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April 3, 2005
Make no mistake, Ava certainly embraces her transitional items and she has several. To recap, there’s her most beloved ‘nannie’ which is really one large, soft pink blanket, cut into four pieces and bound at the edges. When Ava was a baby she attached herself to the large blanket, but it was unwieldy and she would sometimes cover her face with it at night – freaking me right out. My mother graciously cut the big blanket into pieces - ‘nannies’ and we still have three of the four. They are omni-present. Then there is ‘two’ a duplicate of the big, original blanket. She sleeps with two, she rocks with two, but she doesn’t carry two around. Also we have ‘Blue Baby’ a small, soft baby doll with a hat and a pacifier my Grandma Jane got for Ava as a Christmas gift. Blue baby probably falls somewhere between nannie and two – blue baby goes lots of places, but is not as required as nannie.
But lately Ava continues to add to the items she attaches herself to. For example, John gave Ava Meghan and Lane’s copy of ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ which Ava refers to as ‘Max.’ We read it every night before bed, (along with two other favorites – ‘Cock-a-Moo-Moo’ and ‘Quick as a Cricket’) but Max goes into the crib with her at night. She’s also become very attached to her hooded towels, one with a duck, one with a bunny. She flipped out when I was trying to put her to bed Monday night that the ‘rabbit’ wasn’t in the crib with her. So what am I supposed to do? Why would I say no? So, into her crib goes nannie, blue baby, two, ‘Max,’ and the bunny hooded towel. On a weekend trip to Target Ava attached herself to a loaf of French bread. She carried it all over the store and howeled when I tried to put it back. I finally bought the darn thing because it was $1.50 worth of a point I didn’t feel like making over a meltdown in Target. Am I too indulgent? If it would have been a toy or something I don’t think I would have done that. But I guess my point is, she carried that stupid loaf of bread around the whole rest of the day, wouldn’t part with it. Is this normal behavior? What am I supposed to do? My usual source for ‘what’s my kid doing?’ babycenter.com wasn’t much help. And I’m stumped. As usual, I don’t want to give in to her every whim, but I also doing want to set up rules for rules sake, just to ‘win.’
Spring is starting to emerge in the great state of Iowa and I am immensely grateful. Daylight savings time was this weekend and I can’t wait for the evenings of playing outside with Ava. We really need to get her a swing set and sandbox. Our sweet Patito just loves being outside. She could run around for hours and still stomp her foot if we dare to mention that, perhaps, we should go back in the house. I like this aspect of her character quite a lot. I’m glad I don’t have to pry her away from the television etc… although there are certainly times I have thought to myself ‘it would be so nice if she would just sit and watch tv so I can clean the kitchen!’ With the coming of daylight savings time also comes the beginning of rowing season. Even as crazy as my job is right now I am fully committed to getting out on the water. Our first row with my new crew is Monday night. I am so excited! I am rowing this year with a womens master 8 – an experienced and fairly competitive boat. They’ve retained a coach to help us identify our strengths and areas needing improvement. Monday is supposed to be in the high 70’s and gorgeous. It means ‘sneaking’ out of work at 5pm to make it to the boat house, but I am choosing to look at this as required for my continued mental health.
Our family has had a very nice weekend this weekend. Lane is at his friend’s cabin – a gorgeous weekend for that. John and Meghan played tennis Saturday morning (both Meghan and Lane are on the school’s tennis team) and then I drove Meghan out to meet her boyfriend. We had a very nice talk about her impending graduation, graduation party and college decision. It looks like she is going to attend Drake University, here in Iowa. I am a little disappointed, not because Drake isn’t a fine school, academically, but I had hoped she would spread her wings more than that. She is such a vibrant, independent young woman. I hope, hope, hope this has nothing to do with the boyfriend, who is a year behind her in school, but I think we all know better than that.
Saturday afternoon we attended a baby shower for a former work colleague of mine and her wife - they were married in a commitment ceremony last year – they call each other wife, which is a term I happen to agree with and support. They are expecting their first child in July. It was a very fun party, packed to the gills with people. John and I got them some of Ava’s favorite books – “Where the Wild Things Are,” “Little Miss Spider,” and “8 Silly Monkeys” since they have chosen not to find out the gender of their baby. We decided not to bring Ava and let her play at Grandma and Grandpa’s house for a couple of hours. We figured we didn’t want to introduce them to the joys of toddlerhood before their little one was even born! Saturday night John cooked dinner for a work colleague and her boyfriend – a phenomenal meal of grilled lamb, stuffed tomatoes and roaster asparagus. We must have drunk a little too much wine and stayed up a little too late because Sunday morning we were moving pretty slow. We took Ava for a nice walk by the lake to get her good and tuckered for her afternoon nap. In fact I’m taking her naptime (and John’s naptime) to write this entry since that seems to be the only time I can grab right now. Tonight we’re having dinner with my extended family – in the meantime I’m trying to squeeze in some writing time for my sanity and trying to plow through some work so this week doesn’t kick my butt as bad as last week did.
When all I am doing is working, trying to squeeze in time with my family and not completely quit exercising it doesn’t lend to very interesting entries. But in a burst of organization I did FINALLY update Ava’s website. It has been, what, 8 months? Here’s the link of you want to take a peak at our family. Hopefully next time I’ll have more interesting things to report.
Until then, thanks for reading—
--Kate
http://babiesonline.com/babies/p/patito/
Password = Patito
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