Schnieber Stories: Lately

Here are a few fun stories and happenings over the last few months:

Mia is... well, spirited! Her little personality is certainly shining through and she's making it known that she will be keeping up with her big brother and sister, both in energy and in general communication. That kid does not stop talking. And if she says something once, she says it like 10 times. Of course, being little also means that she is constantly being man-handled. Example:

The other morning, we caught Luke standing next to her while she was eating, knocking on her head. Literally, KNOCKING on her head.

Casey: Luke, please stop knocking in your sisters head.

Luke: But there's somebody in there.
Casey: Seriously, Luke. Stop.
Luke: But I'm just trying to get him out!

As I discussed earlier, Mia is highly verbal. I don't remember Luke or Emma talking this much, this early. Example... in February (Mia would have been 17 months), she looked at me and said "ear hurt" and pointed to her right ear. I took her to the doctor that morning, and sure enough, she had an ear infection in only her right ear! Seriously, that kid is amazing!

The other funny thing that Mia does is "snort" when she doesn't like what you tell her. So, for example, last night, Casey told Mia not to put her spoon in her water cup. She looks over at him, snorts (blows air out of her nose) and continues putting her spoon in her cup. I assume that is her way of telling us to buzz off - which is strange because she has enough words in her vocabulary to actually tell us that!

Emma has had a great year in 1st grade. She made an "city" project where she researched a building in Cincinnati. She chose Staples!

So, during her research, she was asking me questions about the office and the store and she was getting confused about the fact that I work for Staples but I don't work in an actual store. During one particularly stressful morning, she was asking me all kinds of questions. Between running around getting breakfast and dealing with Mia, I must have told her that Kelley Keller was the boss of Staples (Ron Sargent is actually the CEO). You can imagine my surprise in finding that she included that in her report! I gave Kelley a copy of the report - she loved it!

Okay, back to Mia (yes, I'm working off of a list so I remember to include everything). Like I said earlier, Mia is highly verbal (read: loud). Every day, when I bring her home from either Karla's or Cindy's, she starts screaming "DADDY HOME! DADDY HOME!" Its so cute and endearing!

The other crazy thing she has been doing lately is shouting "mine" for anything around her. Example - if Emma or Luke hugs Casey or shows him any attention, she comes tearing over and starts shouting "My Daddy! My Daddy!" and then frantically tries to climb up his leg. We obviously need to work on sharing.

We also need to work on calming her down when she doesn't get her way. She's quick to throw a fit. Cindy told her last week that she threw herself down on the floor when she couldn't go home with one of the other Mommy's (perhaps I should be concerned that she's willing to home with anyone - hmmm). Anyway, the funny part of her "fit" is that its in slow motion. While crying, she slowly lowers herself to the ground in a sitting position. Again, while still crying, she then slooooowly lays down on the ground, carefully checking behind her to make sure she doesn't hit her head. Its really hilarious if you're able to ignore the crying.

Also, she's very proud of any small accomplishment that she has. Whenever she does something, especially if she knows that we won't like it, she shouts " I DID IT!" which really sounds like "I deeeeed it!" Yesterday, she got into the pantry, even though we asked her to close the doors. She emerges with a box of cereal shouting "I DEEEED IT! I DEEED IT!"

Last Mia story... she is constantly shouting "huh?" or "what?" all of the time - even if we're not talking to her. We were driving home from Karla's last month and I was on the phone with my mom. Mia spent the entire time in the back seat shouting "huh?" or "what?" - for like 20 minutes! I kept telling her I was on the phone with Mamaw. She obviously didn't understand.

Since February, I've been training for the Flying Pig 10K. I've really enjoyed sticking to a training plan and am so proud of the progress I've made (especially since I'm a sprinter and long distance never really made any sense to me). Nevertheless, I ran in two races this spring. In April, I ran in the first ever Fort Fun Run (5K) and balllon launch and in May, the Pig 10K. I placed 3rd overall for the females in Fort's Race. In the Pig, I placed 172 out of 2200 women (top 10%!). Interestingly enough, my Nike app tracked my distance in the 10K as 6.6 miles vereses 6.1. Next year, I plan on starting closer to the start line to avoid having to run in and out of people. Here are pics from the two races:

Kelly Enright

Kristen and me after the race

It was too cold for the kids to come out so I sent a balloon up to Fort from all 5 of us! xoxo

Emma and I share notes between each other in our "Mommy and Me" journal. She left this under my pillow the night before the race!

This year, Rugby Alumni weekend was held in April since OU converted to semesters this school year (boo!). It was cooold! Regardless, we had a great time, sitting in the same booth, telling the same stories!