peas

I have mentioned before that Ada's daycare teaches the kids different signs. Two of the early signs were 'Please' and 'Thank You'. She never seemed to pick up either of these signs, although she will occasionally say 'Dank Do' when we ask her to. Well the other night in the car on the way home she was demanding some animal crackers. Before I handed them back to her I instinctively asked her to say 'Please'; and before I knew what was happening she was rubbing her chest (the sign for 'Please'). I thought it might be a fluke so the next time she asked for more crackers I asked again. This time she did the sign AND said 'Peas'. I could not have been more proud. FINALLY, my crazy, neurotic, incessant requests for politeness were granted. Not that she really knows that she is being polite - but I'll take 'figured out how to manipulate cookies out of Mom', too.

cutest thing

Now that Ada is older, we have started to let her wander around the house without one of us hovering over her watching her every move. We know that when we can't hear her we should get up and find her but for the most part she grunts and babbles her way through life. I think Ada really enjoys this small dose of independence and trust, but the coolness does seem to be wearing off a bit. Now when Ada wants to wander around the house she likes to take one of us with her. When this happens she will walk up to you with her most precious of faces, and you will think, "Oh how sweet, Ada wants to cuddle with me." WRONG. She'll divert her eyes at the last second and wrap her tiny fingers around one of your fingers and start to drag and pull and grunt - whatever it takes to get you up on your feet. Then she will start the navigation process. This is usually pretty funny because she doesn't always think about the angles she is working with when she grabs someone's finger, so she often finds herself twisted around or walking backwards. Once she figures this out, she takes us on long winding walks through the house. There is really no rhyme or reason to these walks, and they often involve many laps of the kitchen as she scans all of the toys she has placed on the floor, as well as scanning the counter tops for binkies and snacks that she likes. Often, these walks end up in her room where she will finally drop our finger and start to play with her rocking horse, blocks, or balled up socks. After 16 months it is nice to know that when Ada really wants to play, she wants us there with her. We'll see if that is still true after 16 years.

toys

Ada has all sorts of store bought toys, and she loves all of these toys, but often it seems like her most favorite toys are regular old household items. In the past this has been stuff like Tupperware or a Christmas garland, but last night she picked up a new and interesting toy.

We were cooking our dinner so we sat Ada on the counter next to the stove so she could watch. She was interested in the cooking tofu for a second or two and then quickly started looking for something to play with. Thankfully she didn't try to play with the open flame under the pan or anything else dangerous, instead, she grabbed the pepper mill. First she decided she liked to bang it on the stove, then she insisted that we put her down on the floor all while she kept her death grip on the pepper mill. As she walked around the kitchen she found lots of other hard surfaces to bang the pepper mill against. In an effort to distract her from the pepper mill I offered her some multi-grain mini rice cakes and she grabbed the bag, but also some how managed to keep her firm grasp on the pepper mill. She then sat down in her Bumbo - which she amazingly still can squeeze into - still grasping her pepper mill AND now her little bag of rice cakes. She looked a little surprised at the tight fit, but then quickly distracted herself by banging the pepper mill on the tile floor. We do have a really cool Christmas present for Ada sitting in the garage, but I'm thinking that maybe we'll save that for next year and instead wrap up the entire contents of our spice drawer, because, really, that is what she is going to end up playing with anyway.

poor little baby

When sickness hits Ada's daycare it hits the whole family, so our family has been a little under the weather for about a week now. When Elliot dropped off Ada last Friday one of Ada's classmates was getting sick all over the room. She was sent home and we all thought, well that was taken care of quickly so hopefully we missed the part where Ada pukes her brains out all over the house. And, while we were sick all weekend, all of us managed to hold down what little food we managed to eat. Until 1 am this morning. I was actually up fighting my own cough when I heard Ada coughing away in her room, and started thinking, "Poor thing, she gets sick like I get sick and that means long drawn out illnesses, with incessant coughing that keeps you up all night long." And then I heard it, a different cough. A more chunky cough. Followed by some crying and I had a gut feeling that we had NOT missed the puking phase of this illness. So we whipped into cleanup mode, got Ada cleaned up and just as we thought she was starting to settle down, she got sick again. She ended up feeling better shortly after that and we thought she was Ok this morning, until she got sick while we were getting her ready for daycare. All this time, in between her bouts of illness, Ada was very clingy. I have written before about how snuggly Ada gets when she is sick, but this time she really played up the 'I need my mommy' act. And of course I have fallen for it hook line and sinker. I always knew that kiddos needed their parents love and compassion and cuddles when they were sick, but I had NO idea that the way God got around the whole parents being grossed out by gallons of baby puke, was that he built in the 'poor little baby' reflex. You know the one, where even though your baby has puke in their hair and on their hands and their breath stinks like a heavy coat of spoiled milk; when they reach out for you - instead of retching and gagging from the utter stench of it all, you hold them close and put their head on your shoulder and rock them back and forth. Whispering assurances in their ear and thinking to yourself, 'Poor little baby, I wish I could go through this for her'.

house rule

When Ada is sick, we all suffer. Not because she passes whatever she has on to both Elliot and I, and that does happen, but because Ada has realized that Mommy and Daddy can't stand to hear her cough and then cry and then cough and then cry. Well last night Ada took full advantage of the fact that she is indeed smarter than the rest of us by pulling this cough/cry routine just after we put her to bed. In fact, she was so pitiful that after slaving away making cookies for her daycare, I went in to comfort her. I know how awful I feel when I'm sick and it sounded like she just needed some mama love. And it seemed to work. I picked her up, she snuggled into my shoulder and we sat in her rocking chair in a wonderful mama-Ada hug. Slowly she calmed down, her breathing slowed to a normal rhythm and I thought she had finally fallen asleep. I slowly lowered her in my arms to check if she was asleep and wah-la she was out. So I put her down in her crib and BAM just like she was 9 months old again - she popped awake. Only now she can walk, and knows the joys of playing with the Christmas decorations, and riding in her car, and climbing on all of her chairs. So now, she wanted down and out of that dark room.

I did what all parents think they'll never do, I feel into the carefully laid trap. Ada knew that I had a limit to the amount of crying I could stand, and she called me on it. She lured me into her room, lulled me into a sense of comfort with our snuggle time, and just as she sensed my guard was down she pounced. Two hours later she was still up and running around the house. So tired that the only thing she could do was laugh. I'd like to think she was laughing just for the joy of laughing, but part of me thinks she was laughing at me, because you know - she finally confirmed that she rules our house.

mama's little helper

This time of year there are work potlucks, friend's holiday parties, and now Ada's daycare holiday party. All which require me to bake something yummy to bring along. I guess I could just go to the store and buy something, but as a former girl scout, I kind of feel like that is cheating.


Earlier this week, I needed to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (yum) for my work potluck and I figured I could make the dough while Elliot made dinner and Ada decided that cookie dough was more interesting than soup so she decided to help me.


