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Some things are better together...

June 27, 2006

So I don't really want this diary to turn into a regurgitation of our day to day events, but as I sit down to write this entry I can see that's where this one's going to lead. As I begin to again observe my life through the filter of writing about it I am seeing the profound in the mundane again. I am seeing Ava making progress, I am thinking about things I want her to know when she's older and it tends to get tied to events. So as I jotted notes about some things I wanted to be sure to write about, sure enough it was all around some day to day events over the past couple of days. I will say again, it's nice to be back.

Friday night John, Ava and I were invited to a baseball game. Our town has a minor league team and the games are really pretty fun. A company we work with on a regular basis gave us extra tickets to their box, so we had the advantage of a suite, free food and beverage. The bonus certainly was the space for Ava to move around. She loved the game, but would have never been able to make it past the second inning if she would have had to stay in her seat in the general admission part of the ball park. Ava has been going through a stage of being fascinated by stories from her baby days. Since we drive by the ball park often, I tell her about her first baseball game when she was only about 6-7 weeks old. John's law firm has a suite and we took her to the game. I tell her about how when she was a baby she went to the baseball game, but slept in my arms for most of it. She loves that story... Probably MY stronger recollection of that night was trying to find a place to nurse her that didn't involve me flashing senior partners at John's firm he still didn't have a solid offer from! Fortunately for me one of the partner's wives was a lactation consultant so she subtly stood in front of me while I got Ava situated. I don't think anyone even noticed! So she walked all over the suite on Friday night telling people 'when I a baby I go to a baseball game and slept in my mama's arms!' Melt me!

Saturday morning I slept in about as late as I can remember. 8:30am!!! Ava woke up around 6:00am and John brought her back to our bed. We all fell back to sleep and I could have been more surprised to see Ava's face and hear her little chirpy voice right in front of me at 8:30am. It was luxurious given that our usual wake up time is around 6:30am. We had plans Saturday night to go to a wedding, so a sitter was coming for Ava. I was worried that she wouldn't nap given how late she slept, so I decided to take her over to my folk's house for a quick dip in their pool before naptime. I was a mom on a mission. My sweet girl loves the water. It has been such fun to see her grow more and more comfortable swimming as the summer moves along. She starts swimming lessons the Saturday after the 4th of July, which will be great. Once in the pool I set about to wear her out. She loves to climb the ladder and jump back into the water where John or I will catch her. I was encouraging her to see if she could jump bigger, higher... and she loved it. We did that about 100 times, then she got in her little fishie inner-tube/boat and we kicked back and forth, back and forth through the water. She was just having a ball. We did about 10 laps back and forth and I literally drug her out of the water and took her home. When I laid her down for a nap she took her 'two' (her beloved blanket), popped her thumb in her mouth, rolled over and started snoring. Success!

Saturday evening John and I went to a wedding for a young woman who is a daughter of some friends of ours. The wedding was pretty standard fare. The message was nice, about the importance of communication in marriage. But sitting at the wedding, listening to the sermon, left me thinking about what I hope for Meghan, Lane and Ava in their partnerships. What John and I have found in each other pledged to each other and tried to live out in our day to day lives... its kindness. The way we have chosen to look at our relationship is as the most profound relationship either of us will ever have. Relationships are very fragile things, even in the midst of a great love. If you don't treat your partner with kindness you can peck away at what makes the relationship special. Especially once the initial infatuation settles into a more mature love – tied to bills, a house, children and other responsibilities. I would be a big fat liar to say we've always succeeded – we certainly fight, we've certainly exchanged cross words, but honestly not that often. What I do know is that John is kind to me. He doesn't make fun of me (about anything big, he does tease me about things sometimes), he doesn't criticize me. And so that means I always feel safe with him. I can tell him what's on my mind and know that it's safe with him. I can share my failures and celebrate my successes and I know it's safe. I believe I do the same for him. And that is just amazing. I hope for all the kids they can be that person in a relationship and receive it from another. Because now after all these years together I feel more in love, in a different way, than the day we stood on the beach in the Virgin Islands and said our vows.

