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.