Ada is a big butter lover, so when I put the two, yes TWO, sticks of butter in the bowl she almost went into convulsions she was so excited about that much butter in one place. I knew I had to quickly distract her, so I started measuring out the sugar. She was really curious about the strange white substance I was pouring into the measuring cup. Then she figured out how to help me pour the sugar into the bowl. When the mixer started to mix together the sugar and the butter she was really amazed - two of her favorite things being made into one - there really is a heaven. Next was the flour. She has seen flour before at daycare. At daycare, they use flour to teach about texture. So Ada thought she knew what flour was used for - sifting through her fingers, and apparently pouring it all over her little legs. Next we moved on to the pumpkin, Ada was really curious about the slimy squishy orange substance. Then she stuck her finger in the left over pumpkin and tasted it - apparently she like it because she grabbed the spoon and started in on the rest of it. The final piece was the chocolate chips. Up to this point, the highlight of the cookie making experience was probably the butter - but then Ada saw the giant bag of chocolate chips she had picked up at the grocery store a couple of weeks before. And then she saw me open it, and to her wonder, pour most of the contents into the mix we had been working on. At this point, I thought it was important to teach Ada the secret to cookie making. The reason why the maker of the cookies puts forth so much love and effort to make the homemade yumminess for everyone else. Whenever you add chocolate chips to cookie batter, you save a small portion of chocolate chips for yourself to "taste" as the final mixing occurs. And this, this was definitely Ada's FAVORITE part of making cookies.

so grown up

Last Thursday night Elliot, Ada, and I went out for dinner. We went right after we picked up Ada and she was in a pretty good/hyper mood so we picked a booth with a wrap around bench so Ada could walk around but still be contained.

We ordered some garlic bread sticks (Ada's favorite) and when they arrived we realized that they came with some marinara sauce for dipping. Now, we know Ada loves dipping french fries in ketchup, but I thought that had to do with the ketchup more than the dipping. Turns out she is as big a fan of dipping as she is of ketchup. We broke off a piece of bread stick for her and she started contentedly munching away. Until she saw both Elliot and I dip our bread sticks into the sauce. She stood up on her bench seat, leaned way forward and dipped her bit of bread into the sauce. Well, dunked is a more fitting description. She had marinara sauce up to her wrist, but she didn't let this stop her. She then brought her bread back to her lips, only it didn't get much further than her chin because it was soaked and weighed down by sauce. Of course this lead to a chin full of sauce and fingers full of sauce, which she promptly wiped clean on her new turtleneck. Eventually she managed to navigate the bread to her mouth but at that point she realized that she had dipped her bread in sauce instead of ketchup and she lost interest in the bread.


After our meal had arrived, I carefully cut up pieces of food for Ada, and Ada was feeling awful grown up so she decided to pick up the knife and try to "cut" her food as well. After that she insisted on taking my fork so that she could eat, because who would eat with their fingers. Um.. I guess that would be me now. She also insisted on shaking Parmesan cheese on her food just like Mom and Dad. Thankfully, even through all of this big girl action she managed to eat quite a bit of food. Once she finished eating she wanted down from the table and then back up into my lap.

Now, Elliot and I had both ordered a glass of wine with dinner and I was finishing up my glass of wine when Ada insisted on sitting in my lap. That was when she took this big girl act one step to far. She was happily sitting in my lap, playing with my plate and then she saw it. My glass of wine and she lost all focus on any other objects and honed in on the fancy glass with the rich red liquid. She grabbed a hold of it and tried to bring it to her lips. That's when I put my foot down. My baby can eat grown up food, she can use a butter knife to cut her food, and she can even use a big fork to feed herself; but under aged drinking, she is going to have to wait until she is at least 5 before she starts doing that.

not a picky eater

Sunday night we stopped at Souplantation on our way home from floor hockey to get some takeout salads. Whenever we eat at Souplantation we get Ada a little plate full of some of her favorite items from the salad bar. This mostly consists of chick peas, kidney beans, pasta spirals, and black olives (yuck!). So when we did our takeout we used a few of our little containers to do the same so Ada would have her own set of food when we sat down to dinner. We were running a little late so we decided to let Ada pick at her set of beans and olives while Elliot gathered up some bread and soup to complete our dinner. I thought she'd munch on one or two kidney beans and then be bored and want to move on, not so much. She plowed through her entire container - equivalent to a good handful of food. So on the way out we refilled her container, which she insisted on holding and eating from on the way home. Once again she plowed through this entire container before we got home. This left me scrambling a bit because I didn't expect her to finish one of the containers, let alone two. So when we got home I picked through Elliot's and my salads to pick out food that Ada will eat. She ate most of this, with the notable exception of carrot slivers. She picked these off of every other piece of food we gave her. She also got a little minestrone soup and clam chowder (which she loved), and some wheat bread with butter. Not only was she eating a lot, she was eating fast. I got tired just trying to keep up with the speed of her food intake. In the end in this one sitting she ate more black olives than I have eaten in my entire life, proving that at age 1 she is already less of a picky eater than her mama.

daddy's girl

We had a great weekend hanging out with Ada. Saturday was a pretty typical day for us, but Sunday started out with a lot of unusual activity and it appears that Ada got a little worked up. We started off the day getting our Christmas tree. In the past, Elliot and I have waited until the week before Christmas to get our tree, but we thought Ada might enjoy having the tree around so we got it a little early this year. Ada was a little shy at the tree lot and didn't really grasp what was going on, but was happy to be out of the house. Next, we did some shopping at Target to get some construction paper and paper ornaments. We decided that we would decorate our tree with paper ornaments just in case Ada figured out how to pull the tree over - we didn't want to have to deal with a squished Ada AND broken glass from the ornaments. Ada loves shopping, especially if there is a cart involved. Not because she likes sitting in the cart. She will put up with sitting in the cart for a little while, but she usually ends up out of the cart, "pushing" it as we slowly move through the aisles. We had such a good time at Target that we figured we would push our luck at Marshalls for a few items we have been looking for, and finally ended up at Einstein Brothers for some breakfast fare. With all of those activities we thought Ada was sure to crash for her morning nap shortly after we got home. And sure enough, she showed all of her sleeping signs, but for some reason - she just refused to fall asleep. We tried a couple of times to get her down in her crib - even letting her wail about for what felt like an hour (probably not more than 5 minutes). Finally we resolved ourselves to a no nap morning and brought her out to watch some football with us. It wasn't more than one minute before she had curled up in Elliot's arms and fallen asleep. Elliot was also feeling a bit tired so he just laid down on the couch and they took a nice long nap together. Once they woke up they had some lunch and as they finished up, Elliot gave Ada a piece of garlic bread (her current favorite food) and propped her up on a pillow next to him on the couch. She was content but had a look on her face that showed that something was just not right. She looked around a little bit, looked up at Elliot, looked at his arm that was over her shoulder and resting on the arm rest and then something clicked. She grabbed his arm and pulled it in close around her waist, and snuggled in a little bit more. At that moment in Ada land everything was right with the world. She was well rested, her belly was full, and her Daddy - he was wrapped around her little finger. It was adorable.

