Ewww Gross!

M had a loose molar.  It was hanging on by a thread before her dance class.  Once we got home, it came out while she was eating her snack.

A joke from M

I overheard M talking to her uncle on the phone the other day.  Here is her side of the conversation.

Uncle Rollie, do you know how to say ‘snail’ in French?  It’s escargot.

What to hear a joke? 

A snail goes to the car dealership and tells the salesman that he wants to buy a S-car.  The salesman asks, “why do you want an S-car?”  The snail said, “so when I drive past going very fast, people will say, look at that s-car go!” 

Get it?  Escargot.

My Beautiful Girl

In June, Miranda and her friend Natasha went on a photo shoot when Natasha's uncle was in town.

 

 

M, the Bluebird

In the dressing room before her Ballet festival performance.

Parade of Golden Bunnies

All that Miranda wanted from the Easter Bunny was a gold bunny.  Imagine how excited she was to get this many…

Painting by M

For the Mother’s Day project in Miranda’s class, there was an artist in residence, local artist Frances Alty-Arscott, guiding the children.  M said she first drew the picture in pencil, then traces over the pencil with wax crayon, then painted with water colours.  Lastly she added sugar/sand/salt (I can’t remember which one she said – it was something grainy) to add texture.

Finally seeing the world

For the past little while I noticed Miranda was squinting a lot.  I didn’t know if it was sensitivity from the light, glare, or because she read it in a book or saw it on TV and thought it was a cool thing to do. 

I scheduled an eye exam and when the optometrist put up the first row of letters, I could tell right away (from her ability to read them!) that she was going to need glasses. 

Last Friday she picked up her 2 new pairs of glasses.  My mum to her to pick them out, which I think was better than me going, because I see M every day and was too close to judge what did didn’t want to be overbearing when it came to her selection. (Pretty brave that I let Scott and myself shell out $300 without even seeing what we were paying for!)

Before I talked to Miranda, I asked my mum how it went.  She said Miranda was thrilled, and Miranda said the world looked brighter.

I was brought to tears when Miranda had exclaimed to her, “Not only can I see those trees, but now I can see where the branches separate!”

When I finally did see her, I was please with her attitude.  Afraid that she would not like the glasses or think of them as an annoyance, her attitude was just the opposite.  To her, they were a facilitator to opportunity, the opportunity to see the world clearly and more vibrantly.

In the car, she pointed across the street to the red stop-hand signal light and said, “Now it actually looks like a red hand,” then sliding her glasses down her nose, “and without all I see is a red blob.”

This week has been Spring Break, and she has been vacationing at grandparent’s houses so I haven’t seen her long enough to take a better picture.

Gotta believe in Unicorns now

Miranda loves unicorns and has read countless stories about them.  She asked me if unicorns are real and I told her no, but this "unicorn" deer seems to disagree with me.

Spring Photos

Miranda insisted that I buy her Spring photos this year.  She looks sweet, but I think they could have done a nicer job; her face looks chubby!  Nonetheless, she is always beautiful, and she loves the photos.

 

Wind in her hair

pictures from my old, old Canon Powershot S230 
outside the Kimbell Art Museum, May 2003

Memories

I have been looking at old photos and remember when Miranda was younger. I wish I had someone to reminisce with. She was (and still is) so happy and smart and shining... but preschoolers have that innocence that makes them 1,000,000x more perfect than anything else in the world. It breaks my heart that these memories live only in my mind and no one else's.

I worked downtown, her daycare was downtown, we took in a lot of the downtown festivals.

5pm April 24, 2003. We were in front of Canada Place, waiting for the bus to take us home. Miranda (age 3.5) was running around the bike rack. Me, the ever paranoid parent, was calling to her to slow down, be careful not to slip, then once she started squeezing between the bars, I was warning her to mind that she didn't get stuck.