thunder-bay

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.

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!

ava adores grandma's cat, but, of course, has a very special way of expressing this. over the summer, i've found ava :

• lying on top of the cat
• washing the cat with the garden hose
• "brushing" the cat with a plastic rake
• "feeding" the cat dirt and rocks
• trying to put clothes on the cat

today, the cat finally had enough and fought back. ava and the cat were in the living room, and ava came running into the kitchen displaying a small wound on her forearm saying "bite you! bite you!" , "cat did it!". since ava was actually distinctly non-hysterical about the incident, i decided that perhaps there could be a moral to the story. so, i proceeded to explain that the cat was old, and ava needed to be more gentle, etc. ava listened rather solemnly and then said "i'm sorry kitty . . . "

(icing on the cake : over the summer she's picked up a distinctly canadian accent on the word "sOOOOrry"!)

today is one of the few days of this summer that ava and i were supposed to be in thunder bay. we've had an appointment for a visit to loon lake marked on our calendar for at least six months - and today was the day! this was ava's first chance to meet lucy and izze, daughter's of my friends joan and jill. conveniently, this date was set to coincide with the pinnacle of baby cuteness. lucy is 9 months old and izze is 10 months old - don't blink 'cause they'll be toddlers in two days. today though, they are adorable little chubby-legged, babbling babies.

joan started the day off in style by unveiling the matching sundresses she'd made for all the girls. smart gal that she is, she'd noticed that i take a lot of pictures with ava wearing green, and chose ava's fabric accordingly. we tried to get the girls to pose for a formal portrait, but lucy was none too pleased about sitting on damp grass, and ava just wasn't interested in entering the frame of the picture - period. the closest we got was this

the formal portrait location was close to the lake, and as soon as ava caught a glimpse she insisted on taking off all her clothes. the little ones soon followed. i then proceded to take an awful lot of pictures of babies in their birthday suits. lots more pics here

ever since arriving in thunder bay, ava has been on a miraculous good behavior streak. there have only been two exceptions to her default angelic behavior

1. she's been quite the screamer at bedtime.
2. she's become a control freak in the car

ava has always been a fan of (ridiculously lame kids) music in the car. it didn't take long after her first word for her to start piping up "music! music!" from the back seat. in the last few days though, she's crossed another milestone - now she demands specific songs. this is fine - as long as i know what's she's talking about. i've figured out what she means by "baby music" and "tick tock! tick tock!" - but a few other requests have left me sorely baffled ("ducky music!" "girl music!"). and if i can't come up with the right track in 15 seconds or less, there is a terrible meltdown in the back seat.

having figured out that she can (remotely) control the cd player, ava is now attempting to control the rest of the vehicular operation too. she has developed opinions on

1. whether or not the sun visor is up or down
2. at what speed the windshield wipers are wiping
3. who gets to hold the keys

this last item is particularly difficult to negotiate. i swear we had the following conversation today

• ava : my keys! my keys!
• cailin : i need the keys to drive the car. if i give you the keys we can't go anywhere.
• ava : i'll give them back!
• cailin : i can't give you the keys because the car will stop
• ava : stop! . . . a minute . . . stop!

today was ava's first full day at her new daycare. she has been adjusting to her new settings extremely well, but unsurprisingly she did not take a nap on her first full day. combined with a lengthy post-daycare visit to the hospital, and the poor little muffin was plain tuckered out. she kept trying to fall asleep on the car ride home and i kept tweaking her toes to keep her awake - she was so out of it she couldn't even scream in protest. by the time we got home, i felt bad for her, so we indulged in a very rare treat : dinner with ducky in front of the television.

unfortunately, ava's grandma is very ill. fortunately, she's getting better every day. to help her along the way, ava and i have unexpectedly relocated ourselves to thunder bay until the end of august. although the whole situation is obviously quite unfortunate, and we both miss daddy very much, there are few places as nice as thunder bay to be in late summer.

things i have appreciated about my home town (and the people in it) on this visit include :

1. local friends started calling me in san francisco with offers of assistance within an hour of me finding out that my mother was sick. (small town = efficient gossip network)
2. it took me all of 10 minutes with a phone book to locate a daycare for ava for the summer. added bonus : it's the nicest daycare i've ever dreamed of.
3. when ava and i arrived at grandma's house, there was a baby pool waiting for us on the back deck. (seriously, how cool is my mom's neighbour!)

in addition to serving as a grandma entertainment device, i've been trying to make sure that ava gets to spend some time experiencing summer the way it's meant to be enjoyed : naked and with water (if you're two that is!). ava's been having a grand old time romping around the backyard, blowing bubbles, hopping in and out of her pool and squishing the poor cat.

my father just emailed me this photo, and i can't help myself - it has to be taken public. this phrase adorned the mcdonalds sign in thunder bay, ontario, canada from the morning of saturday, june 1st, through the afternoon of sunday, june 2nd - at which point somebody finally informed the management.

now what i'm dying to know is :

1. did it take more than 24 hours for somebody to notice?

2. did people notice, but not want to spoil the joke?

3. did people notice, but were too embarassed / polite to tell the restaurant staff?

my home town seems to be prone to buttocks related public relations bloopers. one of my favorite strange-but-true tales is of a former mayor, walter assef (no, not a joke) who patted the behind of none other than queen elizabeth.

after i left to go back to san francisco on may 5th, the weather perked up considerably, and so, of course did ava. as soon as i returned i came down with ava's low grade flu, and developed considerable retroactive sympathy for her moments of unhappiness.

ava and grandma spent a nice week together, bonding with the boreal forest, taking the cat for rides in the garden cart and of course doing lots and lots of gardening.

grandpa came to visit too. ava gave grandpa the full tour of her thunder bay world, and enjoyed grandpa's version of her latest favorite book.