sleepy head

Last night when I picked up Ada from daycare I noticed that she hadn't taken her afternoon nap. Not unusual, but it usually means a cranky ride home and an earlier bed time. So imagine my surprise when I handed back a binky early in the ride and then didn't hear another peep. Given that it is dark when I pick her up now - I couldn't see what she was up to until I got home. Turns out she was asleep. We put her in her crib and figured we had enough time to finish up some work until she woke up and wanted dinner. One hour passed - nothing, two hours - nothing, finally we started to get ready for bed and she started to stir. We quickly gave her a bottle (forget the sippy cup), changed her diaper, put her in her jammers and laid her back in her crib and she was still happily sleeping when I left the house at 6:30 this morning. I'm sure she is growing and needed the sleep, but in the back of my mind, I can't help but wonder if she figured we would be trying to push the sippy cup again last night and she was just really creative in her attempt to rebel against our attempts.

power struggle

Last night when we picked up Ada from daycare the center director asked us to step into her office because she wanted to talk to us. Nothing bad, Ada is going to be transitioned to the toddler room at the center and she wanted to discuss that process with us. The biggest difference for Ada is going to be the removal of the bottle. Once she moves to the toddler room she will no longer be allowed to drink her milk from a bottle. You wouldn't think this is a big deal since she is very proficient with her sippy cup, but you would be wrong. We have until January to make the transition but Ada is apparently so attached to her bottle that the director thought we should start now.

So being the studious parents that we are, we went home and presented Ada her evening milk in a sippy cup. Seconds before that she had been drinking water from a sippy cup but that is apparently very different. We warmed the milk, poured it in the sippy cup and tried to hand it to Ada. She pushed it away and said, "Nah".

Side note here - I love that Ada says Nah instead of No. It just seems so much more relaxed and cool. Like she just doesn't feel like doing what she is being asked to do rather than full out defiance. I know... I'm only fooling myself. But it is the little things. Ok back to the story....

So I offered her the sippy cup a few more times, Elliot tried to lay her across his lap like he normally does with the bottle and got the sippy cup as far as her lips but then she pushed it away again and said, "Nah". We figured it might be a bit much to do all in one night so we explained to her that we would let her have her milk in a bottle but that we were going to continue to first offer her the sippy cup and after this week we would not be putting the milk in the bottle for her. Quite the logical argument but I'm not so sure she is going to let us off that easily.

So this morning when it was time for her morning milk, Elliot offered her the sippy cup and when I got out of the shower, he was still trying to get her to take it. She is normally so sleepy, calm, and hungry in the morning you can get her to do just about anything. Anything, that is, except drink milk from a sippy cup. She ended up with her bottle again. We'll see how long this takes. If we have learned anything in the last 15 months it is that Ada is a strong willed little being. In fact I think that was driven home most poignantly when we were struggling to get her attached to the same nasty little habit we are currently trying to break - the bottle. How ironic.

the grey cup

Yesterday was The Grey Cup, the Superbowl of the Canadian Football League. And as luck would have it, the Saskatchewan Roughriders were not only in the game they won the whole thing! Through one of our local Canadian friends we found out that a local bar was actually going to be showing the game so of course we HAD to go.

Last year for Christmas Elliot got some Roughriders gear for the family, including a cute little sweatsuit for Ada. So we put on our gear and headed downtown for the game.

The game wasn't all that exciting, but our time at the bar was interesting. Unfortunately, the owner of the bar didn't know he was going to have the game on in time to advertise to the local Canadian contingent, so there was only two other groups of Canadians there. However, it was fortunate for us because it allowed Ada to have run of the joint without us worrying to much about her. We did take in a little pub fare including Ada's favorite of all time - ketchup - with a side of french fries. Technically we ordered and paid for the french fries and they threw in the ketchup for free but Ada merely uses the fries as a means for getting ketchup into her mouth and all over her face. She has really developed quite the technique for moving ketchup from the plate to her mouth. She spends a lot of time orienting the fry in between her fingers so that she is just holding the very tip of the fry, allowing her to get the maximum surface area of the fry available for ketchup dipping. She then slides the fry into and out of the ketchup resulting in a full double dip of ketchup per dip. You would think this would be good enough but she then takes it a step further. She then licks and sucks the ketchup off the fry and goes back in for another dip. She will only actually eat the fry after it has been fully saturated with ketchup.

Had the Chargers been in, and won the Superbowl I would have great memories of great catches and hard hitting tackles, because, you know, I would have watched the game. You would think the same would apply to the Roughriders winning the Grey Cup - but honestly - I will always remember this victory by fry manipulation and the art ketchup saturation.

giving thanks

Yesterday was American Thanksgiving, as opposed to Canadian Thanksgiving, which Ada also celebrates. We hosted what we called, Lazy Thanksgiving. The only rules we laid out were that we would eat when the turkey was ready, football would be on the TV, and we would most likely be in our comfy weekend clothes. My parents, Julie, and Taylor joined us for our lazy day and we all had fun hanging out, but Ada and Taylor showed us that they are learning how to be quite the tag team.

They are just starting to get to an age where they are playing together. And play they did. It looked like a toy store had thrown up in our living room by the time the day was over. In fact, they were so busy playing that they didn't have time to take their afternoon naps. Not that Julie and I didn't try. We would try to put one down and they would cry past their normal amount so we would take them out and then we would try the other one. Each time one of the girls was sprung loose from the crib she would walk back into the living room with her head held high and a slight glimmer of mischievous satisfaction across her face. This was the routine for a couple of tries then they picked it up a notch. I didn't see them talking this through ahead of time but I'm guessing that they had some sort of code worked out, because what happened next had to have been plotted out. Taylor once again had a little meltdown, the sort that just announce to everyone around that it is time for a nap. As a mom I love these meltdowns because they are so transparent you don't have to spend any time wondering what might be the source of the tantrum. But, as had happened the other three or four times we had tried to put one of the girls down for a nap, once her head hit mattress the screams got even louder and varied.

This is where the plotting comes in. Taylor and Ada must have figured that among the adults, there must be at least one that would succumb to their total cuteness. So they set up an elaborate sequence of crying rhythms and when the other one heard this they knew it was time to set their plan into action.

