These are for Uncle Anthony

1: Driving the stroller


2: Wait! I hear the phone!


3: I have to take a call

4: Smile for the camera and show off that dirt lipliner!

How to teach a moose to jump

Step One: crouch down


Step two: bounce back up


And that, moose, is how you jump.

Twenty Five Months

Oh my gosh, little one, you are growing in all directions! You are taller, yes, but you are smarter too. You keep putting together new words and suprising the pants off of Daddy and me. You have also started speaking in a foreign babble-baby language that is quite fun and endearing. I join in and you think this is hysterical.

Your laughter, well, the cliche is that laughter is the best medicine, and to me your laughter is ambrosia. The other day we were driving somewhere and you said "Car!" so I said "car" - we volleyed "car" back and forth until we both started laughing. I often ask you to say words just because I love hearing your voice. We have a :moving things" game where I say words and you repeat. Car, boat, plane, truck, bike, and ROCKET! We both say ROCKET with such blast-off enthusiasm that it deserves the ill-reputed all caps in the blog.

We also play another car game where I open the mirror on my car visor and say Hi Ava! You mostly respond "Hi Mommy" but sometimes you say "Hi Julie!" I do not know where you learned my name is Julie, but this is quite funny. Daddy heard you the other day and asked, increduously, "did she just call you Julie?"

Someone told me once that by age two you should have about twenty words in your vocabulary. I think you have too many to count. My favorites though are "thank you welcome" and "more please." I also love all of your animal sounds, especially "ribbit" which anyone that is anyone knows is what a frog says.

You have found your one true beloved toy: your moose. Today you wouldn't lie down without Moose and I swear it took us both looking for 30 minutes to find him on the wall near the toilet. We walked around calling "Moose!" and you were earnest in your search for your favorite toy. Someday I knew this would happen, not the Moose adoption, but that I would spend a sizeable chunk of time looking for a toy of some sort. That's just the way parenting goes.

You love watching the Yoga Kids videos I've bought to figure out how to teach yoga to kids. "Watch yoga" are words that get you happy and excited. The first time I the video finished you looked at me and said "more please yoga." Seriously! I'm not making this stuff up!

Your video and TV favorites still are Nemo, Bear and the Big Blue House (which you just call "House" as in "watch house!!!") and Elmo from Sesame Street. You have recently adopted Monsters Inc among your favorite, but you call it "Cookie Monster" because, to you obviously, Sully looks like Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. This week alone I've watched Monsters Inc four times. No matter, I love that movie.

Your awareness has expanded. I know this because you laugh at funny parts on TV, and I mean the bits that I think are funny!

We see bits and pieces of those two year old tantrums, but nothing so big that a good distraction doesn't cure you. You oscillate between fierce independence and Mommy-don't-you-dare-leave-my-sight. I don't wonder about that independence with Daddy and me for parents there's no doubt you got it from both of us.

We are running into the times of the Naked Baby. Yesterday you refused to put on a shirt. After trying every trick I could remember including you choose the shirt and putting the shirt on my own head I let you be while I made lunch for the zoo. I made egg salad sandwiches, cut in triangles (because squares are so last week) and wondered if you would eat egg salad. (Not to skip ahead, but you loved it!) I chatted with Becky while I made egg salad and she gave me suggestions for remedying the shirt aversion. "Have you tried the 'we're going to the ZOO so let's put on a shirt' routine?"

No! I forgot about the subtle diversion with emphasis on Zoo tactic. It worked too!

Today you didn't want to wear any clothes, not even ones you put on yourself, so I let you wander around naked while I took a shower. I figured worst case I'd have to clean up pee but as a side bonus you'd realize that pee comes out between your legs and I could then invite you to use your training toilet. Nope, no pee to clean up and no spontaneous toilet training session either, but after my shower you were willing to wear clothes although you did have to put them on yourself.

A bit about naps, my love. They're good things, not things to be avoided like last week's leftovers. I know you must think you're missing out on something wonderful by not napping, but really, it's not true. Some days you crash hard (like yesterday after a 3 hour walk around the zoo!) and other days you resist until you are a crabby cranky mess. Kitten, even the kitty cats love naps.

Anyway....you are napping now, at 5PM and I wonder if you're calling it a night again. Kate, your favorite babysitter of all times said you just fell asleep before I got home. Maybe this is a little gift from the nap fairy and I can have a precious few moments to myself tonight before Daddy comes home tomorrow morning. We've had a fun week being Single Mom and Ava but I'm glad he's home tomorrow.

I love you sweet girl,
Mommy

How to care for your moose

Priceless

Yesterday we took the plunge. After looking at dozens of plastic kitchens, or not as good wood kitchens, Daddy said I had to see the Pottery Barn Kids kitchen. Originally he wanted to get the stove and the sink, but it's quite a big price tag for a kitchen for a little girl.

So we drove to Corte Madera to look at the kitchen. Daddy's right. There is no way we could buy any other kitchen after seeing this one. We did agree to just get the stove for now, and add the sink in a few more months.


Kids Retro Stove from Pottery Barn Kids: $250


Kids real cookware set from Pottery Barn Kids: $29



Eating our first pretend soup...priceless.

Two

My little one, Wednesday was your birthday. You are now officially two.



Two has brought a few changes, including a traipse into those dreaded tantrums two-year-olds have made famous. You get upset about strange things, mostly it seems when you ahve an idea in your two year old head that things should be a certain way and then they change. You got upset this morning that I put another pair of pants in the dry cleaning bag and moved toys from the living room into your bedroom. You scream and cry like the world was ending, we ask you what's wrong and you cry louder. This morning that got you a time out in your room with the door shut. Your Daddy swears this doesn't happen when I'm not around and the funny thing is, it doesn't happen often when it's just us. Something smells funny, and it's not a disaster diaper!



Your first time out, for two minutes on the green chair in the living room, came for writing in pen on the living room wall. What's this about anyway? You know you're only supposed to write on paper, but there's now pen circles on one wall, pencil circles on another, and pen slashes on the red couch. Daddy and I shake our heads about the couch, again saying we're glad we bought the $500 couch from IKEA instead of the $2000 couch we really wanted from Room & Board. That and move all the pens so they're out of your reach.



All of the crayons in your reach are washable - thank heaven - although you've taught yourself to peel the wrapper off by biting in the middle so the paper gets wet and tearing it off in the middle. Yes, all of the big fat Ava-designated crayons in the house run around naked.



Crayons aren't the only naked objects; you like to run around naked too when you're not trying to put on your own clothes. The other day you asked for "hep pees" (help please) putting on shorts over your pants. Okay, no problem. Dress in layers right? But then you tried to put on more pants over the pants and the shorts and got frustrated that it just wasn't working out. I guess I could have handed you some 3T pants for the top layer, that would have worked, but instead I suggested that two layers could be enough.

You are getting good at saying "thank you" but since everytime you say "thank you" someone says "you're welcome" that you've decided to help them out and say "thank you welcome." Can you say "thank you"? I ask. You respond, "thank you welcome."

