grandma

forget call centers and software engineering... i've got a new job that can be performed remotely from an offshore location... babysitting! where, you ask? canada, of course! and, specifically, grandma.

after nearly a year of refusing to say anything to anyone on the phone, ava finally agreed to talk to grandma a couple of weeks ago. in true ava style, when she crosses a threshold, she does it with gusto. that first conversation lasted nearly thirty minutes, during which time i cooked dinner, ate dinner and cleaned up from dinner!

this weekend's conversation took place in our back garden, so i took the opportunity to snap some pics of ava's expressions and adventures while on the phone. when this conversation crossed the 30 minute mark, i tried to get ava to give me back the phone. "no mommy, i want to talk to her for a few more minutes!!"

more silly pics of ava on the phone.

grandma came to visit for a pre-halloween visit, and we all had good fun getting our house all ready for halloween. first, ava put on a lovely pair of polka-dot PANTS. getting her into pants, of course required a pre-halloween treat, which she graciously shared with her pumpkin. then ava turned three innocent pumpkins into a witch, a dog and a bat.

once those were complete, we started on the big guy. ava and grandma scooped out the guts, ava and daddy colored in the template, and then daddy carved it into a beautiful glowing cat.

more halloween prep pics.

ava just returned from a wonderful month of august spent in thunder bay with grandma. what did they do? they . . .

watched the grass and flowers grow

played in ava's garden house

flew on a very tiny plane to sault ste marie, and then took a train through agawa canyon

decorated ava's chair

spent hours playing with the leftover bits from grandma's not quite finished back deck remodel

picked hundreds of flowers from grandma's gardens

discovered that ava loves smoked whitefish

went blueberry picking

hosted parties

went potty

visited many of the great local playgrounds

had a bonfire

roasted marshmallows

snuggled up in ava's canopy bed

grew, harvested and processed many types of vegetables

chased the kitties

on may 19th, ava headed up to canada for a three week visit with "gramma!". when grandma arrived to pick ava up in san francisco, john and i became instantly uncool. for the two days before ava's depareture we mostly heard "go away mommy/daddy!" and had lots of doors slammed in our faces. thankfully, we're not very sensitive.

ava and grandma had a lovely visit. ava spent many happy hours fishing in the creek (with a real bamboo fishing pole), visiting local farms, festivals and making "chocolate horse cake".

according to grandma, ava spent the first week wearing whatever clothes grandma picked out before reverting to her ongoing obsession with dresses and "tights with feet at the bottom".

more grandma and ava pics.

recipe for chocolate horse cake: start with one large plastic green tub. add one brown plastic horse, two miniature fuzzy chickens, and assorted mcdonalds happy meal toys from 1982. stir lots and bake in the sun.

we saved our annual trip to the pumpkin patch for grandma's visit as well. ava wasn't quite as enamored with the actual pumpkins this year, but she definitely got a kick out of all the other related activities, like the pony ride, the petting zoo and the train. however, the winner as far as ava was concerned was definitely the pumpkin ice-cream.

more pics

grandma arrived for a halloween visit - just in time for the annual randall museum halloween party. the highlight was lots of arts and crafts with grandma. ava also liked getting her face painted - thus becoming a fairy princess kitty. we rounded the afternoon off with a magic show.

grandma got ava a beautiful dollhouse for her second birthday. our original plan for the summer included grandma coming to san francisco shortly after ava's birthday - hence the dollhouse was shipped directly here. since things got rearranged quite a bit, grandma hasn't seen the dollhouse yet.

ava loves it. at first she played with it in a distinctly toddler style - taking all of the dolls, animals and furnishings and piling them into one room of the house or barn. lately though, she seems to "get it". she particularly likes putting the little people on the toilet, and giving anything (animal, vegetable or mineral) a bath. this morning however, she did pull the little foam inserts out of the bed mattresses and rip them into little pieces. (i'm sure she was saying "make pieces! make pieces!" the whole time, and i was merrily ignoring her.)

grandma is still feeling better every day, and this weekend requested that we go on an expedition to the beach at lake mary louise. it turns out that ava is a huge wimp about even slightly cold water, and pretty much refused to do more than dip a toe in. she liked playing around in the sand though, and spent some good lounging time with grandma.

it was a typical fourth of july in san francisco. i awoke to the pitter patter of accumulated fog dripping off the trees. i expected this though, and had a fog-free adventure planned for ava and grandma. we started the outing with a visit to a lovely little neighborhood playground in belvedere. belvedere is a tiny little city on an island across the golden gate bridge with an entry level housing price of around $2.5 million dollars (i just got curious and looked that up). the trickle down effect of all that property tax revenue is a very nice playground with immaculately groomed lawns and playground-owned cars and kettler trikes scattered about for anybody to use. i think we might just come back.

after that we continued our journey north towards the sun, to the marin county fair. the big hit for ava was the "great american petting zoo", which featured some standard petting zoo characters like goats and sheep. and then some unexpected entries like a wallabee and a llama. we wandered around the rest of the barnyard, watched the chinese dragon dancers and then headed home for naptime. next year we'll come back and try out the rides!

grandma has arrived for a mid-summer visit, just in time for our worst period of summer fog, combined with a lovely smoky haze from the numerous wildfires burning in california. we're going to try and escape at least the foggy part a few times this week, and began that goal with a trip to hidden valley farm in los altos.

i couldn't find much information online about hidden valley, so didn't really know what to expect. it turned out to be a sprawling complex of gardens and barns, full of veggies, fruit, flower and animals. really nice even in our current period of drought, and must be extra-ordinary in winter / spring when the multiple creeks are flowing with water.

ava still has a cold, and isn't quite herself, but we still had a good time. highlights (from ava's perspective)

• the "grape vine house" in the organic garden
• the cat in the organic garden
• the baby goat that kissed me
• eating fresh blackberries

low points :

• when stupid mommy tried to take my long-sleeved shirt off. who cares if its 85 F in the shade? i like my whale shirt!!!
• smacking my head really hard on the fence trying to pet the baby goat
• when stupid mommy tried to trick me into putting on shorts after my diaper change. it's just not proper for a young lady not to cover her knees!

more pics