Archive for March, 2010
Why did no one warn me about the threes?
It’s like someone flipped a switch on her the very day she turned three and she suddenly morphed into this whiny little kid who can no longer speak or ask for anything in a normal tone of voice. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve already said to her that “Mama and Daddy can’t understand anything you say if you’re whining” and waited her out until she caves and asks properly or she melts down and gets it out of her system.
So this new development. DO NOT LIKE. This just might drive me bananas sooner rather than later unless it gets better soon.
And the mood swings? Wow. Whiplash, I tell you. For her and for me – the moods are that sudden.
I can show you.
J and Ava were working on a craft – a plaster handprint of hers mounted in a double picture frame. Easy enough, right?
J was rolling the plaster out while Ava was pleasantly reading him the instructions.
3.1 seconds later…this.
Absolutely no idea why.
.8 seconds after that she was patiently waiting on her daddy to finish so she could smush her hand into the goo.
And then once the project was completed she gave herself an award of some sort…
not sure exactly why but I think I can say with some certainty that it was not for Miss Congeniality. Hmmm, maybe best dramatic performance by a young actress?
My sweet girl is three years old and I have no idea where the last year went. All I know is that my baby is rapidly disappearing and a little girl is taking her place. She’s a lovely little girl, for sure, but I’m already missing that baby potbelly and those pinch-able cheeks and trying to figure out where all these arms (with the pointiest elbows known to mankind) and legs came from all of a sudden.
Two was a great year. I waited and waited for those terrible twos I’d heard so much about to show up but they never did. Ava is an easygoing child who is mostly compliant (although she can have her moments) and content as long as she’s included in what we’re doing. She’s a bit of a shy girl who takes some time to warm up to new people and activities and is still happiest in Mama or Daddy’s arms until she’s scoped out the scene.
She’s turning out to be a reader. She will sit for ages and ‘read’ us book after book after book. Some of these she’s memorized from many, many nights of reading the same ones (Pajama Time, Bear Snores On) overandoverandover and others she’ll just make up her own story from the pictures. She also reads to her toys, the dogs, the cats, and anyone/thing who will listen to her. And a TV watcher she is not (just like her mama). 15 minutes of Sesame Street to see the Elmo’s World segment is all she’s interested in.
She loves lambs (yams). My mom gave her one for Christmas and he’s become the center of her world who has spawned (not literally) a plethora of sheep around our house. Original ‘yam’ is no longer allowed out of our house after a scary gone missing episode so there are now several specific breeds of yams living here – there’s a daycare yam and a car yam and, well, you get the picture.
She’s finally learned to dance. She’s always been very good at slam dancing and had a promising future in the mosh pit but she’s finally getting it that the rest of her body can move, too. Now, if I could only undo the part where we thought it would be cute to teach her to sing and shake her KC and the Sunshine Band ‘booty.’ Yeah, it was cute when she was 18 months old – not so much now.
She’s our baby, our chick, chicklet, munchkin, chicken little, baby chick, silly goosey, baby turkey (to which she responds that Daddy is a big turkey – true words, little one) and many other nicknames (some that are even non-poultry) that came from out of nowhere. She can spell her name (thank heavens we gave her an easy one) and loves to look for A’s and V’s everywhere we go. I can sit her down with a word find puzzle book and it will keep her entertained endlessly while she looks for and circles all the A’s and V’s she can find. She can say her whole (very long) name with only a little prompting and already pronounces our multi-syllable and somewhat R-laden last name easier than I can after 14 years and better than 97% of the population does. She’s got our phone number down not at all (she can sorta get the numbers sometimes) and is convinced that 991 will connect her straight to the fire station.
Oh, and she does love the fire station. We must drive past ours at least once daily. That’s all J, by the way. She can spot a fire truck 42 miles away and will talk about it endlessly. You’d think I’d be used to this with her daddy already…
She’s a silly, funny girl who loves to laugh. She also loves to tickle and be tickled but only in the afternoon/evening. Heaven help you if you tickle her in the morning before she’s had a chance to fully wake up. You might pull back a bloody stump if you try. My little chick loves her sleep and will tell us it’s time for bed if we don’t have her tucked in by 8:30. She sleeps most nights from 8PM to 8AM and still naps for 2 hours during the day. The good sleep now is much appreciated after the not so much sleep after we first brought her home.