As the adults sat around waiting for Taylor to get through her full litany of cries, Ada snuck back to the bedroom and started lightly pounding on the door. And the girls were right, someone saw Ada pounding on the door and they let her in, she wandered in looked around and had a smug little look on her face that said, Yup, suckers. I did my job, they won't be able to resist Taylor now that they are in the room. And she was right. As Taylor walked back into the living room this time she held her head even higher, and the smile on her face was extra big. I'm sure that if we had video footage of the girls following this incident we would have seen them high fiving and giggling as they realized that they have us wrapped around their little fingers. And as silly as it sounds, THAT is what I'm thankful for this year.

spa girl

Ada has been showing her inner spa girl lately. First, on Sunday morning as she and I were quietly playing so that Elliot could get a little extra sleep she kept grabbing my nail polish bottles. I don't think she knew what they were for but she kept grabbing them and banging them together and then handing them to me. I was out of fresh ideas for exciting play activities so I figured I'd show her how to paint her nails. Ada is normally very possessive of her fingernails, if she sees you trying to mess with her nails she will quickly pull her hand away and then try to get out of your grasp. Sunday morning, however, she was intrigued by the brush and the color and let me paint 8 of her 10 nails. She didn't even try to touch her nails and mess up the color. She did however try to paint my nails so I ended up with the odd 2 nail manicure.

Another sign of her inner spa girl is her persistent requests for back rubs. Now when she realizes that I am doing a pre-bed diaper change all by myself, she will roll over after I get the diaper on (and sometimes before), grab her favorite bottle of lotion, hand it to me, and then lean forward so that I have the best angle to rub lotion on her back. She has it down to a science. And if I take to long, she whips around to make sure I'm at least in the process of opening the bottle of lotion. Of course she only does this for me.

Her final spa girl sign needs a little back story. No pun intended.

This week I have been off of work but still taking Ada into daycare so that I could help Elliot recover from his Lasik surgery, get some stuff done around the house, and tap into my own inner spa girl. Elliot and I are going to a local day spa tomorrow for a little mental recovery and we have been talking about it for a couple of days. Apparently Ada was listening. This morning when we got ready to head to daycare she was all smiles and didn't cry one little peep of a cry on the way in. Until we got to her classroom. Then she broke down like someone had stolen her binky and put coffee in her sippy cup. There was no consoling her. I was a little deflated by this experience since she never has this sort of melt down when Elliot does the drop offs alone, but Elliot has a good theory. He figures she heard all the talk about the spa, and knew it was coming up, and that it is just silly for men to want to go to the spa for an entire day, so the only other logical explanation for me loading her up in the car all by myself was that the spa day had finally come and she was just minutes away from being scrubbed down with a Eucalyptus Lavender Sugar Scrub. And when she saw the door of the daycare rather than the gates of the spa she was crushed. Her little spa dreams dashed. Given that disappointment the only logical thing to do was to cry uncontrollably and take absolutely zero solace in the smiling faces of her classmates and teachers. NOW that melt down make total sense.

cuddly sickness

Ada has never been very cuddly. Even with nursing she started out cuddling up to me because she thought she had to, but by the end she was much more aggressive about getting her mookie and didn't so much as ask before she decided to latch on. Just about the only time she gets cuddly is when she is REALLY REALLY tired and she wants to go to bed. In this case she'll crawl up into your lap, wrap her arms around your neck and squeeze. This is her way of saying, "In case you didn't notice, it is well past my bedtime and I'd like to go to sleep now." And even in these instances the cuddling really only lasts a few seconds and her body is still sort of stiff and deliberate.

Well yesterday she had a little bit of a fever, enough to stay home from daycare, and according to Elliot she was very cuddly all day. She just wanted to be held, because no matter how old you are, that just makes you feel better. I didn't really believe it - not until I got home and Ada immediately jumped from Elliot's arms into my arms. I wasn't prepared for the cuddliness that Ada had in store for me. She was relaxed and soft in my arms, she laid her head on my shoulder and burrowed her head into my neck, and she wrapped her little arms around me and squeezed just hard enough to let me know that she wanted to be right there, in my arms. It was one of those moments that make your heart melt. That is when I turned to Elliot and asked if he was going to be able to stay home with Ada again today, because if she was so sick that she didn't mind cuddling, there was no way she was going to be well enough to go to daycare the following morning.

disruption

I don't think I realized how much Ada has started to rely on Monday's at Uncle Eric's house, until last night. Eric, Monique, and the kids are back East until early December which means we did not go up to their house for dinner last night. Elliot and I used this as a chance to catch up on our energy and work from a pretty busy week last week, and we figured Ada wouldn't really know the difference. Boy were we wrong.

When we got home Ada sort of looked around as if to say, "Wait, where are the other kids? And the cool furniture, and the dog, and... and... and... ". After she got over that shock she started loudly pouting. A very deliberate "HMPH". A long wallowing whine. And loud deliberate steps. When we started to make dinner she got extra pouty, solely because she didn't have her cousins to entertain her. The funny part is that she is no where near that dramatic on other nights when we make dinner or *gasp* try to play with her when we get home.

It is safe to say that the whole family misses Eric, Monique, Maia, and Eric - but Ada - she misses them the MOST.

the littlest curler

Tonight was an open house for the San Diego Curling club. Since Elliot is the president of the curling club he had to be there and Ada and I tagged along. Since Ada attends many of our ice hockey games she already has an outfit designed to keep her warm while in the rink but tonight was the first time she got close to the ice.

At first Ada and I just hung out in one of the player boxes and watched the action. Ada sitting on top of the wall, banging her boots on the boards as if to root on the motley crew of new curlers. Next, gaining some confidence and comfort, Ada decided that she wanted to wander to the back area where the Zamboni is stored. I thought she was interested in the machinery but really she had seen the barrel of curling brooms earlier in that section and was bringing me back so that she could get a broom and get on the ice like everyone else. So we grabbed a broom and I extremely cautiously let her down on the ice. The grip on her boots was fairly good and Ada was extremely comfortable as she insisted on NOT holding my hand. She grabbed her curling broom, pushed it out in front of her, and started to walk and sweep just as she had seen others doing earlier. I spent the rest of the night worrying that she was going to whip around and fall and crack her head on the ice but she was out to prove one thing to me. She has Canadian blood in her. This Candianness comes with a natural instinct for negotiating ice travel. She proved this point by being as agile on ice after about 5 seconds of experimentation as her Mommy who has several years of ice hockey and a few seasons of curling under her belt.

imagination

Last night when I called home to talk to Elliot and Ada it dawned on me that without the distractions of flying chicken nuggets or constantly running around cuteness, talking to Ada on the phone allows me to focus on what she is actually "saying". And usually her babbles sounded exactly like her babbles at home, but every so often I would ask a directed question to Elliot and I swear I would hear Ada answer with a clear and relavent answer.

"How did picture day go?"

