ava's blog

ava was slow to warm to the whole "shovel and bucket" sort of playing . . . and i was slow to grasp the idea that this was essential training for that whole "food on utensil and into mouth" activity. we've both got the hang of it now though, and ava can shovel her sand around with the best of them.

errr . . . on the other hand, i'm not exactly sure what "dumping sand on forehead" is training for . . . i'm not sure i want to know . . .

this video was taken in the "stream" that flows into the sandbox in the koret children's playground.

every day after daycare, ava and i go to the arboretum. the arboretum is full of little "micro-environments", each very different from the next. when ava was little, and i got to decide where we went, we visited many environments every day. now, she tends to obsess about a particular area of the garden for a month or so, and then finally agrees to move on.

one of my big accomplishments for the week was to manage to drag ava 20 feet off her usual route to accommodate a visit to the miniature bamboo forest. it was pretty windy today, and in this picture ava is watching the towering tops of the bamboo 50 feet above us, blowing around quite impressively.

watch ava play "night night" in the park.

ava's daycare provider (ella) asked me if i would help her put together a website for her ella's second home daycare, so i stopped by and did a little photoshoot. taking pictures of one toddler is hard enough - taking pictures of nine of them is a zoo. thankfully, only one of them was truly obsessed with the camera, and they were all cheerful and co-operative.

in this pic, ava was more than happy to give phillip a hug on cue - and a well deserved one at that. at 15 months of age, phillip is my nominee for the official daycare sweetheart award. he is the self appointed "mom" of the few babies younger than himself. phillip delivers (toy) baby bottles and blankets when they cry, and lends a helping hand when they learn to walk.

the backyard deck has always been ava's favorite part of daycare. in the early days she was a little obsessed with driving ducky around in the cars. she branched out pretty quickly though, and is a big fan of the plastic playhouses. when i pick her up in the afternoon, she usually refuses to leave until she i let her take me on a little tour of the houses and we play "night night" in at least one.

ava and daddy's tour of the park usually includes two of golden gate park's playgrounds. they end at the "little playground" where ava likes to show off her ability to do a "lap" all on her own (see video).

at 20.5 months, ava is suddenly coming down with a case of "i can do it myself!". at the arboretum, there is a stone courtyard wall that ava likes to clamber on. the wall is about 3 feet high and there are a variety of different ascents. ava mastered one of the more difficult routes today, accepting my usual "spotting" without complaint. after one successful ascent though, ava decided that she'd had enough of mommy's hovering hands. she pushed me away and said "bye bye!" quite firmly. i conceded a distance of a few feet, but then snuck up on her again once she was a foot off the ground. after completing her second ascent (and noticing my trickery), ava came up with a new plan. this time, she dragged me over to the nearest bench . . . "mommy sit down . . . mommy bench . . . " and then stomped off a few feet . . . "bye bye" . . . and went back to her wall, casting the occasional glaring glance over her shoulder to make sure that i stayed parked where she left me.

if you listen closely you can hear ava saying "big step", "big step" to herself as she goes up the stairs.

today we let ava run around naked with an orange before bath time. why, i can't imagine as a) she started eating the orange peel and b) she peed on the floor (twice). we all (ava included) found the whole thing very amusing and we did get some cute pictures of the little bum.

over the past couple of months, ava and daddy have finally gotten their biking act in order. first, we had to surmount a series of technical obstacles - beginning with the choice of the a baby bike seat. john begin with a canadian contraption called the bike tutor. the bike tutor seat turned out to be an absolute headache to install, and demonically difficult to uninstall. ava never even got old enough to give this seat a try - when a friend needed to borrow the bike, john got so fed up trying to get the seat off, that he tossed it in the trash.

next up was the ibert. this little seat is indeed easy to install - the issue here is that it's relatively wide and tends to get in the way of the adult rider's knees. thus began the quest for the perfect bike to host the ibert. first john tried the ibert on all four (just don't ask) of his existing bikes. no dice. next, based on everything he had learned, he set out to purchase a suitable bike. even this took him two tries.

once all that was sorted out, we were left with the one final challenge : ava. who liked the whole idea of biking, but hated her helmet - even though john had wisely chosen one covered with ducks. we're actually not quite sure what happened, but one day she just woke up thinking her "duck hat" was great. so, at long last, ava and john are able to enjoy their sunday afternoon tours of the park.

typically (and thankfully), ava is very fond of brushing her teeth. it's a fun game that involves three toothbrushes, the brushing of as many sets of teeth as she can con into the bathroom, and at least four applications of strawberry toothpaste. oh, and she does all this while standing in the sink.

what could possibly make this more fun? oh right . . . wearing the ducky towel.

watch the live action below

when john and i returned from hawaii, i noticed that ava's hair was starting to get pretty long. on a whim, i got out a hair elastic, and what do you know . . . hello fancy up-do, bye bye pineapple.

i swear, she looks so grown up in the left hand picture, i'm afraid someone might ask her out on a date. well . . . okay . . .she is taking a bath in the sink. maybe not.