She’s failing (okay, they call it not progressing) Colors at daycare but after some frantic worry about colorblindness I’ve figured out that she knows her colors well enough but refuses to cooperate if you’re just flashing cards at her. So much for that compliance I was talking about earlier. And so much for all those visions I had pre-child of how much time we were going to spend on educational activities like flashcards. Well, she does like to carry them around in her purse so it’s not like it’s a total waste, I guess. Oh yeah, and her favorite color is purple.
She also has impeccable table manners for a toddler. She is all about no elbows on the table and will politely ask to be excused when she’s finished. The rule is that we all stay at the table until the meal is done and she’s pretty much fine with that. She is not allowed to be up and running around with food ever – at home or in public – and this has paid off for us in that we can pretty much take her anywhere to eat. It would only be more perfect if she came equipped with a working volume control button. She’s not quite consistently grasped the inside and outside voice concept yet.
I guess I could sum it all up by saying that she is most stupendous kid ever and we are blessed beyond measure to have her in our lives. She is kind and loving and fun and amazing and we love her more than anything in the whole world.
I agonized over what we would do for her third birthday party. How big? How elaborate? How many people? Where should we have it? What should the theme be? And so on and so on and so on. In fact, I agonized over it so long that I ran out of time to actually plan it.
So, in the absence of a better plan, on the Friday prior to the actual date we did a daycare party. I threw together a quick Sesame Street theme, ordered a (cupcake) cake, and J and I took a few hours from work off to go distribute cupcakes and pour juice.
The cake was cool. I think I want one for MY birthday. Half vanilla – half chocolate – and plenty of red food coloring.
It was a hit.
Just goes to show that for a successful party you really only need good company and lots of sugar – the bouncy castle and pony rides are clearly superfluous. The kids were thrilled with the Elmo plates! And the cupcakes! And the red juice! Apparently they talked about it all day long (and then some). They also took great pleasure in seeing who could smear the frosting from bow to stern the fastest. I so wish I could show you all the pictures and video because they were hysterical but I don’t want to post them without parents’ permission so I won’t.
And let me tell you, having a successful daycare party took a load off of me. I know I’ll have to suck it up at some point but I really didn’t want to this year when she still doesn’t quite get the whole birthday thing anyway. This left us free to just enjoy her birthday the (relatively) low stress way.
With presents:
I’ll spare you the 500 other photos showing (virtually) a time lapse sequence of the wrapping paper massacre that followed. You’re welcome.
Then a trip to the museum with Isabelle and family:
There was much joyful (and probably annoying to others) running. But since it was her birthday AND we were at a kid’s museum we let them have at it.
We did have a small mishap involving new shoes and a blister so J got tasked with tracking down a band-aid while I pocketed the offending shoes. While he filled out an incident report (mentally cursing me the whole time, I’m sure) and assured them we did not need additional medical attention I magically mama-produced a whole new pair of non-matching shoes. Being that he was the one who came back with a Scooby-Doo band-aid he, however, garnered all the glory.
Once the mangled limb tiny blister was treated our nature walk continued.
See, the daddies still getting all the lovin’. Not that the mamas minded a little time to chat. Nope, not at all.
After a little more Daddy playtime…
and some educational artwork…
it was time to say goodbye after a quick spin on the garden statuary.
We’d hoped to end the day with a lazy dinner and a trip to Build-a-Bear except life intervened and we ended up with a horrible dinner at a new Mongolian Grill (blech – non-authentic, overpriced, and horrid wait staff), a not quite open yet new B-a-B store. and J having to change some ladies’ flat tire on the side of the road because no one else would help them. Ava and I plopped down on a bench to observe the goings on.
He’s a good role model, I think. And it made him swear that she will learn how to change her own flat tire so as not to be stranded and helpless as these ladies were.
I think we might wait ’til she’s 4 to teach her that, though.
Mind you, in between all the gallivanting around there was also more cake, more gifts from friends and neighbors, and more birthday love than she’ll ever know. All in all, I think she had a pretty good birthday. I hope it will always be a happy day for her. I know it is for us.
