Kisses Fix Everything, Don’t They?
You held up your finger to me for a kiss, having gotten it caught in the zipper of your pajamas. I obliged and asked you, as always, “all better?”. You nodded yes and turned over, with your thumb in your mouth and your special Red B in hand. Eyes closed, you drifted off to sleep, tucked into the warmth and safety of my arms.
I could not sleep. I lie awake thinking of how I wish that I could always fix your worries with a simple kiss.
You’re a strange mix of baby and little girl, not really either one or the other, with a foot in both worlds. Some days you assert your independence to the fullest degree possible and others, you retreat to the safety and ease of having Mommy do it all for you.
It’s a new world we are navigating, with me having to decide when to hold on and when to let go. I feel breathless and dizzy thinking about how fast your life is traveling. Soon, too soon, you will be in preschool, surrounded by other children but without anyone with which you are familiar around you. You need this. I know you will love it. But my heart squeezes and skips a beat when I think about it. I remember how terrifying my first day of school was. But I have to keep reminding myself that you are not me.
What I do know is life throws us curve balls. Usually when we least expect it. I may not always be able to fix your problems with a simple kiss. I will always offer one, along with a shoulder to cry on, a hug, and an ear that will always be yours.
For now, I’ll continue to cherish the moments that are fixed with a kiss.
My Tale of Insanity
You might not realize this about me, but I’m a curmudgeon about Halloween. Fall in general really. I hate that summer is over and I despise the dark coming so early in the day. I cringe at the thought of the upcoming SIX MONTHS OF RAIN RAIN NOTHING BUT RAIN. All my favorite food bloggers are obsessed with pumpkin bread, pumpkin pies, pumpkin soup, pumpkin donuts, pumpkin, pumpkin everywhere. Oh yeah, and I think pumpkin must have come from Satan’s anus, because that shit is nasty.
As for Halloween itself, meh. After working 8 hours and dealing with people all day long, the last thing I want to do is open my door 80 million times and toss candy at strange children. Most of whom won’t even have the good manners to utter a thank you as they trample across your newly planted fall pansies. I normally spend the evening holed up in the back of my house with all the lights off, hoping none of them will even sense movement inside, and thus, pounce on me.
See? Curmudgeon. Get off my lawn.
Ahem.
So it came as a huge shock to me to find myself purchasing Halloween lights, fake spider webs, pumpkin lights, cardboard cut outs of bats, spider, owls and vampires last night, and spending an hour decorating the front of my house. I strung lights, ran fake “crime tape”, put stickers on windows and taped decorations to even more windows. And? While it might not look like I give a shit about it, my three year old came home from dinner with her dad to a house that was all lit up and squealed “It’s Halloween!” and “I love dese pumpkins!”
And that my friends, is why I went bat shit insane last night and turned my house orange.
P.S. Yes, we are taking her trick or treating. She’s going to be Strawberry Shortcake. Stay tuned for adorableness of that costume.
A Week in Ava-Ville
My day care provider, aka my ex-mother-in-law, was out of town this week, and as such, I took the opportunity to take four days off work and spend some quality time with my little munchkin.
I mean, I see her pretty much every day, except for the weekends she’s with her dad, but still, there was something glorious about being alone with her for 6 days, with no place we had to be, no things we HAD to do.
We slept late. We played silly games. We had tickle fights and cuddles on the sofa.
We baked cupcakes and made dinners and lunches together.
We painted our toes sparkly purple.
We had playdates with 3 year old BFFs.
We invited Nana and Papa for dinner, while Ava provided the after dinner dance for entertainment.
We went shopping for big girl underwear and have had a good run of potty training.
We went to the zoo, where she saw all sorts of animals, and was enthralled by the bugs and got to brush pygmy goats.
We ate ice cream and stuffed ourselves silly on fresh strawberries and cantaloupe.
I made it a point to unplug from the world as much as I could, and be there. Not just be physically present, but mentally as well. Not worried about blog posts, or updating Facebook with where we were. No stumbling, digging, pinning or tweeting.
I know these moments in which she wants to be with me are fleeting and will end all too soon. But for now I hold warm, fuzzy memories in my heart of the last 6 days. A week in the life of Ava. What a gift and a treat.