"Not so well, I guess"

I'm sure it was really more like "Na na so ga ga" but my baby deprived mind tapped into my over active imagination and added full language skills to Ada's ever growing list of attributes. Or did it? Maybe Elliot is such a great parent that he was able to teach Ada how to construct a full sentance with proper inflection with all of the extra one on one Ada time he has had this week.

missing you

I have been out of town on a business trip since Tuesday afternoon. This has been the longest I've been away from Ada - EVER. By far the hardest part was when Elliot and Ada dropped me off at the airport. Most of the ride was OK. Ada and I made faces at each other, we sang along to Banana Phone, and clapped our hands many times over. The horrible part started when we got to the airport. When Ada saw the line of cars, and the loved ones hugging goodbye she put two and two together and realized that either Mom and Dad were leaving or that we were going to force her to sit still, on a plane, for hours and then spend the night sleeping in a strange place. I'm not sure which one would be worse, but whatever it was, caused major turmoil. She screamed, and yelled, and moaned, and then screamed some more. No amount of kisses would calm her. And as Elliot and I kissed goodbye on the curb it was highlighted by an extra loud scream from Ada that rose above the sounds of traffic and creeped out of the confines of the completely shut car. Apparently this didn't last long but it did make the walking into the airport extra hard.

I guess Ada spent some time on Tuesday night wandering around the house looking for me, which totally makes me feel loved. But other than that she seems to be totally enjoying her Daddy time. After all he lets her stay up as late as she wants and eat chocolate for breakfast. :P

When I called home last night both Elliot and Ada seemed to be doing OK. Since Ada was still up Elliot put me on speaker phone and Ada and I had our first phone conversation. It was full of babbles, and kisses, and baby interpretations of the word "Yellow". It was absolutely delightful, well, until Ada hung up on me.

my hero

I normally reserve this blog for stories about Ada but this is a crazy family story that needs to be documented for posterity.

Last night Elliot, Ada and I did our normal Thursday night bike ride and then went to get some dinner at a plaza near my work. We go into the pizza place - order our food and have 20 minutes to kill so we decide to walk across the parking lot, which is down hill (this is important in a second) to another store. As we are walking I hear what sounds like an electric car going by - only it is moving backwards, it wasn't an electric car - it was an old Volvo station wagon, and there was no one in the car. Being the hero that he is, Elliot ran after the car, tried to open the door... of course it was locked. So he turned to brut strength and tried to slow it down himself. When that didn't really work he started shouting, louder than you may think Elliot can shout, at the car that was in a direct line for a collision with the runaway Volvo. Just as that car started to slow down, the Volvo also miraculously hit a bit of an up slope and slowed just enough that Elliot was able to finally make some progress on slowing down the Volvo, sparing the car from crashing into the building not 10 feet away. Elliot was then able to push the car back into the aisle of the parking lot so that it wasn't blocking traffic and we started to assess what had just happened.

Turns out, some kid had pulled into a parking spot at the top of the parking lot. Forgotten to put the car in park, but had removed the keys and locked the car before he headed into the Pei Wei for some dinner. Since the car was parked at the top of a hill it slowly started to move backwards, picking up momentum as the hill got steeper. It was about half way down the hill when it passed us.

This was the perfect storm of events which allowed Elliot the opportunity to show his inner hero. The car was luckily parked in line with an aisle in the parking lot. Had it been one spot to the left or right it would have hit another car, or us as we were walking down the other side of the aisle. We almost decided to go to another pizza place that was more on our way home - had that happened we would never have had the chance to save the car. I was holding Ada, which freed Elliot up for hero duty. And had the driver of the Volvo not been such an oblivious kid we would never have this crazy tale to tell.

recovery

What a week here in San Diego. Luckily our neighborhood was not evacuated and our house never came in harms way, but it was still a crazy week for us. Both my office and Ada's daycare was shut down for the week so we had a lot quality time together. Unfortunately, I still had to do work and the air was so poor that we stayed inside all day.

We did manage to have some fun throughout the week and it was neat watching Ada progress, learning something new each day. She did get a little sick of hanging out inside with Mom and Dad all day. By Wednesday she was walking up to our sliding glass door and banging her little fists against the glass. As if to say, please, please, please let me out. I won't eat any leaves, or grass - I just want to feel the cool breeze of freedom on my little cheeks. We gave in on Thursday after a day of almost constant banging.

rules

Ada received lots and lots of cool stuff for her birthday. One of these presents, from her Nonna Donna, is a little plastic baby sized car. It has a door that opens and wheels that work, and a steering wheel - with a HORN. Very cool. And up until last weekend Ada was terrified of it. Curious, but terrified. She would deign to sit in it if we were pushing her around, but she did not want to be left alone with the car. This was funny to Elliot and I because she could not be removed from a very similar car at her cousin Erica's house. We figured she would eventually warm up to the car so we left in in our living room and whenever Ada would catch sight of the car out of the corner of her eye you could see a little shiver go up her spine and she'd hug into us a little closer.

Last weekend Ada's Nana, my mom, came over to babysit and noticed the car. I told her about how it was Ada's birthday present but that she hadn't quite warmed up to it. I guess Nana took that as a challenge because by the time we got home from our hockey game, Ada didn't just like her car, she LOVED it. She can push herself backwards, and then will squawk until someone moves her forward. She loves getting into and out of the car through the door, and she is even polite enough to close the car door after she gets out. This is a wonderful development and I will always wonder how many M&M's Nana had to give her to get her to like the car so much. :)

But all of this love has come with a devilish side. Once Ada has seen her car, she has to be in it, the.rest.of.the.night. This has caused us to create the first real behavioral rule in our house. Ada has to have her dinner before she is allowed to play with her car, otherwise she won't eat dinner. We tried to use the car to our advantage and let her eat her dinner there, thinking that she might not notice that she is eating actual food, but Ada is apparently already one of those crazy car nuts who have a rule about eating in their car. When I offered her some of her veggie corn dog while she was cruising in her car the other night, she looked at me with a look that said, "Um, no. That thing is not allowed in this car. The crumbs alone will take weeks to clean up, and don't even get me started on the smell."

shoes

I've mentioned Ada's love of shoes before, and I take full blame for her obsession. There was a few weeks where I couldn't pass a pair of miniature shoes without picking them up and cooing to Elliot about how cute they were and that Ada HAD to have them. So our 14 month old has, I think, seven pairs of shoes. This might explain why Ada cannot pass a pair of shoes, big or small, without succumbing to the urge to put that shoe on. We spent most of Ada's bedtime play time last night putting on a pair of shoes just handed down to her from her cousin Maia. They are 3 sizes to big but that didn't stop Ada - on and off, on and off, on and off. I'm hoping this obsession with shoes will lead to her being able to dress herself soon. But I'm guessing it will probably just lead to more obstacles for us to dodge in the hallway, in her room, and around her crib. And, really, I have only myself to blame.

