My Tummy Girl

Tummy Girl by Roseanne Thong

Ava and I both love reading this book together. It makes her smile from page to page and it makes me cry every. single. time. It encompasses everything we've experienced with Ava in the past 2 years and will continue to enjoy, no doubt.

So, my lovely little girl, as you approach your 2nd birthday, here are some pictures reflecting on who you are in the whole two years that you've been on this Earth. The most blissful years that daddy and I have ever experienced.

Once there was a tummy girl...

....A full-of-warm-milk yummy girl,

A round-and-jiggly tummy girl,

Pink-as-a-piggly tummy girl,

Who loved to cuddle up and curl.

Once there was a bubble girl...

A getting-into-trouble girl,

A sudy, wudsy bubble girl,

A washing-off-the-mudsy girl,

Who made the water swish and swirl.

Once there was a hiding girl...

A dash-from-mommy's side-ing girl,

A crawl-behind-the-curtain girl,

Beneath the chair, for CERTAIN girl,

Who scampered off just like a squirrel.

Once there was a waddling girl...

A teeter-totter toddling girl,

An "I can do it!" waddling girl,

A wrapped-in-cotton-swaddling girl,

Whose diapers started to unfurl.

Once there was a feeding girl...

While-mom-and-dad-were-reading girl,

A nice-big-spoonful-munching girl,

A drippy, milky, crunching girl,

Who stirred her breakfast with a swirl. Once there was a running girl...

An in-the-rain-and-sunning girl,

A racing -through-the-thickets girl,

A chasing-bugs-and-crickets girl,

Who loved to dash and dart and whirl.
Once there was a swinging girl...

An "I'm so high. I'm singing" girl,

A try-to-reach-the-rooftops girl,

A love-to-feel-the-raindrops girl,

Whose [short blonde] hair would spring and curl.
Once there was a dancing girl...

A stomping, bomping, prancing girl,

A two-step, three-step dancing girl,

A "you and me step" dancing girl,

Who loved to skip and jump and twirl.

Once there was a treetop girl...

As-far-as-she-could-see-top girl,

A lovely-place-for-snacking girl,

A nothing-here-is-lacking girl,

Who made the branches bend and curl.

Once there was a dressing girl...

Who-always-kept-us-guessing girl,

A-fancy-hat-and-sundress girl,

A flashing, dashing, fun-dress girl,

Whose face was just like a precious pearl.

Soon you'll be my older girl,

A taller-than-my-shoulder girl,

An "I can do it!" older girl,

A bigger, braver, bolder girl.

And though you'll grow up in a whirl...

...You'll always be my tummy girl.

Fire Station Field Trip

Aunt Jill invited us to go on a trip to the Fire Station with some friends of hers and of course cousin Abby and Emmy. Ava and I also got a special treat and got to take Mia with us. Kelly and Hannah also were able to meet us.

It was really neat to see the girl's little faces light up to see the firemen and the trucks. They shared great information that was easily modified for a 2-year old level. Basically, fire fighters help people. When people need help they call them and the firemen get in the firetruck and hurry, hurry, hurry to get there. They need the lights and sirens to tell people they are in a hurry.

Touring the quarters of the fire station. Not the most interesting part for them, but part of the process.

Wow! Inside the fire truck!

Look how big the tires are!

Mia's turn to drive the fire truck.

Now, it's Ava's turn. Ava touched every gadget she could find while driving. It was a very intense job for her.

Mia really enjoyed chatting with the fireman.

She let the fireman pick her up to look at the pretty lights.

Ava and Mia on the fire truck with the fireman.
Cousin Abby trying on the fireman's hat and smiling oh so cute!

Mia's turn.

And finally, Ava's turn.

Getting a "badge" to show they completed their fire station tour

Here is Ava, ;ooking so little and cute on the fire truck.

Hugs goodbye. Although they weren't leaving each other, Ava and Mia will find any reason to hug.

Hannah giving good-bye hugs also.

Getting a big girl milk at Starbuck's, sitting together looking so CUTE!

Talking up a storm

I just need to jot down some sentences that Miss Ava has been saying that make me stop and wonder if she really just said that, I mean, she is getting to be such a big girl!

Scene 1:
A bowl with raisins in it is sitting on the counter, in front of Ava.

Mommy puts Ava's teddy bear-shaped cinnamon toast in the same bowl with the raisins.

"How 'bout a different bowl, mommy?"


Scene 2:
Mommy and Daddy are cleaning out the garage.

Both cars are parked in the driveway, having been sitting out there for a few hours, but it wasn't too hot outside.

Ava walks over to the car and touches it.

"Oooh, the car is warm" (I just love how she knows that it's not hot and it wasn't cold, it's warm).


Scene 3:
Mommy makes Ava a quesadilla for lunch.