Water. You love, love, love water. You don't love drinking water as much as you like stirring it. You love bathing in it, but mostly you love stirring water (or any liquid) in a cup with whatever utensil you can grab. All utensils are spoons, which is fine for now, because I'm not going to start an arguement with you by calling a fork a fork when clearly, in your mind, it's a spoon.

You know so many words now I'm amazed. You can nearly count to ten by yourself, with prompting from someone who can count to ten. I asked you in the bath the other day how many feet you had and you said, clearly, "Two!" Thinking it was a fluke, I asked you how many hands you had. "Two!" How many heads do you have? That one stumped you for a bit, probably because you couldn't see how many heads you have.

Your hair is finally long enough for pigtails, which I can only master if you're watching TV. I hate to admit how much you love TV. You walk into my bedroom frequently and point at the TV. "TV off!" I know that means "Mommy, why is the TV off?" But I just agree, "Yes, the TV is off, let's go color in your room."

You are starting to drive me crazy, just a little bit, but I still wouldn't trade you for anything.
(For the record, neither would Daddy. We would consider renting you out for a couple days, but then we'd want you back.)

I wonder if someday you'll know how much I love you?
Mommy

Ava and Mommy Time

Hi sweet girl,

Since I started yoga teacher training a couple weeks ago I have been much busier than before trying to get in all the practice hours and going to classes on top of that. We've seen each other, but the time always seems rushed and frantic.

When I wasn't looking you rushed head-first into being two, or nearly two, with minor tantrums, use of the n-word (no), and basically tearing the house apart cabinet after drawer. I asked your Daddy if this just started...yes, he said, why do you think I got the tricycle? Evidently he's found the secret weapon against your pre-two behavior: get you on that trike and get you outside! (I'll post a pic when I take one!)

Today though, was all ours. We started with yoga (me) and Sesame Street (you) although you joined me in corpse pose at the end of my practice by pushing me off my mat and laying down yourself. I was done enough.

Then I made the three of us bo-da-lee-da-lee pancakes. Those are Mom's special recipe blueberry pancakes topped with Brown Cow vanilla yogurt. You said "mo pees, mo pees" (more please) a few times as you finished each one.

After breakfast, you, Daddy, and I took off with you on the tricycle and went for a good walk up around the park.

Then we had a party to attend. Our friend Zoya was celebrating her second birthday and we went to join in the festivities! We partied with wild abandon for nearly 3 hours until it was well beyond naptime. You were still wide awake when we got home, and it took more than usual convincing (aka I resorted to sitting with you in the rocking chair) to get you to sleep.

When you woke up you insisted you had to have oatmeal. Oat-meal! Oat-meal! Okay, fine, I am not going to argue with you wanting oatmeal that I top with applesauce. In our household cereal is acceptable dinner fare so how can I argue?

What are we going to do with the rest of our day? I asked you. We decided to paint.


After painting we went for a quick drive with Daddy to photograph a house. We came home and played with play-doh, read books, took a long bath, read more books. Now you're in bed, I think asleep, and can I just say I had a wonderful FUN day with you today.

love,
Mommy

My little yogini

While Grandma Bear was here a couple weeks ago, I jumped into a yoga teacher training at www.yogatreesf.com. It's been marvelous, if not a little tiring.

I really, really, really want to teach yoga to toddlers. I wasn't quite sure how young those toddlers could be though. As I practiced a couple poses in front of Grandma Bear and you, I said that I thought you might be too young for yoga.

As luck would have it, you jumped with an abundance of enthusiasm into a replication of my triangle pose:

Or maybe it's warrior two from the look on your face.

Then you showed us what else you could do:

parsva upavista konasana (seated side angle pose)


we'll call this warrior two, or action figure pose
(virabhadrasana)

And it was time to finish, with savasana, of course (corpse pose)


Thank you for teaching me that you're never too young for yoga.

all my love,
Mommy

Twenty three months, aka are you really almost two?

Hi little one,

Tonight before bedtime your Daddy put you up against the growth chart on your wall and we saw you've grown nearly four inches since last year. Four inches! You still have one month left until you are two whole years old, which according to someone, somewhere if you double your height at two years that will be your height when you are done growing.

Thirty-one inches you were today. Daddy adds and says sixty-two. I say, yes, sixty two inches, the same as me. What a surprise that you wouldn't be six feet tall with such giants for parents.

You are up to so much lately! You have a hard time laying still so I can change a diaper but you are not quite ready for your training toilet although you like sitting on it with your clothes on. You've sat on it twice naked before taking a bath, but no action. I know if I was a really motivated parent I would have had you toilet-trained at 18 months, but in some ways I'm just a lazy American with easy access to diapers. I do feel a tinge guilty about landfills and such, but I mitigate that guilt when I remember I used cloth diapers when you were an infant.

From what I understand though, about those toddlers who are toilet trained at 18 months is that it takes supreme dedication and devotion from the parents on getting the toddler behind onto that seat all the time. It's more about training the parent than the toddler at this point, which seems to be the case a lot.

You have a few new tricks up your sleeve. You like to take keys and hide them in strange places. One time I found my keys in the back of your baby stroller. The other day Daddy was frantically searching for his keys and never found them. Two days later you pulled them out of a pot in the cupboard. Of course! Where else would you keep keys!

Grandma Bear was out visiting a couple weeks ago and she read you lots of books. She also taught you to say "Thank you Mommy" or "thank you grandma." After she left we started a new game where I say "thank you Ava" and you respond "sink you mommy." We volley the thank yous back and forth about six times until we are both laughing.

You have broken past the P boundary when you sing your ABC's. You skip a few letters now and X sounds a lot like F, but you make it all the way to Z. Just like Mommy, you say Z with all of the enthusiasm you have.

After bathtime you still often give me a big hug, when you are naked and dripping wet. I always make sure I approach bathtime in clothes that don't have water stain issues. You then like to run around in just your hooded towels like a miniature super hero. You are rapidly nearing the stage where you prefer naked to clothed.

Well, I take that back. You like clothes, but what you really like is to put more clothes on over the clothes you are already wearing. You can get pants on but still aren't sure about shirts, except today for the first time you got a sweater over your head.



You love painting at your easel,


wearing Mommy's big shoes while eating tortillas,


and hats. You adore hats!

As for Mommy and Daddy...

we love you. Happy 23 Months, big girl.

Disaster Diaper *not for the weak stomached*

Today just after I put you down for a nap, you had a complete and total blowout diaper.

Note: if you aren't a parent or haven't spent time around diapers and their contents and are thusly afraid of the contents of diapers, consider yourself warned: you won't want to read this.

You were getting crabby and wanted to play with your lunch rather than eat it, and it was naptime anyway, so I grabbed a binky and we went into your room.

I put you down on the floor so you could climb into your toddler bed, which you did, and you put your head down and I left the room so I could finish making brownies for Daddy for V-day.

You were really quiet, so quiet that I wondered if you'd (shockingly) fallen asleep. Nope, you were sitting up in bed playing with your moose. Fine, as long as you're quiet, I told myself, you can stay right where you are.