entertainment

Car rides with Ada have become an interesting endeavour. Long gone are the days where she just sat in the back and quietly took in the sights of our drive. These days she wants constant stimulation, especially in the car, because car rides are so boring - all you do is sit there and watch the road pass by. I try to provide her with a range of toys to play with and that usually works for part of the ride, but it always comes down to the one ace in the hole trick - singing and clapping. Ada LOVES it when we sing, and loves it even more when we clap and sing. She will bop her head back and forth and clap along. She doesn't care what we are singing about, as long as it comes with a "clap, clap, clappity, clap" she is happy. The other night on the way to my brother's house she got particularly into the clapping and head bopping and ended up so excited that she didn't know what to do and just whirled her arms back and forth and up and down so fast it looked like there was a little ball made out of baby arms spinning around in front of her. She finished this flourish with a loud squawk and then a string of babble with good conversation cadence to it. Like she wanted to tell me about how much fun she was having. Most of the time, I feel like my sole purpose in life these days is to entertain Ada as she makes her way through life, but every once in a while, something like this happens, and I realize that we share the job of Chief Entertainment Officer in our house - I just run more meetings than she does.

role model

Ada loves Monday nights. Every Monday night we go up to my brother's house and Ada gets to play with her cousins. Well mostly she watches her cousins play but more and more she is starting to get in on the action.

Last night there was a lot of commotion, running around, and just general chaotic kid fun. Ada was in hog heaven. I think her favorite part of the night was following her cousin Eric around and immitating everything he did. There is only a four month age gap between the two of them and that makes them perfect playmates because they are interested in the same stuff. However, in the world of balance and coordination those four months are pretty significant, and Eric seems especially balanced and coordinated for a little guy. So watching Ada try to do everything her cousin is doing can give me a little bit of a heart attack. Lucky for me Eric seems to know he is the older more responsible cousin. I think he knows that he needs to be careful of Ada while she is tagging along. Last night, even in the midst of the chaos, when Eric saw Ada trying to climb into the same chair as he had just climbed in- he calmed down, sat back, and watched - silently cheering her on - until she finally made it into the chair and then, she sat on him.

my favorite things

Well not all of them, but I've been reminding myself of a couple of my favorite Ada things lately due to her recent bouts of Independence.

Ada has an infectious smile. She smiles with her whole body. You can see it forming in her belly and just bursting out to her toes and fingers and her face. She is so generous with her smiles, I usually have to just make a silly face and she bestows one on me.

Ada's real laugh. She has become a great fake laugher, but on the rare occasions when she lets out a real one - watch out. Like her smile it encompasses her full body and it looks like she might actually explode if she lets it go on any longer.

Ada's obsession with shoes. Ada loves shoes. She likes to watch Elliot and I put them on and take them off. She likes us to put our shoes on her. And she will find a pair of her shoes and bring them over to us so that we can put them on her. She loves shoes.

Ada's kissy face. She doesn't actually make the kissy face when she wants a kiss, she just makes it when she wants to make us laugh. I think of it as her "What you talkin' about Willis" face. Just super cute and it always ends with a smile (see above).

And most of all, I love Ada cuddles. She isn't much of a cuddler, in fact I'll often try to cuddle up with her only to be kicked in the stomach, but when she decides she wants some love, she will snuggle her head into your neck and all the problems in the world melt away.

So tonight when Ada starts to hold her breath because I try to get her to eat chicken, I'll just remember all of my favorite things, and as the song says, then I won't feel soooooo bad.

super cute

Ada wouldn't leave day care today without giving the director, Cindy, a hug. I guess every day Cindy visits the infant room and Ada has taken a liking to her. Well today she didn't visit until we were picking Ada up and as soon as Ada saw her she reached out for the hug. And when she didn't get it right away, she followed Cindy out into the hallway until she got her special little hug. It confirms what I've thought all along - Ada owns that place.

third gear

Never, in my wildest dreams did I think Ada would be so advanced in her tantrum throwing so early. Last night we had guests over for dinner and when we went to put Ada in her high chair so she could join us for dinner she decided it was time to up the ante. She resisted and wiggled and squirmed until we had managed to wrestle her into her seat. That was when she pulled out her latest trick. She opened her mouth and I expected that loud wallowing scream she has mastered so well, but nothing came out - so we waited - one second, two seconds, three seconds... and nothing. Then we all noticed it at once - she was screaming so fiercely that she was not screaming at all. She was holding her breath and in the process turning blue in the face. There is nothing so scary as looking at your little angle start to turn blue due to lack of oxygen. It didn't seem to bother her at all and it got her what she wanted - a seat on mom's lap for dinner.

If I hadn't been so scared about her almost dying, I would be utterly impressed with her ability to hold her breath for that long. I'm sure this must mean something for her future. Perhaps we have an Olympic swimmer on our hands, or an underwater performer, or maybe just a teenager who says she tried to clean her room until she was blue in the face. But I'll know that she really means she tried for 10 seconds, because THAT is how long it takes.

tantrums

I have heard about tantrums. Kids lose it over the silliest thing, throwing themselves on the ground, crying hysterically. I thought I had a few more months before Ada would hit this stage but I'm afraid we are already there.

It started last week when we made a stop at Costco on the way home from work/day care. Ada was happy while we were shopping and was really happy because we let her push the cart. Well hang on to the handle of the cart while I pulled it around the aisles. But once we got in line we couldn't push the cart anymore and Ada had a full out melt down. She screamed and cried and moaned in agony, she threw her frail little body at my legs and threw her head back so that I could see just how upset she was. This was apparently just the tip of the iceberg. What has followed is an almost daily tantrum, and until today only when Ada was really tired and over stimulated. This morning however, she pushed the tantrum cycle into second gear. I dared to put on a cute vest over her t-shirt this morning and it set off a tantrum that lasted well into our commute to work/daycare. I even caved before we left the house and took the vest off, but then I put on socks AND shoes. She was not happy about the socks and then even more unhappy about the shoes. To demonstrate her extreme dislike of both the socks and the shoes she stomped around the kitchen, occasionally stopping to glare at her sneakers. She quieted down as I brought her outside but as soon as she saw the car she started up again, twisting her body, pulling at her car seat buckles, screaming the saddest cry you have ever heard. I tried to cheer her up by singing, making silly faces, bribing her with food - nothing worked. Finally we turned up the radio, ignored the crying and eventually when she got it all out she stopped. I tried turning around a couple of times to make peace but that just set her off again, so I just let her be. She did start babbling a bit as we got closer to work but I didn't dare tempt the tranquil vibe we had in the car by actually turning around to look at her. I'm afraid she has us right where she wants us, lets just hope this phase doesn't last too long.

bruiser

Ada has always been a tough kid. Given who her parents are I guess it isn't that surprising, but one side effect of being so tough is that she goes through life with courage and abandon that most one year olds don't have. She falls and bumps her head, no tears; she runs into a wall, no tears; she bangs her hockey stick on her head, no tears. I was beginning to think that she might have CIPA, the neurological disorder which prevents someone from feeling pain, but this weekend assured us that she is just a gutsy kid - not a sick one.

