Planking Octopus

Getting Mira dressed and transferred into her chair in the morning is a workout. We don't need expensive gym memberships to break a sweat, as Mira gives us plenty of exercise every morning. Mira has a couple of patented moves, but her favorite is to extend all of her limbs out as rigid as a board, almost like she is planking. Arms flat and at her side, she almost looks like she is doing some sort of bizarre horizontal dive. She does it mainly when you are trying to get her dressed, transfer her from her bed, or adjust her in her chair. When trying to get her dressed in her bed, she refuses to bend at the waist, so pulling her forward basically slides her off the end of the bed. In her chair, if you unbuckle her lap belt to try and get her coat on or off, she sees it as an opportunity to go rigid, which causes her to gradually slide down to the base of her chair footrests - if she isn't at an incline and/or if you don't have the brake set on her chair, you are in deep trouble, as Mira will end up on the floor in 2 seconds.

In between her planking exercises, Mira likes to periodically squirm her arms and legs in every direction when trying to get her dressed. She will keep her arms stiff for a moment, then suddenly thrust them upward at the most inopportune time and if you aren't careful, you might get punched in mouth. The same goes with her legs - she curls them up at her waist, then will suddenly shoot them out in unison. If you aren't standing off to her side, you will inevitably get kicked (with both feet mind you) straight in the groin. It only had to happen to me once, to know where to properly stand. She also has one other rare move, where she will squirm over on her side, trying to get on her stomach - it doesn't matter where you are in the process of getting her dressed or changed, or transferred - she does not discriminate. I like to call it the 'octopus' move - twist and turn, using every limb and body part you have, to get into another position.

Mira continued playing the role of the planking octopus this morning and stayed in a decent mood until this afternoon. She was super irritable in the van when Sarah was picking up the boys at school, continuing to wail in her bed after she was home. Then she had two enormous BMs and was perfectly happy the rest of the evening. Fairly easy to tell what the issue was today.