About five minutes later I heard one of the many noise-making toys in your room playing Baa, Baa Black Sheep.

I walk in, armed with a sense of humor, and said: "Busted!"

You were standing in front of your bed, but my nose was assaulted by not-a-good smell. I saw on the edge of your comforter something brown that wasn't there earlier.

Oh no.

This is the part where those with a weak constitution or digestive system should stop reading. Really.

I put you on your changing table, surprised that I didn't see anything on the back of your pants. Oh no - it came out the FRONT! Part liquid part solid, I hadn't seen a diaper that bad since the days of breast milk yellow mustard poop (which I never understood - breast milk isn't yellow).

The poop had exceeded the limits of the diaper. To make this briefer, let's just say I used seven wipes and still stripped you down to naked plus a binky and washed you off in the bathtub standing up next to the water faucet. I ended up throwing away the white cotton onesie that was under your sweatsuit. Everything else - your clothes, socks, comforter, pillowcase, changing table cover - they're all in the washer right now covered in spray n' wash.

Now you're in clean clothes, bed stripped down to a clean sheet, new pillowcase, and a blanket. Ten minutes ago when I peeked in you were sitting up with your moose, but now you are laying down fast asleep. I can only imagine you feel so much better.

If you have any doubt that I love you, read this again. Love doesn't look any more real than my willingness to change that disaster diaper.

Other things you're up to at 22 months

Hi my sweet girl,

Now that I've written what you're doing at 22 months, I have noticed a couple new things.

When you are ready to eat, you say "eat" and climb into your highchair. At first this was a little startling, but now it's funny. It's also great because Daddy and I aren't good with subtlety.

You are getting a bit pickier about what you'll eat, but scrambled eggs, bananas, cheese, and carrots are Ava-pleasers. You sometimes will eat a bite of cauliflower and the tiniest bite of broccoli. Not often though. You don't like ground beef or any other sort of beef. Your Daddy says I've corrupted you because I don't like beef either. I respond, yes, I am so sorry to be saving her from the perils of mass-produced who-knows-what-fed beef. I'm so sorry!

You know exactly one color: pink. I show you other colors, and then ask you, "Color?" You always respond "pink." If life is good seen through rose-colored glasses, I bet it's just as good when the world is pink.

You know how to put on your own socks! I watched you take off your socks, I looked again and one was back on your foot! You looked at me and were about to hand me your other sock to put on, but I said I wanted to see you do it. Sure enough you got it over your foot and pulled it all the way up!

You can also put on shoes! Not your super-cool pink and orange shoes, but your black casual mary janes. You took these out of your armoire this morning, put them on, and then modeled them naked for us. Being that this is a family blog, I opted not to post nudie shots of you just yet and posted the image of you partially dressed instead. Yes, the shoes are on backwards but you didn't seem to mind.

This morning we visited a parent-run co-op daycare which was quite an adventure! The people were nice, fine for me, perhaps a bit left for Daddy. Either that or the tofu and sauteed veggies for lunch scared him off. We are not quite ready to leave you with other parents just yet - our rule from when you were born was daycare only after you were old enough to tell us what happened during the day.

You should be waking from your nap any minute. I love you stinky-dink!

Mommy

Mom gets a new camera and Ava is no longer green

San Francisco was beautiful and sunny today, so we went to the park and took Mom's new camera.

Twenty-two months

Hi sweet girl,

Yesterday we celebrated your twenty-second month on the planet with a huge party and invited everyone we knew.

Okay, we didn't. But since you won't remember I could still say that and everyone reading this blog would wonder why they weren't invited.

Seriously though, you are doing some fun things now that you are 22 months old.

You unwind the toilet paper six feet into the living room. I can understand the appeal, but since I have to wind it back up, it's not so fun for Mom.

You play with legos and building hugely unstable creations. I try to support them as you build so they don't come tumbling down, but then I wonder if you will learn more if I don't?

You are not quite jumping as in your feet actually leaving the ground but you are SO close! You do love to straddle the arms of the sofa, even though you know we are going to tell you to get down. We don't want to explain the head injury to everyone we know and want to put off that first trip to the Emergency room until you are old enough to climb trees.

You are hooked on your binky...Daddy and I are trying to cut back to just naptime and bedtime but you start looking for it. You see one and say Binky! Binky! Binky! as if your life depended on the ability to chew on it. Yes, chew. You seem to chew on it more than anything, except when you're really tired. Baby Einstein is still a guarantee for a quiet Ava, except the Ava that sees the video cover and says Bay-bee Eye-sty over and over. You have also developed a huge love of the Teletubbies to your dad's chagrin. I don't mind them so much, but he thinks there is something terribly wrong with them.

Bedtime...sometimes it is easy, as in I say "bedtime" and you climb into your toddler bed. You may get up once, but get back in bed without a tear and then go to sleep. Other times you fall asleep next to me, and other times you fall asleep with Daddy watching TV. You sleep a semi-predictable ten or eleven hours at night and one to two hours during the day.

You're really adept at eating with a fork or spoon and like drinking out of a regular cup. You say more please and help please which absolutely delights me. You say "thank you" if I ask you to say it, someday you may say it without prompting!

Your favorite stuffed toy is a moose - but you say mouse - which happened to be my moose for a while before it was yours. You have dozens of words up your sleeves, but my personal favorites are blueberry (bo-lee-da-lee), strawberry (ba-da-lee), and water which for reasons known only to you you call "ba-da-loo." Sometimes you say "wa-wa" but most of the time it's "ba-da-loo." We think you're saying bottle of water, but it's funny regardless.

You color on your artist's easel, adding another swirl each day to the current drawing. I'm pleased to say that you've listened to my admonitions to write "only on the paper." You sometimes sing to yourself as you play, moving things in your room to the living room, dragging cats in laundry baskets across the wood floor. Tonight you entertained yourself by putting your crayons into your laundry basket, picking them up and putting them in a box, then dumping the box back into the laundry basket. I can see the appeal, really I can.

You help me weed in the back yard, taking clover in the bucket and transporting it into your own bucket. You don't get extra credit for stealing my weeds, you know! You love being outside - you point at the back doors - "outside! outside!" If we pitched a tent back there I bet you'd sleep in it with no problem.

Maybe by next month Mommy will have a good camera and can post lots of cool pictures of you before your birthday! Until then, we'll have to settle for the good enough treo shots.

I love you little one,
Mommy

Going to the zoo

Pic on the train at the SF Zoo from last Friday

Say say oh playmate

Hi my sweet girl,

Today we saw our friends Tracey and Allie. Tracey is really really really ready to pop out a baby and scheduled to this Friday. Allie is a year older than you which sort of makes a difference now but when you're 32 and she is 33 it will make no difference at all.

This is rather amusing, now that I think of it, because Tracey is one year older than me, and it does make no difference at all! We, meaning Tracey and I, actually went to the same high school for three years and never knew each other. We met through our same friend Nicole about five or six years ago and later figured out this "small world" connection.

But I digress. As usual.