Over the course of the weekend, Ada crunched her fingers, took a header into a parking lot, and then as she was being dropped off this morning she fell backwards and bonked her head. The fingers and head are OK, but she did scream for a little while after crunching her fingers so I'm guessing it hurt. I think the header startled her more than anything, but she did cry for about 10 seconds. I think she realized at that point that she was OK, it was all surface level damage and that was going to have some major bragging rights this week. It does look horrible though. I bet all day today she had little kids asking her what happened to her face, with Ada answering back, "Well, you should see the other girl".

jealous

Last night as we were playing with Ada, we were all seated in a triangle with our legs pointing towards another person. Elliot was against the closet door with his legs towards Ada, I was against the chair with my legs towards Elliot and Ada was sitting with her back to Elliot's legs and her legs towards me. What a cute isosceles family.

Elliot decided, and I agreed, that it would be nice of him to rub my non-broken toe foot - so he started to rub my foot while we watched Ada play. She was really into her goalie stick and mini-ball and didn't notice what Elliot was doing right away. But as soon as she spotted him giving my foot some loving treatment she immediately moved towards him and took his hands off of my foot. We didn't know what to make of this, and Ada moved on quickly so Elliot went back to rubbing my foot. Well, as soon as Ada saw this she much more emphatically removed his hands, AGAIN. Having made her point very clear, Elliot decided that the foot rub was over. We weren't sure if she thought Elliot was hurting me, if she wanted him to pay more attention to her, or if she was just being her naturally quirky self.

It wasn't until later that night when I was putting Ada to bed that I think I figured it out. I put Ada into her crib while she was still awake and was stroking her face, and her hair (which she has little patience for) to calm her down. I moved down to her foot and then thought that that might tickle so I moved up to her back. That's when the revelation happened. As soon as I moved away from her foot to her back, in a state of semi-consciousness, she extended her leg towards me and waved it around until I started rubbing her foot. A few moments later she was out for the night. A-ha! The motivation for her earlier behavior was crystal clear - she wanted the foot rub, not Mommy.

show-off

We had an Open House meeting at Ada's school earlier this week. The meeting was pretty standard. This is what we are working on, this is what kind of food you can bring in, here is some artwork, etc... Then, at the end, they brought out hand prints in dough that the kids had made earlier in the day. They wanted the kids to paint the hand prints with their parents help. So they passed out little dixie cups of non-toxic, non-staining paint and paint brushes and let the kids go. It was obvious from the very start that this is their normal arts and crafts process. All of the kids knew to stick the brush in the cup. However, they weren't so clear on what to do then. One little girl started painting one of the boys, one of the other little girls started to eat the paint (well most of them did this), and then there was Ada. She took her paint brush with paint on it and started painting the hand print. Well it was more like stabbing the hand print with her paint brush but to all of the other mothers who were watching their little ones eat paint - it was the work of Picaso. Their oohs and ahhs just egged Ada on. She kept stabbing away, until she had her entire hand print (and half the table) covered in bright pink paint. As most of the kids got bored they put their cups of paint on the table. Ada grabbed one of the cups with green paint and added a couple quick stabs of green for a little Jackson Pollack type flair.

cousins

One of the reasons why Elliot and I moved to San Diego was that we wanted our children to grow up around some of our family. Of course we didn't have any children at the time but in theory, that is what we wanted.

Now that Ada and her cousins are old enough to recognize each other and play together, I really believe this is one of the best decisions we have made. Ada and her cousin Taylor hang out on the sidelines of soccer games weekly. They get to see each other every Friday night and every Sunday morning. They are both walking and babbling and have really started to notice each other. Whatever Taylor is doing, Ada wants to do; and whatever Ada is doing, Taylor wants to do. They are not gentle with each other either. In a world where everyone handles them with kid gloves, because they are, well, kids - it must be refreshing for them to be able to tumble around with someone their own size.

Ada also gets to see her older cousins Maia (3 yrs old) and Eric (only 4 months older than Ada) every Monday night. Ada has always been a lot more cautious at Maia and Eric's house than with Taylor and I figured it was because the kids were a bit bigger or the play rougher. It also seems to fit her personality more - observing and thinking rather than just taking action. Last week Ada very timidly started to play with Eric and Maia. This week, she jumped in with both feet. She seems to be really interested in both of her older cousins but in different ways. She likes to follow Eric around, getting into whatever mess he is in, following him around getting in his way. Her interactions with Eric are very similar to those with Taylor - more rough than you might expect from our little observer. With Maia, Ada approaches things much more carefully. She will examine what Maia is working on, will watch her and slowly try to integrate herself into the activity.

I have been lucky to be able to just sit back and watch a lot of this cousin interaction. The look of pure joy on Ada's face as she romped around with Eric last night was just infectious. I love that Ada is getting the benefit of a large family, especially since I didn't have to go through pregnancy and labor 4 times to give it to her. :)

communication

Ada's daycare is attempting to teach her baby sign language. We have picked up a few key signs we are using at home to try to create some consistency. One of these signs is the sign for milk. You basically open and close your hand like you are milking a cow with your thumb at the top of your hand. So for the last few weeks we have been asking Ada if she wants milk and making the sign for milk, feeling sort of like an idiot as she just stared at us like - what are you doing with your hand. Then we noticed that Ada was waving wildly at us at certain times of the day. Wow, we thought, she is really getting the hang of waving Hi to us. How cute. Then one day it dawned on me. If I turn my hand 90 degrees and make the sign for milk it looks an awful lot like waving Hi. Since we made this discovery and Ada has realized we made this discovery she has become quite adamant about her milk requests. Yesterday morning she asked for milk so I fixed a bottle, and while it was warming up I did a few things in the kitchen and Ada played away in the living room. When I walked out to the living room without a bottle of milk she turned and looked at me and did her milk sign WITH BOTH HANDS. The look on her face said. "Where is my milk? Don't even think of coming out here without any milk!" Let's hope she gets less demanding of her wait-staff as she gets older. Otherwise, I'm guessing she will eat one to many meals containing the saliva of her waitress, purposely placed between the bun and the patty.

sleeping in

I used to be a morning person, able to wake up at 5:30 AM to get a workout in before my day started. I even had Elliot rising early during the final months of my pregnancy because it was too hot by 7 AM to go for a run, but the year of waking up several times during the night has broken me of that habit. Before Ada arrived I had all of these notions about how I wouldn't be afraid to let my baby "cry it out" (CIO) if they weren't one of the angelic babies who sleep through the night at 3 months all on their own. Funny how having the actual baby in your house can change things. Not to say that we didn't try, but Ada is what we like to call stubborn.