Don’t step too fast, baby girl. Not too fast.
So that I don’t forget…
Octopus is applepus.
Binoculars is knockers.
White fluffy dandelions are blowey blows.
Mud is muuuuuud (said in a Southern drawl worthy of your heritage).
Dancing is called singing.
Singing is done in a very soft voice, very monotone.
Your favorite blanket, Red B, is a she. You cuddle and hug her while murmuring “I love you so much, Red B”.
The toy stethoscope you got for Christmas is called your “Doctor peoples”.
You like to take my temperature with your toy “mometer”.
Nothing elicits more squeals than the slide.
You like to take paper and safety scissors and play “sciss”.
In addition to juice, you also like to drink eminade.
Your favorite place to sleep is cuddled in my arms. I hate to say no, even though I do some nights, because I know one day you will not want this closeness.
Fresh or cooked spinach is a no go, but put it into spinach dip? You will devour it.
You make friends so easily, running up to children on the playground and yelling “Hi, kid!”.
You like to wink at me during dinner, something I spent months teaching you to do. It’s our special thing. To wink and smile as we enjoy our meal.
You love touch now, something you spent so long avoiding. Your hand will seek mine. Your cheek will press against mine. Your back will press against my tummy as we cuddle.
You can dress yourself from head to toe. One morning you took off your pajamas and dressed yourself as a surprise while I was in the shower. I was so very proud.
Every day, you make me proud. You’re smart, and funny and I adore every single day with you.
One day you’ll be grown and off on a life of your own. I write these things so that when that time comes, I will remember. So that I don’t forget.
Love,
Mommy
Three
Today, my darling girl, you turned three.
There was food, and presents, and candles that you blew out not once, not twice, not three times, but at least four times. We sang happy birthday as you beamed with excitement. Your best friend Ella was here to celebrate with you. You bounced together, squirted each other with water pistols, played with all your toys, new and old.
We celebrated you today. Not just because you’re three. But because you are so special.
Today you are such a remarkably different girl than two. Three can unwrap her own presents. Three can climb the slide at the playground without fear. Three can put on her own shoes, and her own clothes. Three can speak in full sentences, when the you of two worried me about your lack of speech. Three can fully articulate what you need.
I cannot tell you how much my heart melts when you run to me, arms open wide, and say “MOMMY! I missed you!”. I cannot tell you how much my insides burst with happiness when you hug me and say “I love you Mommy”, without me telling you first.
I can’t tell you how proud I am of you when you share your toys and your snacks. I can’t tell you how I teared up today when you walked up to a strange girl on the playground, without fear and said “Come on, let’s play”.
I can’t tell you all these things because there simply aren’t words that will do my feelings justice.
I am so blessed to watch you grow into such a remarkable young girl. Even though each step forward, each new skill, takes you one step closer to independence. One step farther away from me. I want for you all the confidence and joy that is possible.
I wear these, every day:
Your name engraved on both. But they mean so much more to me than that. Every time my bracelet jingles, or I touch my necklace, I think of you and your sweet smile.
This past year has been a challenging one. You have faced it all and come through it with more grace than I have. You definitely know how to roll with the punches.
I hope your day was as joyful as mine was. Today is special to us both. it’s the day you came into the world. And it’s the day I became mommy to the most precious girl in the world.
Happy Birthday, sweet angel. I love you to the moon and back. 
How I Got My Groove Back – The Holiday Version
Last Christmas, Ava was only 18 months old. She wasn’t really into the whole lights, presents, gorge-yourself-until-you-spew aspect of the holiday. I was only mildly disappointed in her reaction to the 80 billion Christmas lights we strung up in the house. I knew her time was coming.
Fast forward a year. Ava is now 2 1/2. Every Christmas decoration we pass makes her giggle with delight. In Target, we spend a good hunk of our time just sitting in the tree section while she gazes wondrously at all the lights and exclaiming CHRISTMAS TREE over and over for the whole store to hear. It does no good to ask her to turn her volume down a bit. She’s simply too over come with excitement.
A house on our street has their yard decorations up, complete with an inflatable Charlie Brown and Snoopy, who just happen to be one of Ava’s current obsessions. I slow down each night as we near that house so that she can get a good look. Hearing the delight in her voice? Makes my heart oh, so happy.