So today we were playing, playing, playing with all of Allie's toys. Allie, she is a sweet girl who feels the change about to thunder its way into her life (I mean the baby). She knows baby Kate is coming but not quite what to make of it.

You two played marvelously together and also serially next to each other. We watched Baby Einstein "On The Farm" which you hadn't seen before - of course any Bay-bee Eye-sty is a big hit in your world. All it takes is that computer animated caterpillar and the trademark tune and you're hooked.

We visited for a couple hours until well past your naptime. As we were getting ready to go and saying our "bye byes" where you even said "bye bye Allie," you turned around and walked up to Allie and hugged her! Honey, that warmed my heart AND Tracey's.

Then you knew it was time to go and you walked up to the front door reaching for the knob to turn.

You're getting to be such a big girl. You sing your ABC's up to about P, skipping over LMN (thank you Grandma Bear for the Singing ABC Tad!). You sing all the action parts to Wheels On The Bus (as in "go round and round") and you sing EIEIO on cue after I sing "Old MacDonald had a farm..." Maybe I've written about these before, but your enthusiasm is a wonder to see.

When you walk by the plastic magnetic letters on the refrigerator you sing ABC's also - you don't know which is which yet, but you know they're all up there!

You give spontaneous leg hugs (to my leg), but also come over with both arms wide open when Daddy or I ask for a hug. You give mmmm kissies nearly all of the time.

Tonight you fell asleep watching Winnie The Pooh's Grand Adventure because I wanted to read my book instead of reading House At Pooh Corner to you. You didn't seem to mind a bit, in fact it was probably more fun to have a movie with good character voices than Mommy trying to make Eeyore sound different than Piglet and failing noticeably.

You should know though that your Daddy and I - we love you more than we ever thought possible. We love you with a big wide open love that expands every day.

The object of this game...

...is to get as many celery stalks as possible in one little cup of peanut butter. (sorry Ava is so green, the light didn't agree with my treo camera!)

One and twenty months

My big little girl,

Where do I begin to tell the story of my big little girl who is now one and twenty months? As Winnie the Pooh would say, I should start at the beginning and go until I've reached the end. I am quoting Pooh, of course, because I just read to you from The House At Pooh Corner. As I read aloud those last few sentences in the first chapter, you rolled over on your side with your back towards me and fell asleep. No binky, no baby eye-sty, just peacefully, blissfully asleep.

Binky, binky, binky! We hear that a lot these days, so much that we're cutting back to naptime and bedtime for the binky. We want to hear what you have to say! You do have a lot to say these days, you've begun to put two words together into not quite sentences but at least ardent commands. "Bye-bye kitty-cat" is still around, with lots of Mommys and Daddys to follow. You love saying zebra and owl and ball. You love balls of all shapes and sizes.

You are such a pleasure to be around. Tonight before reading and night-night time we played with legos (gegos). You've taught me to enjoy building tall lego structures even if they don't have proper rooms and doorways. I built the base and then hastily filled in the blanks so your additions were stable. Then we tore down the structure and put it all back in the lego box.

We played a bunch of rounds of our favorite game: Boom! To play Boom! we take your nine animal blocks and 26 alphabet blocks and stack them as high as we can. Then I say, "Make it go Boom!" You touch the middle and all the blocks go tumbling down. We both laugh becuase this is quite hysterical and then we pile them up to do it again.

You love to take baths and especially love bubbles. We start bathtime with the plummet of the ducks and frog and our ritual naked baby dance. When you're in the bathtub you love to drink bathwater out of little cups. I don't quite get this, but I have no complaints. You also love to pour water from one little cup into another.

You sing row, row, row and merrily, merrily, merrily for Row, Row, Row Your Boat song. You sing e-i-e-i-o at the appropriate places in Old MacDonald Had a Farm. You just started to sing round and round for the Wheels on the Bus song.

The best of all though is that you sing e-f-g-h-i-j-k of the Alphabet Song, and have been even heard to sing lmnop or therebouts. You sing this either when someone starts with a-b-c-d or when you walk up to the refrigerator and point at the magnetic alphabet letters. Daddy and I think you're brilliant.

After we took down the Christmas tree and put the green chair in its place you started a new entertaining habit of saying Bye! Bye! and then hiding behind the transparent curtain (partially hidden behind the green chair) until someone says either "Bye Bye" or "Come back, we miss you!" Then you reveal yourself from behind the curtain giggling and then walk back around to do it again.

You still get upset whenever Daddy sits next to me or is within three feet of me. We try to explain that it's a good thing. You want happy parents as divorced parents are not fun in the slightest, but alas, you're not buying that yet. Someday, we hope, to cuddle on the couch without you whining in the corner or trying to pull us apart. Your Daddy swears he will remember this and do the same to you when you bring a boyfriend home.

While I'm on the subject, I have to note that on New Year's Eve you were spotted on your couch leaning over to your friend Jack, lips puckered so he could kiss you. I saw it, Jack's mom saw it, and I only wish we had a camera.

Happy twenty-one month birthday, my big little girl. You are a joy and every day I think how lucky I am to be your Mommy.

Many ways to eat a pb&j sandwich

Hi little one,

After all of the cookies you've eaten over the last three days, today we went back to basics with a pb&j sandwich. Sprouted barley bread, natural PB, and strawberry fruit spread sweetened with juice.

I added a cup of milk (muk!) and walked away for a few minutes as you started eating. You picked up an isosceles triangle of sandwich, dipped it in your milk, sucked the milk out of the sandwich and then ate it.

I've been around a while, but I've never heard of eating a sandwich quite that way before.

Now you are soaking your nails in the milk, which really isn't necessary as you have unbreakable nails already.

I love you.
Mommy

Way-va's Second Christmas

Hi my little love,

As we could have predicted, you made out like a bandit this Christmas. Your Auntie Susi and Uncle John spoiled you with sparkly new pj's, play-doh in abundance and a fabulous Mister Potato Head. Your Grandma Bear spoiled you utterly and completely with toys, books, and clothes to last until high school. Not really, but at least to last until you're three. Her best idea though was from Build A Bear. She built you a lavendar teddy bear that says in her voice:

"Ava, this is Grandma Bear, and I...love...you." I was instructed to play it to you every night before you go to sleep so she knows your voice.

Last night we were at Great-Grandpa Jerry's for the every other year traditional Edson family Christmas. You had fun running around the house, and I had fun not worrying about what kind of trouble you would find. You love playing with your cousins and following around the bigger girls. All of my aunts and uncles were impressed by how independent you are and yet always seem to know where Mommy is.

This Christmas has been my best ever. Last night I had you and your Daddy with me in Sacramento. We went to five houses and sang carols to the neighbors. Yes, when your Great Grandma Susie was around we would have sang to twenty houses all the way down the block, but this time it was five. I don't know what it is about caroling that brings tears to my eyes, but caroling means Christmas to me. We open our hearts and our voices join together in an imperfect harmony and we share love with others. We give a gift so big that it can't be measured in dollars and packaged in brightly wrapped boxes.