On the last day of each gymnastics class session (well, it was supposed to also be the last day of gymnastics but the many snow days nixed that plan) they invite the paparazzi in to take pictures and we were determined to make it this time since in the past we’d always skipped the last day for one reason or another. This makes me terribly sad since I have no pictures of her when she first started out in gymnastics at just 18(ish) months old.
Hard to believe she’s been at this for 18(ish) months now.
Like her mama, she loves the bars and she’s a natural at them. It’s amazing to me (and to her teachers) how easily she can work the rings and how much upper body strength she has already. It is nothing for her to flip 5-10 times straight on the rings – perfectly rotating her shoulders – without ever being taught or even encouraged to do so.
She adores the trampoline.
The plan was for Daddy to escort Ava around (it’s a parent/child class) and I would take pictures. This worked out moderately well for about 15 minutes until she decided that Daddy would just not do and implemented her plan to replace Daddy with Mama by laying down on the balance beam and refusing to get up. Her method worked very well and we swapped out with me in clothing that was NOT at all suitable for chasing an almost 3 year old around a gym.
She likes the beam, too. It’s second favorite, I’d say.
With Daddy:
And without:
There are zero pictures of her in or around the vault area because she hates it. Really, really loathes it. Occasionally she’ll give a half hearted bounce and attempt a leg over the mini foam horse but mostly she just clings and whines and goes all boneless – refusing to participate. I totally understand her feelings on this. I HATED the vault with a passion and never was any good at it despite my best efforts.
And no pictures from the floor either. J was over all the mama/papa/grandparent jockeying for prime photog position so he gave up. I had no problem with this because by then it was pandemonium and no one was focused on gymnastics anyway. It was all I could do to keep Ava pointed in the right direction and sort of participating in the routine they’d set up. After I had to climb in and drag her out of the loooonnng tunnel by one leg since she decided to just sit down right in the middle of it I kind of gave up too. After a lot of running amok, some parachute play, and a sticker she was Done (with a capital D) and so were we.
But.
We? Are gluttons for punishment.
So we headed for our local amusement park figuring she’d accommodate our timing perfectly and grab a quick nap in the car before we met up with friends.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
No nap. No lunch (her choice).
Except we walked in and she promptly commandeered Izzy’s popcorn. Seriously. Izzy offered to share and Ava took the whole bucket with nary a please or a thank you.
And then she grew up more right before my eyes when she told us that she wanted to ride the horses with Izzy – not Mama and/or Daddy.
So she did.
With J and I waving like idiots every.single.time she went around.
Then we got to watch an employee drop a 5 day old baby lamb on its head. That was fun trying to explain to Ava who was simply heartbroken that the little lamb fell down. She has a thing for ‘yams.’ The baby ‘yam’ was okay, by the way.
More rides and more BFF time followed (for all of us).
And more popcorn.
Wait! Where’s it going???
Oh well, all good things must come to an end.
And it ended thusly.
Back in the Fall of ’09 we got word that the Terracotta Warriors were coming to town. And by town I mean 3 hours north of us in Washington, DC. Since we weren’t able to see them while we were in China (big country – way too much to pack into a short trip) we knew that a road trip was in order. Every so often I’d log on to the website to purchase tickets but I never bought them because we couldn’t quite agree on a convenient day or time – the holidays, my surgery, the horrendous weather all conspired against us – so it was pretty late in the game when I figured out that a)these were pretty hot tickets and were quickly selling out and that b)they were finishing up the exhibit in only a few short weeks.
Panic ensued and I bought 3 tickets for a middle of the week date/time. Fortunately it coincided with a teacher workday at her daycare so J and I just decided to make it a holiday for all of us. Our tickets were for 2PM so we didn’t have to be up at the crack of dawn and would have plenty of time to find parking and meander around DC for a little while.
The day started like this:
While she didn’t look terribly comfortable it must have been okay since she slept almost the entire 3 hours we were in the car. This was awesome since we knew that a midday nap was unlikely with all the activity going on.
Traffic was a bear, of course. It always is. Fortunately we got a bit of a boost by being able to utilize the HOV lane but then ended up being stuck right by DCA for a while. This quite possibly was Ava’s favorite part of the whole day since she could see airplanes – and point them out to us overandoverandoverandover again. Oh, and we saw a train too. It was at that point where she nearly passed out from excitement. We, on the other hand, were not so thrilled. Not sure what event, beyond the standard everyday protests, that brought out the hordes of tourists but the thought of mowing over a couple of them that didn’t seem to understand the placement of crosswalks was mighty tempting.