I decided about a week ago I was going to get Ava her very own little tree. One that was pre-lit (she adores the colors of the lights). I hit up Target on Wednesday, only to discover they were sold out. Crap. I had been imagining the joy on her little face for days and I left highly disappointed. Not to be defeated, I cruised through Wal-Mart last night. Ding, ding, ding! Winner. A tree, and 4 packs of non breakable ornaments for under $30. SCORE!
I packed it all in my car, and picked up Ava. We headed home and had dinner. I kept the tree in my car, wanting to surprise her after she ate. I knew if I brought it out before dinner, my chances of getting her to actually eat anything would be worse than my chances of winning the next Power Ball.
While she played on the floor with her cars, I sneaked out to my car and brought in the tree. I de-boxed it. (If that’s not a word, it should be) I straightened out all the branches. I grabbed the video camera with one hand, and the tree with the other and headed down the hall.
That girl simply exploded with joy. I’ve never seen her so full of happiness and excitement. We plugged it in, and I opened up all the ornaments. We spent 15 minutes with her directing where they should go. Then? An hour admiring it. And saying CHRISTMAS TREE!
This morning, it was the second thing out of her mouth. When I left for work, she was sitting beside it, getting ready to direct her father on where it should be placed next in the house.
That little girl once again reminded me of what this season is about. Family. Joy. Doing something for others. She’s my family. Making her happy is all that I need. She may not remember this Christmas. But I certainly will. Thank you, baby girl. For giving me so much joy. I hope I can always give as much back to you.
Two Plus
You can put on your own shoes, without any help from me.
All bodies of water, whether they be rivers, ponds or lakes, to you, are called oceans.
You like to sit with an iPod and watch “Woogies” (Movies)
You very rarely have to be prompted to say Thank You.
You are obsessed with Alvin and the Chipmunks. You always want to cuddle for certain parts of the film.
You put your hands on your hips and sigh when something doesn’t go your way.
At the dinner table, when we are finished eating, you place your chin in your hands, look at one of us and say “So….” As if you are asking us to tell you about our day.
You love bubble baths and would spend hours in there, until the water is icy cold, if you were allowed to.
You love to play doctor and give everyone shots with your little syringe. After each shot, you always say “Sorry”.
Our current nickname for you is Silly Goose. And you often say “I’m a silly goose”.
You love to twirl. You spin round and round with your eyes pointed opposite the direction that you are traveling. It is known as Psycho Eyes.
You have a new-found love for your toy kitchen. You cook things and then place them in the fridge to cool down, just as mommy and daddy do with your food at dinner.
You no longer sleep alone, but with a menagerie of stuffed friends: Bear, Monkey, Abby, Puppy and Kitty. Pretty soon there will not be room in the bed for you!
You love having your toenails painted, or as you call it, making them pretty.
Everything has dead batteries if it doesn’t operate the way you think it should.
You hug freely and often now, the sweet girl I had hoped would be on the other side of the terrible twos shining through in small flashes.
All these things, on their own, are small things. Added up, they make up who you are and why I adore you so much.
Keep twirling, baby girl.
Terrible Two
Ava has always been an easygoing girl. From birth on up, she managed to roll with the punches of most anything we threw at her. Shots? She’d cry, sure, but it didn’t last long. Drop her off for an overnight stay with Gramma? She’d look at us like, would you guys just go already?
When we started solid foods, she ate every veggie we offered. Sure, a lot of it wound up on her face or the floor, but she never refused a food.
We marveled at this child that started sleeping through the night when she was three weeks old, this child who could miss a nap and be just as sunny and cheerful as a girl who slept for three hours.
I hoped, wished, prayed that this would mean the terrible twos would not hit us so hard. It was a silly, stupid thing to think, I know.
Because oh brother, has it hit us.
One of the character traits I truly wish Ava had not inherited is my temper. I blame my German mother for the fury that sometimes flows through my veins. My mother blames my father, saying he had a terrible temper. ( I never saw evidence of this, but then again, he was ill for most of my childhood/teenage years).