This year I got to share the experience with you and Daddy, not to mention Grandma Bear, Great Grandpa Jerry, your aunt, uncle, and cousins, and the rest of our noisy festive bunch.

Then after caroling we opened presents to each other, followed by nibbling on all of the baked delights our family is so good at making. Then, came the time honored tradition of the gift exchange.

Each grown up brings a gift priced at about $25, wrapped brightly. We cut up the numbers of an old calendar and each take a number to determine our ordering. Number one picks a gift. Number two can steal number one's gift or take a new one. New rules this year eliminated family collusion and stealing of the same gift more than once by any single person.

I'm delighted to say that your Daddy's exchange gift was the hottest item. It also helped that there were two of them.

I'm sure some day you will experience the overwhelming love and magic that I have in the last twenty four hours.

For now, you've opened your gifts from Daddy and I, including a fabulous art easel and a wooden tool box. We spoiled you a little, but not as much as everyone else!

The way I see it, as I told your Daddy, if you weren't such a fabulous little girl, you wouldn't be spoiled so much!

But I better make breakfast for the three of us before we need to leave for our friends' house for dinner today.

I love you sweet girl. Merry Christmas.

Boo-bah and Baby Eye-sty

Hi my sweet girl,

You are rapidly toddling your way into being two years old. Sure, you have just shy of four months to go, but the intermittent tantrums have arrived as well as many new words.

The tantrums, they come without warning and cannot always be tied to exhaustion or starvation. Sometimes they are just because. As long as I am well rested and not hungry myself, they don't bother me much. I can nearly always (with exceptions noted above) let you have your tantrum without trying to fix it or get angry about it. After all, it's not about me.

You have fallen in love, head over heels, with Baby Eye-sty. For those not familiar with toddler vocabulary, this means Baby Einstein videos.

"Baby eye-sty," you say, pointing at the TV. "Baby eye-sty!!!" you exclaim, when you find the video case.

Grandma Bear doesn't know what kind of favor she did us when she gave you those videos before you were born. They entertained you when you were three months old, but now they are a big, BIG hit. They entertain you so well now that I use them to relax you before bedtime. They are the only thing I know of, besides tortillas (tee-ahs!) that guarantee your complete attention.

I like them for that reason, but also because they're helping with your vocabulary. From Baby Galileo you've learned to recognize and say moon, star, sun, planet, and cloud. From Baby Doolittle you've learned dog, cat, cow, sheep, pig, and mouse. From Baby Van Gough you've learned to paint masterpieces. Not really, but it sounded good, didn't it?

There are more, but I want to tell you about boo-bah.

Boo-bah.

No, it's not that strange fuzzy toy I saw advertised last Christmas. Anyone in our studio audience have a guess as to what it is?

Give up?

You'll never guess. I swear.

Okay, I'll tell.

Toothbrush. Boo-bah is your name for toothbrush.

You love brushing your teeth. You tolerate me brushing your teeth as long as you get to hold a second toothbrush, and when I'm done, you get to brush my teeth.

We have a deal, you and I. In the morning you brush your own teeth. At night, I do it.

This week you got upset after I brushed your teeth because you saw me flossing my teeth and wanted some of that too. Yes, at nearly 21 months old, you wanted your teeth flossed. If I'm not careful you get floss out of the garbage (yuck!) so now I give you some floss and you diligently put it between your teeth. I make sure I put used floss in the big kitchen garbage so you don't go after it.

Again you are many steps ahead of me. It took me until three months ago to start flossing my teeth every day and you have started before your second birthday.

Boo-bah and Baby Eye-Sty. These are the center of your world.

I love you sweet girl. In a few days I'll tell you about your second Christmas.

Mommy

Not exactly what Clinique had in mind

You discovered my Clinque Angel Red lipstick, although I doubt it was intended to be eyeshadow.

Picture time!

I just noticed there have been no pictures in ages, so here goes...

Ava has figured out how to get around being vertically challenged.














Ava putting on her overalls, not exactly the right way.















Ava in her party dress and beads, next to the bathtub.















Ava playing with sand at the beach.

Bye-bye kitty-cat

Hi my little love,

You are saying lots of words now, so many I've lost count. What your Daddy and I love the most though is when we're leaving the house you turn to look inside and wave, saying "Bye-bye kitty cat."

You say this predictably every time we leave and many other times throughout the day. Bye bye kitty cat.

Where did you get this? Do I say goodbye to the cats when I leave in the morning? It seems extremely important to you that you tell the cats goodbye before you leave. After all, they need to know. Now that you're leaving they can fully relax and take that big nap they had planned for after your departure.

If this is the case, I can understand. It's quite considerate of you to tell the cats we're leaving.

Unagi started sleeping under the Christmas tree shortly after its arrival. It took you a couple days to find her, but now you love pointing out the kitty cat under the tree. Sorry Unagi, obviously you can run but you can't hide from a motivated toddler.

The Christmas tree...in a stroke of complete luck, Daddy brought home a bunch of unbreakable ornaments this year. The tree wasn't decorated enough with my stash of ornaments once all of the breakable ones hung well above your reach, and he happened upon a package that turned out to be unbreakable.

This is fortunate for us because of you and the cats. You love to take the ornaments off the tree and put them into a box we left out for that purpose. We're not dummies, we know what your plans are when you see bright shiny objects at your height.

We also know the cats, who are likely teenagers in cat years but still entertained (like a certain toddler we know) by the sight of those same bright shiny balls dangling in front of them.

What we didn't predict, however, is that you would take one of those bright shiny balls and hold it out for Unagi to hit like a punching bag.

I didn't witness this, Daddy did, and although is imagination is fertile I doubt he made it up.

I want to tell you about the toddler holiday party we attended tonight, about how you played well with all of the toys, surprisingly didn't play with the shiny glass balls on their tree, ate well, and somehow didn't cry at all until we were on the way home and your foot got caught in the handle on a paper bag.

As for the party, if I held up the romper room magic mirror I would have said...
"I see Katie and Ellie, Amy and Jack, Katie and Luke, Victoria and Ian, and Sadia and Zoya..." not to mention all the babies to come that are currently hanging out in their Mommy's tummy!

Having six toddlers in one place guarantees chaos but the party was indelibly fun and the food was sumptuous. Thank you all for being our friends!

As for you, Miss Ava, you fell asleep in the car while I was singing Christmas carols so you wouldn't cry. You barely woke when I changed you into pajamas at home and put you into bed.

Sleep well, my love, and night night kitty cat.

Twenty months old

Hi my sweet girl,

This morning we went for the same walk we took every day when you were brand new. We would start at our house and go up, up, up to McLaren park, swoop down over the foot bridge, back up by the sandbox with cement turtles, past the old and wise eucalyptus trees and back down home.

We haven't done this walk in a long time, and I've missed it.

You're getting bigger by the day. Sure, you're small, in the fifth percentile small, but with such giants for parents I don't expect a WNBA player out of you. You eat well and you've got baby fat in all the right places and your new doctor insisted you looked just right.

Thank heaven I came to my senses and dumped your old doctor who always made me feel lower than pond scum.