This week I have experienced a first with Ava and one that was much sooner coming than I ever would have guessed. On Monday she was absolutely insistent that she wear a dress to daycare. No way, no how was she getting out of the house with anything but a dress on. Not a skirt. A dress. She only has 2-3 little dresses and only one was clean, so I put that one on her. We roll into daycare and I see her little friends are also wearing dresses, although not all the little girls in the room. Just Claire, Ellie and Destiny (Ava's 'best' friends) Ava goes running up to them and says 'See, I have a dress on just like you.' In the hallway I run into Claire's mother and ask her about this. Apparently this began a couple of weeks ago when Ava made the transition to the 'big kids' room. That little gaggle of girls had been friends when they were all in the 'twos' room and now that the band is back together they are apparently identifying themselves with dresses. I'm not really sure how I feel about this. Although I suppose it does say something about how I feel that I went to babyGap over my lunch hour today and picked up a couple of new dresses for Ava (who again today would only wear a dress to school). I guess I am not crazy about this kind of peer pressure or clique starting so darn early in her life. But I also see wanting to relate to her friends. These girls are all a little bit older than Ava (6-8 months) so she especially looks up to them. I want to respect her preferences for something as 'easy' as clothing. Dresses are easy for her to wear, easy in the whole potty training context, great for summer... So I guess I won't make a big deal out of it. Courtesy of my noontime shopping excursion she now has 5 dresses total. That's enough to facilitate this choice most, but certainly not all, days.

Not to over analyze this (who me?) I was watching a Tivo-ed Oprah show last night and saw the Rabbi who is the host of 'Shalom in the Home' on TLC. I've never seen the show, but was very interested in the Oprah show featuring a number of families who were struggling with boundaries in raising their kids. I liked what he had to say about loving your children unconditionally, setting boundaries, letting that love fill them instead of 'things.' I think this is a big part of my internal dialog about parenting Ava. I want to set boundaries for her. I don't want her to grow up with an expectation of material possessions. I certainly want her to respect our authority as parents without instilling fear. It's a delicate balance. Because I also want to respond to her own desires and preferences within that context. I want her to have a sense of her own power and autonomy while still having a healthy respect for authority. It reminds me of that great Susan Sarandon quote. I may be paraphrasing slightly, but it is something like; "I taught my kids to question authority without realizing the first authority they'd question would be me."

But by the way, while I was browsing in the Gap I saw an '80's comeback item that literally shocked me. Tapered, ankle length jeans with.... Wait for it.... A ZIPPER at the ankle. Am I the only one who had to babysit for like, six months, to buy a pair of those Guess jeans in eighth grade? I'm horrified they are back! What's next, brightly colored socks (that match your shirt, of course) with Keds, sans laces? A big ratty perm that requires Aqua Net for extra volume? Shudder. Some trends should just be left where they belong.

So Ava has become borderline obsessed with 'sticky tape.' (Yes, she watches a lot of Dora – if you get the reference your kid probably does too!) This morning I was tidying up the house so the cleaning person could do her work and found sticky tape stuck in some surprising places. Clever child that she is, Ava has figured out how to get to the drawer that holds the sticky tape – I didn't realize she was hoarding her own roll in her super secret hiding spot (her Dora backpack). We have recently returned to having a person come clean our house every other week after nearly two years of a break. We took the break as a cost-cutting measure to try to pay off law school debt. I can't begin to tell you how nice it is to have someone clean. John and I did our best to divide up the household cleaning, but I still felt more of it fell to me. It wore at me – with a cleaning person coming twice a month now all we have to do is get the big chunks in between cleanings. So nice... I can only imagine where the cleaning person will find sticky tape as she does her work today.

John is winding his way back home after a quick work trip for a trial out of town. It will be nice to have him home. He has a terrible cold, so the trip has been especially tough on him. I'm going to scoot out to pick up my Patito and then pick up a pizza to welcome him home. No sense in dirtying up our newly cleaned kitchen! This weekend the whole family is off for a long weekend with John's extended family. Ava is thrilled. And I am looking forward to the road trip, even though it isn't to a glamorous locale. I have some very fond childhood memories of being stacked into the car, piled into an inexpensive hotel room with my family. Even thought it is a lot of family joy, it is just the kind of joy our family needs right now, I'd say...

Thanks for reading—

--Kate

PS I just spent some time playing with the HTML and trying to upload a picture. I couldn't get the picture uploaded (too big and I couldn't resize for some reason) and then I accidently lost the work I had done. (Save button, save button) So here's this entry. I'll keep playing with it.

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