At any rate, my sweet, loving little munchkin has now been nicknamed Sybil. You see one minute she’s being all adorable, sitting in my lap, playing “squish mommy’s face” and the next, like a feral cat who realized it’s sitting on a gasp! human, she yelling, kicking and screaming. The child literally turns on a dime.
When she’s pushed to the point of pure, white hot fury, her favorite thing to do is to back up slowly, and then plop on the ground. This is usually preceded by stretching her arms out in front of her, faced turning red, and shaking said arms while growling.
It looks a little like this:
Yeah, she’s cute, even when yelling.
Some days? It is the only thing that saves her. The cute.
I think in some ways I set myself up, thinking that perhaps we would evade the emotional roller coaster ride. Perhaps that is why I am having such a hard time dealing with the near constant state of animosity that Ava emits.
She asks for water. I give it to her. She throws the cup on the floor. She says “eat”. I put food in front of her. She grabs it and squishes it in her tiny, chubby little fingers until it looks as though it went through the garbage disposal.
At times, I am able to reason with her. I explain that we can’t go outside now, because it’s too cold (the mornings here can be quite chilly, even in summer), or that it’s too hot. She says “ohkay” and moves on to something else.
Other times her desire to do something is so strong or her ability to communicate what she wants to me is lacking and we both become frustrated with each other, I think.
For me, life has been overwhelming of late, and I have the gift of verbal skills. I know my own frustrations have colored my interactions with her. I seem to reach my breaking point before I ever realize how bad things are; only then do I reach out and ask for help and admit how low I have sunk.
For now, I’m working on carving out some additional alone time. Hoping that will allow me to take a step back, take a deep breath and not over react when confronted with this:
Because I really do love my daughter more than anything else in this entire world. When she’s not having an epic meltdown?
I get moments like this:
Like, Whoa.
I do believe this is the longest I’ve ever gone without posting here.
Life got in mah way.
I changed hosts, and thanks to many long hours of hard work on Caitlin’s part, the move to a new host is now completed and I can play again.
And Miss Avacakes.
Oh what a rollercoaster we’ve been on.
The terrible two’s have arrived with a vengance. She wasted no time. Most days she has her independence dial cranked up to 11, as Darin says. I hear a lot of “No! Mine” and “N! I do it!”
Or the just plain old “NO!” when I have the audacity to stroke her hair or put my hand gently on her back.
And then there are moments like last night. We have a nightly routine in which Caillou is involved, as well as “cudde” (cuddle) on the bed before nigh night time. Twice she rather abruptly jumped up and flung herself at me, embracing me in a bear hug, pressing her tiny little head against my chest.
Ava has had the pleasure of being at home all week, due to my mother in law catching the same plague that also blessed our house. Ava has been in the care of her grandfather, NanaJean, myself and Darin in a tag team effort of child care this week. On mornings that I had to leave her, she barrled across the room at me and hugged me tight, and in some cases even kissed me without me asking first.
Needless to say, I soak up these moments as though they were rays of sunshine on a cloudy day. Those are moments to treasure, ones that I want to freeze and burn into my memory forever. For I know that they are all too rare, too fleeting.
I find myself bursting with pride at the little girl that is emerging. She says “Thank you” without much, if any prompting these days. “Please” is harder to come by, but we’re working on it.
The best thing of all is that she finally had a speech evaluation and even though she’s a little behind, she’s not a candidate for therapy. She’s been making remarkable progress and is putting together small sentences and is more often than not, using more than one word a time now.
We have been having very interesting phone conversations in which I do most of the talking. She tells me about watching Caillou, going to the park, and gives me the low down on what has a dead battery. (If something doesn’t work the way she thinks it ought to, she says it’s either “broke” or has “dead battery”) This morning I told her I loved her and missed her over the phone and her response was “Ok, bye!” Not long on sentiment, this one.
I, for my part, have finally emerged from my allergy imposed indoor isolation and am able to spend some time outdoors without feeling as though I had been punched in the face afterwards. Which is nice, now that summer has finally arrived. Hopefully this weekend we can bust out the kiddie pool and create more adorable memories.
If you’re still reading this, I assume you’re either related to me or a really good friend. Either way, thanks for sticking around while we went through our transformation here.
I write here
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