grandpa

grandpa was an integral part of ava's first ice cream experience, so i thought he might like to come along for another great first . . . mcdonald's!

okay, so, if you grew up in say . . . thunder bay . . . then mcdonalds sounds like a weird thing to get excited about and a weird thing to not do until you are two years and ten months old. but (again, kinda like the ice cream shop) we don't really have very many of them around here. to my knowledge there are no mcdonalds in san francisco, other than a couple of really sleazy ones downtown. (strangely, our neighborhood does have a miniature burger king . . . but that's a whole different story.)

since it was ava's first mcdonalds experience, i wanted to make sure it was a fun one. we took her to a mcdonalds with a gigantic plastic playground inside. ava was quite pleased with the whole experience. she declared "this is a wonderful table. it has dots like my dice". and, she ate her french fries and chicken nuggets (couldn't convince her to try the dipping sauce though). and, surprisingly, she really enjoyed the playground. the playground was a bit more than i was anticipating - consisting mostly of a fast maze of plastic tunnels that the children climb up inside and then slide down. the catch is - you can't see the kids anywhere inside this maze - and adults aren't allowed to go in. after a good ten minutes of watching the other kids disappear inside the tunnel, ava actually decided to give it a whirl too. (and of course, didn't want to stop after that!)

one of the many great things about having a grandpa in action is that he suggests fun activities . . . like taking ava out for an ice cream cone. hmm. . . good idea . . . come to think about it - ava's never had an ice cream cone before! that probably sounds like child abuse to anyone that does not live in san francisco - but the sad truth about ava's home town is that it's very rarely hot enough to desire an ice cream cone. consequently, we're not exactly flush with ice-cream providing establishments.

despite her late entry to the ice-cream eating game, ava tackled her first cone quite professionally. about halfway through, she obviously got full, but was too enamored with the whole idea to let go of the cone. finally, i drew on her puzzling love of putting things in the trash, and we made a little celebration of tossing the remainder of the cone in the garbage.

a note to our canadian readers: yes, of course, san francisco is in california, but NO it's almost never hot. san francisco is an aberrant blip of bad weather surrounded by an entire state that is almost always sunny. in the summer, we typically have about 6 straight weeks where we never see the sun, and instead are buried in horrible freezing fog and wind. and no, you never see this in my pictures, because when it's foggy i instantly become too lazy and depressed to get out the camera. and yes, i'm tired of explaining this.

with grandma out of commission for much of the summer, grandpa stepped up to the plate for many rounds of active grandparenting. ava thought this was just dandy. when grandpa picked her up from a friend's house one day, as soon as she saw him, she sprinted towards him and jumped into his arms. apparently they had alot of fun that day, because the next day, ava stomped around the house sulking and demanding "my grandpa! my grandpa!". on other occasions, we've revisited places most recently visited with grandpa and ava expectantly searches all over for him. even funnier, she went looking for him at the grocery store, because she went to the grocery store with grandpa last time she was in thunder bay!