But this is about you, walking head on into your twentieth month tomorrow. You say new words every day - this morning we were practicing our animal words: dog, cat, mouse, cow, pig, zebra, giraffe, bear, sheep and elephant. Okay, you can't say elephant yet, but you can say the rest of them!

What amazes me completely is that you know the difference between all these animals. How is it you can differentiate between a cat and a dog? They both have four legs and furry bodies, there are small dogs that are about the size of a cat, yet you know which is which. How?

Speaking of cats, Unagi has started sleeping with you at night. I don't know if you're keeping her warm or vice versa, but it's wonderful to see Unagi curled up at your feet. This morning you woke up happy and when Daddy went in your room, he said you were playing with the cat.

You play "tag" with the cats on a regular basis - lumbering towards them and then running away with shreaks of laughter when they come back at you.

The other day you amazed my waxing lady by signing please when you wanted me to read your book again. "She knows sign language?!" Sofia marveled.

"Ava knows a few signs, just enough to fill in the blanks for words." For once, little one, I felt like I could be a candidate for Mom of the Year.

The other day I brought your Daddy a plate of cookies I just baked. You stole his last cookie and ate it when he wasn't looking.

He asked you, "Ava, where are the cookies?"

You looked at the plate and signed "all done!" I can see your sense of humor is developing at a good rate.

You're starting to figure out how to jump. You bend your knees and bounce a bit, but you haven't worked out the gravity restrictions. You like to bounce on the trampoline at My Gym and you watch the other toddlers jump, you just haven't figured it out for yourself yet.

The Christmas tree has been a big attraction for you. Daddy and I put it up while you were hanging out with your Nana. The first day or two you were afraid to go near it, likely wondering how a full grown tree sprouted in our living room.

Now, of course, ornaments routinely walk off of the tree and mysteriously appear in your bedroom. Of particular attraction are the teddy bear ornaments that your Auntie Brie and I bought at Harrods in England three years ago.

Someday I will take you to England and show you the miles of shopping in Harrods. Maybe we'll buy something there, maybe we won't. We'll take the London underground from place to place, delighting in the foreign accent and new sights.

Someday yes, I will introduce you to my passion for travel. Maybe you will love it as I do, maybe you won't.

I often wonder what you'll like as you grow bigger. Right now you love everything we're doing and I'm even looking for a Ava-sized broom so you can sweep when Mommy does.

For now, you have swept us up with your charm and infectious laugh.

I never knew love could be so big.

Chit chat

Hi sweet girl,

You have become quite the chatter box. Most of the time you chatter in a language that we don't understand, but you do have an arsenal of new words at your disposal.

Take "eat" for example. You say eat sometimes, but most of the time you say "bite," as in, "Ava, do you want a bite?"

So you've replaced eat with bite in your vocabulary.

After watching Baby Einstein videos, your knowledge of animals has grown tremendously. These are your latest words:

cow (bow)
mouse (mow, like cow)
butterfly (buh bye)
kitty cat (giggy ga)
doggie (dah-GEE)

There are many more, and I will add them as I remember.

Speaking with your hands

Hi sweet girl,

At long last after my months and months of signing "more" and "eat" and "elephant," you are signing back to me.

You are doing lots of other things like sliding the mirrored closet doors back and forth; feeding me with your fork when you have any food except bananas; you point at my mobile phone and say "bay-bee" because you know there is a picture of you in my phone.

You have also, to my complete amusement, started picking up two paper bags and putting the handles in the inner crook of your elbow and then grab your plastic keys and walk to the front door saying "bye bye." I respond with "Bye bye, I'll miss you, come back soon."

There aren't words to tell you how funny this is.

But I was talking about how you use sign language to talk to me, and went off on a tangent as usual. "Off on a tangent" was a phrase that was invented for your Mommy, you'll find out soon enough.

You sign all kinds of things these days. You often confuse "more" for "eat" and when I ask if you want to eat, you sign more. You do, however, sign more when you want me to read your book again, and again, and again.

The big accomplishment, as I see it, is that I've taught you to sign "help." It took me no less than thirty-three years to ask anyone for help, much less know how to say it in sign language. Asking for help, baby, it's what makes the world go round. Now when you start to get frustrated because you can't do something, I ask you, "Ava, do you want help?" as I sign help. You pause, look up, and pat your chest or tummy with both hands (which is your approximation of the sign I'm using for help).

This is utterly and completely fabulous.

To top that off, last night I taught you to sign "please" when you were getting frustrated and wanted me to read your book again. "Can you say 'please'?" I asked you, while moving my hand in a circle on my breastbone. You looked straight at me and signed "please" right back. Then I had to read your book to you at least five times because you kept signing "please." That's okay, I'm willing to read it a dozen times if you ask nicely, even if you are doing it because I'm reading my own book.

Sign language, this is some miraculous stuff!

I love you sweet girl,
Mommy

Mommy time

Hi my little love,

The one thing it is so easy to forget as a Mommy is to take care of myself. I remember to feed you, change you, entertain you, but forget all about me in the process. I know without a doubt that I can only take care of others well if I take care of myself first, so I have been trying for a little bit each day to take time for me.

I've started writing again, nothing fabulous or meaningful but just my average three pages a day. I started meditating again, just a little bit. Fifteen minutes yesterday; ten minutes today. These are precious little slices of time I am giving to myself. Yesterday morning when I got up, I finished my writing and went downstairs to meditate on the red chair. Your Daddy came down to see what I was doing, you wanted to come down to see what I was doing, when really I was doing nothing. I heard the door shut upstairs and found out later that you and Daddy went for a ride to the store to get breakfast. Daddy figured if he stuck around the house that he'd just want to bug me.

As I said, precious moments of time. I didn't want to drive my behind to yoga, I just wanted a break, in my own home, in my pajamas, to breathe. I've figured out in the last few years that if I want something it usually shows up, just not on my schedule. If I want a break I don't usually get the break right at that moment, I usually get it in the next day or so. I figure this is someone teaching me how to be patient.

Anyway, my hope is that by seeing me take care of myself, you will learn to do the same. Helping others is good, but not if it costs you too much of yourself.

love always,
Mommy

As you wish

Hi little one,

Tonight was one of those nights. One of those rainy, thunder, lightening, dark kinds of nights that I was exhausted by the time I got home. I was driving Maz, your daddy's red truck in heavy traffic across the bay bridge, and after resting half an hour realized I wanted pajamas instead of going out to a movie with my friends.

Your Daddy headed out to meet friends, and I told your Nana that she could go home. Nana was nervous and restless from the lightening and you were full of chaotic nervous energy. After she left we split a grilled cheese sandwich and a yummy pear, I tidied up a bit, put you in pj's and we headed downstairs.

"We need a movie..." I said to you. But what kind of movie do we need? I dismissed the Disney animated movies, dismissed my typical girl choices like "When Harry Met Sally" or "How to Make An American Quilt" and saw it. The right choice:

"The Princess Bride"

See, I adore this movie. I love the danger, the irony, and the fabulous word tango.

