to play with her. But the last few times she's interacted with them she's done so much better, and today she did great. The girls were lovely and wanted to play with her the whole time and Mia played with them and was kind and patient. On the way to the car I told her that she was a very good girl and this was our conversation:
"No, I not good girl Mama."
"You weren't?"
"No"
"Okay, then you were a horribly rotten girl."
"No I not!"
"What were you then?"
"I dangerous, Mama"

Solstice

This is my favorite time of year, not because the days are so long, but because now they are going to become shorter!! Every summer I complain how all the daylight drives me crazy! That's a big reason I like Juneau, it's farther south so it's not 24 hours of sun (but it's never really dark either) and it's rainy a lot so that helps cut down on all the light.
Fairbanks drove me insane!! It would be 2:00 in the morning and the sun would be shining in my window!
But now we start losing daylight and start slipping into winter. I'm good with that :)

We have a new swimming pool in Juneau and it's in the valley! It's Olympic sized and is an "aquatic park", it has two big slides, an easy entrance pool. It has fountains and a lazy river and a bunch of other cool stuff. I have been putting off taking Mia because I knew the minute she saw what it was, well, there was no putting that genie back in the bottle. So now all I hear is "I wanna go swimming mama. Can I go swimming? Papa take me swimming mama? I go sleep and wake up and go swimming? I sleep in my swimming suit mama?" To make it even more exciting she is just barely potty trained so we are always ready to make a run for the bathrooms. I ordered a new suit from LLBean that should be here next week, then I'll get to go in the pool with her and Graham.
That's about it for exciting life in Juneau right now. I'll take it :)

Oy Vey

I got my mom an iPad so that she can Facebook with Mia Mei. She misses her so much and her health isn't good enough to travel to Alaska. So I figured I'd get her an iPad and her and Mia can see each other and talk all the time. Oh my gosh, I'm surprised I have any hair left. Have you ever tried to explain how to use an iPad over the phone? She has no idea how to swipe to get to the next page and she's amazing she can just tap on "one of those boxes" and have it do something. I e-mailed my cousin to see if her or her husband would go help her. They are glad to do it. Now I just have to get her Internet and she'll be all set to Facebook her granddaughter. She'll be the coolest grandma in the senior home!

Had Mia's 3 year check up with the doctor today. She is 39 inches tall and weighs 33 pounds. This is apparently very big for a three year old, but the doctor was very happy with her health. She did say she had big tonsils and asked if she snores. YES! She's so loud she often wakes me up. Then she asked if she sometimes stops breathing for 10-15 seconds at night. Yes again, in fact it scares me sometimes. She said it's sleep apnea and we might want to talk to someone about taking her tonsils out. Yikes, I don't know. I hate the idea of surgery. We'll think on it for awhile. Right now we are enjoying our great big giant (potty trained) Chinese baby!!

Grouchy

Or, we can say it like it really is, I'm bitchy. And I have no idea why. It's probably just the change from teaching to having summer off, which is NOTHING TO BITCH ABOUT so I don't know what my problem is.
The more I think about it the more I think I need to get out of Juneau for a little while. This is my whole world, all 28 miles of road, there is no place else to go. No driving to the next town to get Taco Bell. No driving up to the big city to watch a play. No nothing.
But I'm not a good traveler, so...Hmmmm
I'm thinking maybe a ferry trip to Sitka. I think there's a totem pole park there and probably some different restaurants (Oh, I hope they have Taco Bell, but they probably don't). I'm sure there are touristy things we could do and it would get me out of Juneau.
This might be something to look into. We have a dog/house sitter who is chomping at the bit to house sit for us again (a friends teenage daughter and she wants to make some money) and she's great, so I wouldn't have to worry about the house or dogs.
This might be a plan.
Has anyone been to Sitka??

So I want to yell it from the roof tops, stop people in the store and brag, put up a banner in front of our house:

SHE WOKE UP DRY THIS MORNING!!!!
and
WOKE UP DRY FROM NAP TIME!!!!!
AND
NO ACCIDENTS TODAY!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my gosh this is going so much easier than I could ever have hoped for. I know it's because she's older and is really ready for it. But it's really not been a fight at all. She did ask for pull ups today once, but was okay when I told her they were just for when she went to sleep. I didn't realize I had been feeling so much pressure about this. I was sooooo scared to even start. Seriously, I was terrified. I thought it was going to be a freaking battle, no, more like WWIII and I was going to end up damaging her little psyche.
I'm just so relieved.
I know there will be set backs, but I'm fine with that. I'm just so happy with her progress.
Okay, done bragging.
:)

The Heavens parted..

...and the angels sang!
Okay, I'm sure I'm going to jinx myself and I know it's only been a couple of days, but I think Mia's getting the whole potty training thing!! She has had some accidents here and there, but for the most part she's asking to use the potty. Getting a fist full of M&Ms as a reward is a good motivator. Sometimes when I think she should try and sit on the potty and she says "No", I'll go to the bathroom and say "Well, I went potty so I get M&Ms" and then eat some myself. That usually motivates her to at least try. And I get M&Ms! It's win-win!
The IRS is still fucking with us. We sent off all our receipts and invoices showing how much we paid for the adoption so that we can get the rest of our adoption credit. It will probably be months until we hear. I thought after I got her birth certificate all the government paperwork involved with the adoption would finally be done. I am now realizing it will never be finished. NEVER. She will be 35 and I'll be filing a home study or getting fingerprinted or something.
But, she's getting potty trained so, let's end on that happy note!

Ugh, I finally scummed to the pressure. I'm potty training Mia. I kept saying I don't care if she's older when she potty trains, she'll give up the pull-ups when she's ready. Well, I think the fact that she can change her own pull-up is a big clue that she's ready.
Today we said goodbye to the pull-ups and howdy to some Hello Kitty panties! We went through 6 pairs, but she went pee in the potty twice, so there was much celebrating!!
She wants to be a baby. She wants to be my baby. I told her she will always be my baby and gave her extra hugs and cuddles.
She's still wearing pull-ups at night (I'm not insane) and if this totally stresses her out then we'll go back to pull-ups and try again in a few months.
So there is my thrilling life. Oh, and I bought a really cool ice coffee cup from Starbucks this morning. I always walk by those displays and today I finally bought one. It was so exciting! Seriously, it was. I was giddy walking back to my car with an iced latte in my new Starbucks cup. I even knew how pathetic I was but that didn't dampen the excitement.
Don't you wish you were me?