After J could drive no more without bringing on a major cardiac event he zipped into a parking garage that may or may not have been close to the museum. The draw, for him, was the Five Guys on the corner. Who cares if we have to walk 40 city blocks to get anywhere else? Fortification was near and it was almost lunchtime.
Except I, forgetting that my husband turns into a goblin if he goes for 10 minutes past lunchtime without food, convinced him that if we just walked a couple of blocks toward the mall we would be able to find better (for you) food than the fat and calorie laden burgers that Five Guys offers. So we walked. A lot. And we did not find food quickly. We found the White House (big deal – seen it a million times) and we found all the monuments (also big deal – been there done that) but we could not find a place to eat in the whole of Washington, DC that we could agree upon.
By this point we’re barely speaking, preferring instead to growl. The goblin is hungry, the kid is not yet able to facilitate communication between us when we don’t want to actually talk to each other, and so we end up in the food court of the Ronald Reagan building out of desperation. The food court, people. The food court in which we had to go through airport style security to enter. The security at which I had to be wanded, spread eagle style (no, not like THAT) before they would clear me to enter. It did wonders for the mood of the day, let me tell you. And after we finally made it in? The only one who ate was Ava after a screaming fit about not wanting to ride in her stroller (tough – she did anyway). Wanna guess where J and I ate? Yeah, that would be the Five Guys near the car.
I do own 93% of the responsibility for that fiasco, by the way.
Fortunately J and I don’t stay mad long so we dropped off the stroller and other stuff to make the 14-ish block hike to the museum. Seriously. And we did it with no stroller and a kid who alternated between wanting to run amok in the streets or suddenly deciding mid-intersection that she didn’t want to walk anymore therefore suddenly going all boneless and limp leaving J to drag her by her arm out of the road or to throw her onto his shoulders at which time she screamed like she was being kidnapped. Nice.
Now mind you, J and I had no idea what this museum looked like or where it was at all so we were somewhat surprised to come across a rather unassuming building with lines wrapped around it with people waiting to get in and ticket scalpers surreptitiously making deals. It was a bit surreal, honestly. Warriors = ancient rock stars. Who knew?
Did I mention it was like 50 ga-thousand degrees outside? Yep. And inside, too.
And honestly, my first thought after entering the exhibit was something along the lines of “Meh, this is it?”. There were some impressive bits of jewelry, weaponry, and decor along with some patched up warriors but I was expecting so much more.
Which I got as soon as we went into the second part of the exhibit. J and I tag teamed Ava so we each got some time to walk around and examine the warriors – so cool that there’s absolutely no way I can adequately describe it. Even though I’ve read about them and how detailed they were you just don’t get it until you see how perfectly formed these statues are. The details were amazing – belt buckles, strands of hair, the soles of their shoes – just incredible. And to think they’ve survived since 210BC…it boggles the mind.
Ava did mostly great, by the way. Once we convinced her that she didn’t need to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ at the top of her lungs to everyone who walked by (seriously, I finally told her that she could no longer sing inside unless she whispered but that she was welcome to sing it as loud as she wanted out of doors*) then she was definitely the best behaved child in there until we tried to stand her beside a faux warrior strategically placed for photo ops. Then – not so much. She made it clear that experience was rated a great big DISLIKE! However the gift shop was another matter entirely and she cajoled us into buying her a glittery gold piggybank that probably cost $2 in China but cost us at least 4 times that much since it had a National Geographic tag stamped on it’s tush. And the souvenir magazine photo with J and Ava that cost us like 8 bucks? Can’t even find it.
But I have this:
Ava was giving me the fake smile and I think J was channeling his inner Captain Morgan for fortification for the trip home being that it was rapidly approaching the 5PM witching hour. You know, the one that he didn’t drive because both he and Ava were soon like this:
All in all, a good day. Glad we went and I hope to be able to actually see it in China someday! 7-8 years from now when we get our next referral, perhaps?
*The stage whispered singing was actually rather amusing and the bursting into song as soon as we exited the building was pretty freakin’ hysterical.