Having just taken out of the toaster over, mommy cuts it and warns Ava that it might be hot.

Ava takes it and eats a nibble.

"It's not too hot mommy."

Some favorite foods

I'm very lucky.

Well, that goes without saying, I suppose.

We all know that children have their strengths and Ava's is definitely eating. I know that eating sounds a bit odd for a strength, and while it is not her strongest or biggest strength, it is a very healthy strength.

I'm lucky that she'll try *almost* anything and eats a well-balanced diet. Don't get me wrong she LOVES her some m&m's, cake, cookies, and sweets in general, but she also loves other things. I try to catch her eating on camera b/c I want to remind her one day when she stubbornly (err, another strength?) refuses food.

So here are some pics of some of the food that I am so proud she eats!

Spinach salad-of course w/ dressing, pecans, avocado, cheese, tomatoes, etc. to make it all fancy.
And to satisfy a sweet tooth when we can't take fresh fruit on the go, there's the fruitabu.

She LOVES, LOVES, LOVES "bawcamole", seen here w/ a veggie burger and raspberries.

Black beans are a staple seen often at dinner time.

And finally, she loves dipping carrot strings into hummus.

Wordless Wed: Miss Spaghetti Head

Happy Valentine's Day

We had a weekend full of LOVE! From going to Sesame Street Live and seeing ELMO to singing and enjoying Mia's 2nd birthday party! What a great way to celebrate Valentine's Day!

Showing off her princess get-up that we gave to her on V-day.

Devouring her first chocolate covered strawberry.
Told you.

Some crafts we made this month. Heart Man! Daddy's Valentine, handmade by Ava.

"Nook, Mommy"

Ava: "Airplane!"

Mommy: ::driving:: "Wow, do you see an airplane?"

Ava: "Actually............it's a bird."

On Being Mom by Anna Quindlen

I just love this.....

On Being Mom by Anna Quindlen

If not for the photographs, I might have a hard time believing they ever existed. The pensive infant with the swipe of dark bangs and the blackbutton eyes of a Raggedy Andy doll. The placid baby with the yellow ringlets and the high piping voice. The sturdy toddler with the lower lip that curled into an apostrophe above her chin.

ALL MY BABIES are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories.

What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations --what they taught me was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all.

Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One boy is toilet trained at 3, his brother at 2. When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow.

I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month-old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the Remember-When-Mom-Did Hall of Fame. The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language-mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, What did you get wrong? (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.

Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts.

It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.

What I love about Ava at 23 months!

Only ONE month left until my little angel face turns TWO! Dun....Dun.....Dun.....

1. Oh my goodness, I love the seriousness of your questions combined with that sweet little voice, makes my heart flutter when you say, "What doin' Mommy?" or "Where goin Daddy?"

2. I love when it's time for night night how you stick to the same routine of reading books, asking for a "tory", "sing songs", "row, row" and "snuggle" every night. Daddy and I seriously spend a half hour or more with you before bedtime because it is the sweetest time ever.

3. I love when you repeat, repeat, repeat something until you know I've understood what you are saying by waiting for me to say it back to you correctly.

4. I still love you with your b.b.

5. I love how excited and proud you get of yourself when you do something successfully, that you've kept trying at. For example, when you line your animals up, all standing up, and one will fall down, you diligently put it back up until all are standing and your clap for yourself.

6. I love how well you talk and tell me what's going on. If you don't feel good, you'll tell me "tummy hurts" or "head hurts". And if you have something in your mouth that I'm not aware of, I can simply ask you what you have in your mouth and you'll tell me, "cheerios".

7. I love how obsessed you are with talking about your birth story. Of course, you don't know all the details but you love telling us about the "hopital" and being in mommy's tummy and drinking milk from mommy.

8. Speaking of obsessions, I love how you are obsessed with praying. We'll be in the car and you'll random put your hands to your mouth and say, "pray mommy".

9. I love that you have a baby in your tummy b/c you see a lot mommy's friends with babies in their tummies. One day you told me there was a baby in your tummy and her name is "little baby".

10. I love when it's bathtime that you line all your animals up and feed them one by one. I love when bathtime ends that you insist on "monkey and chase with daddy". And daddy has to hold the towel and chase you.

Wild Woman Hair!

As you can tell, mommy is having FUN with hair, now that we have it! However, now I can no longer do just ONE pony tail, I have to do 3+

This just about sums it up

Thanks to Stacie for posting this....

Ava has made a connection!

Ava and Mia have such a connection, one that has been evident for months and months now, that even on-lookers will say something. It is so cute to see how they always look for each other and have to hold hands.

Mia is so good at taking care of and singing to Ava and Ava adds a little roughness mixed with sweet (and trying to be gentle) love to their relationship. They are such loves!

Good thing, because they are next in line to take over our families business.