"Stop rhyming, I mean it." "Anyone want a peanut?"
"My way is not very sportsman like."
"Death can't stop true love, the most it can do is delay it for a while."
"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die."
"You were mostly dead all day."
"To the death!" "No, to the pain!"

Of course the part I don't like is that Buttercup is so helpless, that she can't even beat off the ROUS'es in the fire swamp when she's holding a big stick, but I can forgive that part. If I wrote the movie, she'd kick ass too.

The book is even better than the movie, and when your book attention span lasts more than five minutes, I promise I'll read it to you.

My movie had the right affect, it calmed me down, calmed you down, and now you are fast asleep on the floor.

All my love,
Mommy

Nineteen months

Hi sweet girl,

You will be nineteen months tomorrow and I am celebrating by taking off for the weekend with my friend Tracey and leaving you at home with Dah-DEE. This is the best present I could give you, even better than 500 cookies piled on top of 1000 tortillas, because on Sunday when I come home I will be a happy, grateful, new improved Mah-MEE who has missed you and talked about you all weekend.

I wish I could think of all the new things you're doing lately. You have now figured out how to get out of your big girl bed in the morning and then make noise with all the toys on your bedroom floor. You also now get really upset when I take something away, even when that something is a pair of scissors that I left too close to the edge of the table. No matter, I have a secret weapon: distraction. Whenever that bottom lip puckers out and quivers and the wailing begins, I start to play with something, anything, and you look up, wander over, and come play with me. Distraction, it's a powerful tool for my Mom-belt.

Words...you're saying some new words but I don't remember what. You say 'bite" with alarming regularity when I ask you if you want a bite of whatever I'm eating. "Bite!" you respond, although you omit the "b".

You like to (try to) put your own shoes and socks on, and you love untying anyone's shoes that are in close range. You then try to retie them, with no luck. I admire the effort though.

You have become enamored with all the electronic noise making toys that you previously ignored. You love your Baby Tad that plays different songs when you press buttons, but mostly you've discovered that one hand plays a song with words and the other hand plays night-night music. Those tunes have you rocking out hard to "twinkle, twinkle little star" and "oh where, oh where has my little dog gone" and all I can do is sit back and laugh.

Speaking of laughing, the other toy you adore these days is a mini baby tad who sings the ABC song. You like to take mini tad's hands in yours and swing him back and forth. Over and over you press his tummy to play the ABC song while Dah-DEE and I roll our eyes and think, "oh no, not again."

"Oh-no" is one of your new sounds, along with "uh-oh" that you say appropriately when you fall down or something falls from you.

But it's time for me to escape for the weekend. I love you, little one, thank you for nineteen wonderful months.

All my love,
Mah-MEE

Ava's Second Halloween

Last year I didn't dress Ava up in a costume. This year, I was urged (as in Becky saying "you HAVE to!) to dress her up, and so, I chose this...

Happy Halloween, my sweet mermaid!

Under my skin

Dear Ava,

This is what Mommy looked like in the final days when you were camping out in my tummy. I was big and round and gained sixty pounds even though you were only six and a half pounds when you were born.

That's no matter though, because we went to Mom & Baby Yoga and went on lots of walks, and I kept telling myself that it took nine months to get this size and it would likely take nine months for the weight to go away. Now, nearly nineteen months after your birth, all but eight pounds are gone. They're a stubborn eight pounds, settled on my abdomen, where weight has never settled before. Oh well, if eight pounds is what I have, eight pounds it is until I do something about it.

When you were growing inside me I used to sing to you. I sang you lots of songs, but the song I sang nearly every day was Frank Sinatra's "Under My Skin." I couldn't find anything more appropriate to sing you than "I've got you, under my skin; I've got you, deep in the heart of me." Although I didn't know for sure you were a girl, I'd still sing the line "Oh little girl, you never can win, because I've got you, under my skin."

Now I sing you this song when I want you to settle down and rest. Sometimes I sing the song just because it's in my head. When you're older and aren't as easily entertained by lights in the ceiling or unopened tea bags, I'll tell you this story, and wonder if everytime you hear that song when you're out and about in the world, you'll think of me.

Big girl bed

Hi big girl,

There are a few changes happening in our world...perhaps the most interesting to you is we replaced your crib with a big-girl toddler bed!

We also replaced most of your furniture with a bedroom set from Ikea. Your room looks now like a little girl sleeps and plays there, not a baby. You actually slept on your new bed all night last night. I started off laying down beside you, because fortunately Mah-MEE is short and fits on the bed, and your eyes plummeted, opened, plummeted, opened, and ker-plunk. You were out. I wandered back to my own big-girl bed and we all slept peacefully.

This morning I heard you cry on waking around 7, I peeked my head in and said "Good morning! Come out here when you're ready!" You were curious, there were no bars on your bed restraining you, and about five minutes later you toddled on out into the kitchen.

Your Dah-DEE and I are both wondering how the new bed will go. We both sense you're ready for a trifle more freedom and think this bed is a step in the right direction.

For now, you're in your bed fast asleep, but you were delivered that way from your Nana in your carseat an hour ago. We'll see how tonight goes, because me of all people know that I can't predict tonight based on last night when I'm living with a toddler.

I love you, my big girl.
Mah-MEE

Five days with Grandma Bear

Dear little one who is getting bigger by the second,

We just got home on Tuesday after five days with Grandma Bear. You still don't say Grandma Bear, although I would swear in court on a Bible that you've said bear before, you just don't say it anymore. You do, however, point in the right direction when I ask, "Where is Grandma Bear?"


This, of course, delights Grandma Bear totally and completely, even better than if she won the Colorado Lottery. Maybe.
We had a great time. You spent hours climbing up and down the stairs. You would sneak over to the stairs, thinking we weren't watching you, but come on, with not just one trained mom, but two the odds of you doing anything we didn't know about were near impossible. When you got to about the fourth step, you would sit down and pause, while either Grandma Bear or I would go over to you (depending on whose turn it was) and you would giggle like something hilarious just happened.

Climbing up you do the normal baby way, like a crawl, but up stairs. Your climbing down procedure varied between coming down one step at a time on your bottom, or sliding down on your tummy. Both are equally amusing.

You liked Grandma Bear's cat, Kiwi (who I have nicknamed Feisty Kitty), but Kiwi wanted nothing to do with you. We were grateful for that, because I don't call that petite calico Feisty Kitty for no reason.

October 2004, Ava at 6 months

You got to see people out there who remembered you from our last visit a year ago, who marveled at the walking baby that had replaced the one who I previously carried about in the infant carrier. A couple were salivating over you, not because they wanted a baby, but because they wanted a grandbaby.

You also loved the digital camera, and wanted to see the "baby" every time someone, anyone took a picture of you.

You also had a great time "driving" the boat as we took pictures to send to Dah-DEE. Obviously in this shot you are looking to make sure there are no other boats in the way before you merge left.

