ducky

ava used to have room in her heart for only one inanimate object . . . good old ducky. now that ducky stays home most of the time, she's branched out a little. but while her interests have expanded, the passion has not diminished. now ava becomes furiously attached to the most random objects imaginable.

it all started with the "ice creams" (bottom left). ava assembled these from two unrelated sets of toys (stacking cups and a magnetic caterpillar) in the bath one day. oh . . . cute . . . clever . . . thought mommy and daddy. yeah, cute and clever right until the point where she refused to ever let go of them, including while she was sleeping. after a few days of that, i confiscated them in the middle of the night. a couple of weeks later, i brought them back for another try. major mistake - once again, i wound up clawing them out of her sleeping hands in the middle of night and spiriting them away (for good!).

she formed another strong attachment to her new cat towel. thankfully, i'm getting smarter, and by the second consecutive hour of wearing it in the house, i started rambling on about how kitty was a house-cat, and couldn't go outside, and blah, blah, blah. this seems to have kept this particular obsession to a manageable level.

by far the weirdest so far is a red nalgene bottle, which she picked up in the van on our trip to point reyes, sang songs to it for an hour in the van . . . and then insisted on snuggling it to sleep . . . twice.

ava discovered one of her "extra ducks" yesterday. she reacted exactly as i would have predicted - she came out holding both of them saying "two ducky", "two ducky" in a dazed but pleased tone of voice. then she gave one to me "mommy ducky" and kept one for herself "ava ducky". as soon as she got distracted, i put extra ducky away and she seemed to forget all about it. the last thing i need is her occasionally insisting on taking "two ducky" out for a walk . . . what would we do . . . would we have to buy a double stroller so that both duckies can be "ducky buckle . . . ducky buckle" . . . ?

ava's love for ducky knows no bounds and seems to grow with every passing day. ducky also serves as ava's primary creative outlet. every day her "ducky do this" requests get more and more entertaining. it all started with the diaper. ava fished out a diaper from the basket, put the diaper on the floor, lay ducky on top and said "ducky, ducky . . .diaper" until i outfitted him properly. "ducky, ducky, diaper . .. poo" never fails to me me laugh either. these days ducky puts on a coat when we go out in the morning, puts on boots to splash in the puddles, and sometimes wears a shirt. when ducky was suited up with my harry potter glasses from a long, long ago halloween, i demanded that john do a ducky photo shoot.

it's not all about ducky though. yesterday we were at the park, and some mallard ducks exited their pond to mill around the path with ava and i (crazy ducks). ava started chasing after them, arms outspread saying "hug, hug". later, she was chasing after the squirrels with a diaper wipe saying "nose, nose" (as in, "i need to wipe your nose). somehow, i'm going to have to break it gently to ava that although her intellectual and creative powers are blossoming, the wildlife around her cannot be expected to keep up.

ava started daycare on january 2nd, and wow, it was quite the transition. it started out just fine, but on january 6th she came down with the flu, and it all went rapidly downhill from there. she started off with a few unhappy noises on drop-off, and progressed a week later into full on hysterical tantrums. about two weeks in, just when i thought it couldn't get any worse . . . it didn't! finally, ava reversed her attitude and started to mellow out and enjoy herself. to date, she still likes to kick up a minor fuss for morning drop-off, but i when i pick her up in the afternoon she is quite obviously content, and in no particular hurry to head out the door with me.

to help with the transition, i let ava bring "mr. duck" to daycare. one of the most obvious and immediate daycare side effects was that "mr. duck" became "duck-y". a related unintended consequence was that because ducky needs to go with us to daycare, and is with us when we leave, ducky to see the world quite a bit more often. this results in quite a bit more ducky wear and tear, so the other day we purchased a third copy.

twelve to fifteen months is a rough patch in baby evolution, because it's the time when conventional wisdom dictates that parents should start taking away many of their favorite little things. this is probably much harder on the parents than the kids because you are supposed to get rid of just about every little trick you've developed to keep them quiet for five minutes. for example, no, ava doesn't really need to lounge in her bouncy chair to drink her bottle, but gosh, wasn't it nice when she was all nice and strapped firmly into place, so she didn't combine bottle drinking with walking practice?

speaking of bottles, the biggest challenge (for everyone as far as i can tell) is transitioning to the sippy cup. a couple of days after ava's first birthday I tried to make her quit the bottle cold turkey. when she got up in the morning, instead of a bottle i handed her the dreaded sippy cup. she screamed hysterically, took the sippy cup and threw it across the room. the scene ended with ava strapped into her bouncy chair, "watching television" while periodically screaming as i dribbled the milk into her mouth sip by painful sip. i opted to abandon this plan in favor of a more graduated approach to the issue. currently, we've reached a bizarre standoff in which she will drink juice from the cup, but not, god forbid, milk.