Eliza hearts Mika...kinda

Mika begging Eliza for food

Ironic:
Mika (our dog) and Eliza have a love/hate relationship.

Eliza loves to kick Mika when they're in the back seat of the car together and giggles like crazy when she sees him squirm around away from her brutal shoes.

Mika hates being stuck in the backseat with 'Liza.

Mika loves when Eliza ignores him and lets him rest quietly on the couch all day.

Eliza loves hitting Mika and thinks it's hilarious when he jumps away from her.

Mika hates this and often barks at her when she's getting ready to hit him.

Mika LOVES whenever Eliza eats because it means meal time for him too! Lots of messes to clean up. Like tonight, when Eliza dumped her soup off of her tray and onto the floor (carpet).

Eliza hates when Mika steals cookies or snacks that she's not quite done with or that she holds out to him (for some unknown reason) but still doesn't want him to eat.

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Sooooo, today Eliza was playing outside in the gorgeous spring-like weather. Mika was runnin' around too, and some of the neighbor kids liked Mika and started petting him and paying attention to him.

Eliza for some crazy, ironic reason was very upset by this and started whining and crying because she didn't want to share "her" dog with the other kids. The dog that she mostly only interacts with when she wants to abuse him.

And just so you know, we do put her on time out when she hits/kicks Mika, and we keep repeating to her that this hurts him and that it's not nice. Sometimes we'll just warn her and say, "Eliza if you hit the dog one more time, you're gonna need to go on time out." And Eliza will just wander over and sit down on time out all on her own accord and wait for us to come ask her if she's ready to be nice again.

Funny girl. Poor old dog.

(Here's Mika snuggling in some of our unfolded laundry. So clean, right? Sometimes I take random pictures of Mika, especially when he's sick because I'm afraid it'll be the last one I get of him before he dies. Isn't that sad? :( (He's like 13 yrs old and has a heart murmur and a mysterious mass in his bladder, in case you didn't already know.)

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Eliza liked wrestling with you last weekend!
Love,
Steve (& Eliza & Amy)

Crazy Uncle Davey's Wild Car Ride

Since Steve has been too busy to blog about his weekend adventures, I'll give you all a teaser.

Eliza LOVES this video.

LOVE LOVE LOVES it!

She keeps asking to watch it over and over again.

Apparently, she loves reliving the wonderful memories she shared with her Uncle Davey.

Davey, can we hire you to drive around in the back seat of our car to entertain Eliza ALL THE TIME? That would be neat. Thanks.

Announcing....

I've been bragging about this to my acquaintances, co-workers, and friends in real life, so I figured I might as well do it in the blogging world as well.

I am soooo proud to announce that MY MOMMA is now an official...

LICENSED Pediatric Nurse Practitioner

as of Saturday, Feb. 28th, Mom passed the licensing exam.

And we are SOOO proud of her!

(And it bodes well for her children, considering the greatest determining factor of children's educational achievements is their mother's educational attainment!)

Yay for Mom!

For those of you who don't know already, Mom is now working full-time ("normal hours" for one of the first times in her life) at the children's Hemophilia clinic! So cool!

Steve and Eliza Return to me

They left Friday for Washington State and returned to me this evening.

Looking like this:
My poor, sick little orphan-looking child came back to me.

I'll let Steve explain how his trip went and why he showed up with a nearly naked Eliza in the DC airport. It sounded like quite a trip.