Grandma Bear took good care of us. Going to visit her is like a vacation from a vacation. Mah-MEE's mobile phone with mobile email doesn't work high up in the mountains of Colorado (probably one of the last places on earth it doesn't) so Mah-MEE really gets to relax. Every morning Grandma Bear asks "what should we have for dinner?" and lists all of the meat in her well stocked freezer. I missed her for that when I got home and had to ask myself that question. I missed her for a lot more than that also.

Your Grandma Bear, she's great. Her heart is big and full of love for us. Someday I'll tell you the story of how I named her Grandma Bear, but not today.

I love you Ava,
And we all love you, Grandma Bear.

At the airport

We are waiting for our flight and I have just taught Ava what an airplane is.

Every 5 min I ask her, Ava where is the airplane?

It's my inside joke, like when we went to see March of the Penguins and I asked her "where is the penguin?"

The perfect response

Hi honey,

If there is one question I could teach you as the catch-all phrase when someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, it would be...

Why do you want to know?

I learned this response late in life. I wish I'd known it early on, because people are always asking for all kinds of information and often I answer, only wish I had the forethought to respond with ... Why do you want to know?

This question stops most people dead in their tracks because they don't have a good reason for wanting to know, sure, they may be curious, but really it's none of their business.

I've never been one for a snappy, mildly sarcastic response to a situation. Like Meg Ryan's character in "You've Got Mail," I tend to wish I had a snappy response, but never do, and fret about it for days after the event.

I wish I carried "Why do you want to know?" around in my back pocket, like a wooden stake against verbal vampires, but I don't.

Maybe though, in teaching you to ask that question, I can learn to say it more often too.

love,
Mom

Fledgling artiste

The World of Crayola

Today, my love, I introduced you to my giant box of Crayola Crayons with the sharpener built into the back.

You are reaching the point where you would rather make your mark than eat the wax, so I knew it was time.

At first, I only handed you a couple crayons, but you pointed at the yellow box on the table with a force that proved only that you are not telekinetic. Too bad, that could come in handy. Anyway, I put the whole box on the floor, and the first thing you did was to push the crayons in your hand back into the box. Not in the right spots, of course, meaning an open spot, because the colors are not in any sort of order. I believe I once even dumped out the whole box in front of your cousin Destiny to her utter amazement. So by "right" spot, I only mean one that was capable of readily accepting a crayon. That didn't matter, of course, and you shut the lid anyway.

Now, I have put the crayons away and the Powerpuff Girls coloring book, which I have no intention of explaining why I own, and you are peacefully napping. We all had a rough night last night, with your first case of the stomach flu and how your Dah-DEE and I got to see the food we put in you for dinner (banana and blueberries, because you were sick) once again, all over the couch.

But I digress.

I was pondering the crayons as I lay on the bed resting with you to my left, unagi curled into the crook behind my knees. Once upon a time Crayola used to have a color called "flesh" which they have renamed to "peach" under the guise of political correctness. I took out "peach" just a minute ago, made a mark on white paper, and compared it to my own skin. Not a match.

I then took out a color called "tan" and one called "tumbleweed" and my favorite name, "burnt sienna." I don't know what a sienna is nor how you burn one, but I remember this name from my childhood. I made marks with these on the white paper and observed how I don't really look like any of them.

I'm a bit less pink than peach, and not as orange as tan. Tumbleweed is a bit too errant, although I do like traveling.

If I held these same colors up to you, I wonder where you would fit?

See, the thing is, that you and I, as you'll figure out at some point probably in elementary school, are not the same color. People who don't look too closely think you're the same color as your Dah-DEE, but as your Uncle Anthony said, she's not as dark as his brother (Dah-DEE). And not as light as me, I added.

You are somewhere in between his tan to burnt sienna and my peach to cafe au lait. Speaking of cafe au lait, that would make a darn good Crayola color.

This used to bug me, that we weren't the same color. I kept searching for some bit of you that looked like me, something beyond the obvious because the obvious is skin color. I had to give that up, over and over. Even when I was in Mexico for a week, getting tan, I came home and you had been out in the central California sun, getting more tan. You will always beat me at tanning contests, you turn a rich burnt sienna even with SPF 45 in about ten minutes of sun exposure.

As you grow older though, the resemblance peeks through. In the bridge of your nose and around your eyes, I can see me. Your girl parts, you definitely got those from me. You wrinkle the bridge of your nose when you laugh, like me.

I wonder what check box to mark when I have to specify what nationality you are. Your heritage is a cornucopia of European from me - Irish, Swedish, French Basque, Norwegian; but also German, American Indian, and Mexican from your Dah-DEE.

You are a mix, a blend, a harmony of nationalities mixed to remarkable perfection. You aren't a check box on a form, but then, who is?

The truth is, in a black and white photo, we are all shades of gray, and even to Crayola, gray is still gray.

Eighteen months and going strong

Hi Sweet Girl,

You are officially eighteen months or one year and a half old. As always, I have a hard time you've been hanging out with me for that long.

When I want to know if you're hungry, I say "Ava eat?" and you say "Eeet!"

You get mad a little easier than you used to, especially if I take something from you, like your toothbrush, even if you are all done brushing your teeth. You aren't so bad at brushing them, I must say, which is quite impressive at 18 months. You really hate it when I brush them, so we gave up and handed you the brush. The first few days you chewed more than brushed, but after watching us brush every day, twice a day, you're figuring it out.

You win my heart over every time you hand me a book, then turn around and sit in the middle of my crossed legs.

You pick up a new word each day, sometimes a couple a day. The new word du jour was blueberry, which sounded like boo-bear. The other words we've noticed are:
You are speaking new words like crazy. Every moment you pick up something new that we say. Here are the words we've noticed so far:
tortilla (tohr-TEEEEE-yah)
unagi (oooo-nah-gee)
hola (oh-la)
mommy (mah-MEE)
daddy (dah-DEE)
nana (nah-nah)
papa (papa, but in a whisper)
bear (bay-er)
dog (dah)
duck (duh)
eat (eeeet)

Despite all of my efforts to teach you sign language, the only sign I notice is "all done" which is an action made with both hands like twisting open a door knob. When I say "more" and make the sign, you pick up your dish and wave it at me, or point. I get it, more.

You can identify your nose, my nose, your head, cheek, feet, and tummy. Someday when I ask "where's Ava's chicken?" you'll giggle and point at your ribs because you know that's where you're going to be tickled.

Tonight you're not feeling so well. You've got a fever and even threw up for the first time in forever. As I say when we're sick, you get to eat what you want, and what you wanted was a banana. And then boo-bears.

You are becoming a bit less mommy dependent, especially at My Gym. This week when you saw where we were, you ran off, leaving me to eat your smoke. Okay, maybe you didn't run, but you sure didn't spend much time looking for me. You did spend time watching Jack swing on the uneven bars and put your hands up on the bar to try his amazing stunt. You didn't quite get that he was hanging by his hands and that allowed him to take his feet off the ground, but you gave it your best shot by standing on your toes.

I'm a Mom. I don't have a plaque or a sign that says so, but with as much as I talk about you, I don't need one; everyone already knows.

What else does everyone know? That you are a beautiful, easy, wonderful little girl, and everyone loves you.

Especially me.