1. "up above the . . . " 21 mar 2008

on grandma's recent visit she sang "twinkle, twinkle little star" to ava alot. by the end of the visit, whenever ava saw a star she would start singing "twinkle, twinkle" in adorable, garbled toddler-speak. the other day she trailed off as usual after the first two words, but then burst back with a perfectly clear rendition of the second line.

2. "pepper!" 23 mar 2008

i made ava some macaroni and cheese with a little salt and pepper. i didn't make a big deal out of the salt and peppering, and was all the way across the kitchen at the time. she didn't seem to be paying any attention to me. when she sample her first noodle though, she told me what was in it.

3. "hi poppy" 23 mar 2008

the arboretum handily labels all the flowers and trees. unfortunately, they typically use the formal names, which are a bit hard for me to remember, let alone teach ava. in spring though, the wildflowers are in bloom, and i've been pointing out the poppies, and iris and buttercups to ava on our walks. today as we neared the orange poppies she started waving to them and saying "hi poppy! hi poppy!"

4. "bye philip" 25 mar 2008

ava's daycare is big on little rituals. everybody gets greeted the same way every morning, takes off their coat in the same spot, and everybody gets waved good-bye to in the afternoon. ava's always had a hard time with the concept that you're supposed to say "bye-bye" before you actually part ways. typically, she would wave bye-bye to everyone at daycare after the door was closed and we were pulling away in the stroller.

recently though, she's caught on, and this week she started doling out individual salutations, even to baby philip! (this from the girl who just recently learned to say "mommy").

5. "dad juice" 28 mar 2008

pointing at daddy's bottle of beer.

6. "mommy sit down" 01 apr 2008

and then we had our first complete sentence . . .

she's been doing "mommy . . . mommy . . . sit . . . . mommy . . . no . . . sit . . . sit" for quite awhile and the words were definitely related to each other. however, until now there were definitely ". . . " in between each word and they weren't quite what i would call a sentence.

those of you who know mommy are laughing hysterically now, as you know that sitting is not something mommy does well. at least, not in the "sit down and relax" sort of sense. it's nice that ava chose her first sentence to demonstrate how well she knows her mommy, and to pass on some good advice.

7. "house! house!" 03 apr 2008

ava is very fond of her indoor playhouse. she'll drag any willing victim in to hang out with her, but she is particularly obsessed about hanging out in the playhouse with grandma. on grandma's march visit, it was hard for grandma to spend any time inside without ava's insistent tugging and exclamations of "house! house!"

grandma arrived for her april visit late on the evening of april 3rd. as a special treat (for grandma) i plucked ava out of crib, brought her out to the dining room and handed her over to grandma. she rubbed her eyes in sleepiness and confusion and looked perilously close to starting to howl. then all at once her eyes focused, she realized that this was grandma and decided to pick up the fun right where they left off.

i must say, it's hard work being an unmarried family in the united states of america.

first, you lack an appropriate vocabulary to describe your relationship. "this is cailin, my .... ". girlfriend . . . starts to sound a bit silly when you have a child. mother of my daughter . . . kind of a mouthful. domestic partner . . . . accurate, but sounds a bit too "politically correct". partner . . . for some reason my brain always inserts "life" in front of partner, and then i want to vomit.

second, since you lack official legal standing as a family you wind up buried in a mound of paperwork trying to prove your relationship to each other. it's a complicated tangle . . . at one point we wound up writing wills, just so we could all have healthcare!

yesterday, john accepted a new job that starts tomorrow, and that new job does not offer health care for opposite-sex domestic partners. we finally decided that enough was enough and it was time to stop procrastinating. so, we rounded up ava and shannon and headed down to city hall.

honestly, i'm not sure there are many nicer spots for a very small wedding (we had 1 pint-sized "guest" and one guest / witness / photographer, but the maximum is 6). we were married in the rotunda, at the top of a sweeping staircase. oddly, john took a very beautiful photo of this spot, some years ago.

as a true little toddler, ava, in general, is not incredibly excited about new environments. and the towering ceiling and marble everything of city hall were definitely quite different for her. she kept it together pretty well for the first hour or so we were there (first we had to get a license, etc, etc) but then fully lost control about halfway through the ceremony. as we did not have rings, the officiant suggested that we exchange kisses instead, and ava was determined that daddy would not kiss mommy at the appointed moment.

she cheered up once it was over though, and tried to "hand in" our completed marriage certificate to the nice lady, like a good little student.

more pics