As we hit Ada's one year birthday without her sleeping through the night I figured we might have to pull out the CIO card. Elliot and I were zombies during the week, and it was obviously affecting Ada as well as she would sleep in until 8 or 9 AM if we let her. Which was a nice little treat for us on the weekends but sort of a pain on week days. I was anticipating horrible nights of long crying stretches and a bleary eyed family for a few weeks. So far we seem to be doing Ok. The first few nights she woke up once, cried for maybe 5 minutes and then gave up and went back to sleep. The last two nights she has actually slept through the night, waking at 6 AM. It is more like a popping awake. She will be sleeping soundly one minute and then POP her eyes open and she is ready to start her day. Up until this week Ada and I had a nice thing going, Elliot would get up to shower and we would sleep in. Those days are now distant memories. Ada, feeling refreshed does not want to waste one drop of a day by sleeping in. I try, but she pulls my hair, grabs my nose, forces her fingers in my mouth, anything she can think of to wake me up. I usually last about 5 minutes, but I'm taking note of all of her techniques. I plan on using each and every one of them when she hits her teen years and refuses to wake up in the morning.

what separation anxiety

I think Ada has moved past the whole separation anxiety thing. Yesterday when Elliot dropped off Ada she was a little clingy until she spotted her BFF Reese across the room. She dragged Elliot to the play area gate and anxiously waited for him to open the gate so she could get to Reese and PLAY. This morning was more of the same. Clingy until she spotted her BFF and then she was all about getting into the play area so she could start.having.fun. This makes the whole drop off process much easier, and for that I am extremely grateful. It does make me realize how fast she is growing up. I expect next week she'll start asking us to drop her off at the corner.

saturday night fever

I have always been a closet singer. I sing in my car, I sing in the shower, I sing in my head while I run; usually off key, and usually either my own made up song or made up words to popular songs. So it isn't really all that surprising that I now sing about and to Ada, a lot. What is surprising is that Ada seems to naturally know how to dance. Her currrent favorite is the tune B-I-N-G-O and Bingo was his name-o. If I start singing anything to that tune she will start to clap and move her little body. Even in the car. Yes, she is one year old and she is already a car dancer. Another current favorite is the Frère Jacques tune. I started singing my own version of this last night and Ada started shakin' her little booty, like she was born to dance. Super cute. She definitely has a future of night club dancing ahead of her. When she is 35.

hi

Ada doesn't do a whole lot of surprising things. Or maybe I'm so used to expecting the unexpected that nothing she does seems all that surprising any more. Today, that all changed.

Ada has been babbling up a storm, lots of bubububububs and dadadadads and tttttttttts, but to date, nothing that doesn't sound like it is coming out of the mouth of a one year old. This morning, we walked into her classroom, she took a quick look around and then out of her mouth popped, "Hi". Firm and crisp, and with a little bit of attitude.

I had to look back at her to make sure she hadn't turned 13 while I was signing her in.

p.s.

We decided to pop open Ada's tunnel at home now that she has shown love to the daycare tunnel. She seemed like she might be warming up to it until Elliot decided to put his head in one end and lift the tunnel up like an elephant's trunk. That sent Ada running for cover. I guess she figured the tunnel at home actually DOES eat people.

tunnels part deux

Each day at daycare, the teachers write some sort of short note letting us know how Ada's day went and any cute/funny things she did during the day. A lot of times these notes just let us know what color she fingerpainted with, or that they went outside. I usually glance at the note and think, note to self - that red on her shirt is from finger painting not copious amounts of blood. Today's note read, "Ada had lots of fun playing in the tunnel." That caught my attention, I had to have more details. Apparently, she was playing with the two boys in her class. They were running all around, in, and near the tunnel. Ada started out by hanging out near the end of the tunnel and laughing as they boys crawled through, then when she thought no one was looking she ventured inside. Cautious and careful. Once she made that break through she was ALL about playing in the tunnel. It only took one week. One week of watching the other kids, counting them to make sure that none of them were eaten up by the tunnel, and examining their fingers and toes to make sure everyone was Ok after playing near the tunnel. After this whole experience it won't surprise me in the least if Ada has a job where she has someone in charge of tasting her food before she eats it.

growing

Ada's bedtime routine always starts with play time in her room with both Mom and Dad right after she finishes her dinner. Last night I had to skip play time to get some work done, and Ada's Nonna Donna had called so Elliot decided to take Ada into her room, let her play, and call Donna on speaker phone so Ada could hear her. Ada had been a little more cranky than normal during dinner and was rubbing her eyes a lot so I figured it would only be a few minutes before Elliot called me in to nurse Ada before putting her down for the night. As I worked away I kept thinking - boy Ada sure is being well behaved, I wonder what she is playing with. Finally, I heard Elliot hang up the phone, open the door and then he called to me. I had to see something in Ada's room. Minutes into the call, Ada had curled up on her Daddy and after trying a few positions settled between his legs and was zonked out for the night. She didn't show any signs of waking up while Elliot put on her PJs and put her to bed. She was experiencing some deep, body building sleep. And this morning, after having her morning nursing session she kept wanting to slide off the bed to the floor. Trying to tell me, Look mama - I totally grew last night. Yeah, my best guess would be about two inches (!!).

tunnels

I often joke that there were many things about the labor process that Ada did not like and that is why she purposely dropped her heart rate, resulting in the fastest exit from the uterus as possible. Recently we have discovered one more thing to support this theory.

Ada has an extreme fear of tunnels. Her buddy Derek gave her a pop-up tunnel for her birthday and every time we open it up she screams and cries and runs away until we put it away. We thought maybe she didn't like the color, or the material, or the fact that it popped up. However, one of the mother's from her daycare donated a sturdy padded tunnel that had all of the kids going crazy climbing and crawling. All but one that is. Ada screamed, and cried, and ran away to the corner of the room to play with all of the other toys. Not even looking at the tunnel. Pretending that the tunnel didn't interest her. If she could talk she probably would have said something similar to, "Tunnels are so last year, I'm too cool for tunnels. I'll just be over here with all of the non-tunnel toys".

When I heard this story I instantly thought of all of the reasons why Ada purposely dropped her heart rate during labor. It wasn't the contractions, or the dark, or the water breaking, or the lack of oxygen. Nope, she took one long look down that tunnel and decided, "No way am I going through that thing. There HAS to be a different way out."

ring leader

Ada has been much happier at her daycare dropoffs this week. This morning I think I figured out why.

She was one of the last in her class to arrive and when she walked in all of the other little kids came over to the gate and gathered around her. She looked all of them over, squawked a little bit, knocked some blocks out of one little girls hands and then pushed through the crowd to explore the rest of the toys in the room. And wouldn't you know it... all of the other little kids followed along. She sat in a chair, each of them wanted to sit next to her. She got up and walked away - they all followed. I'm sure they rotate which kid is the coolest, but for this week Ada seems to be the ring leader. And that would make anyone a happy camper.

card shark

We have all sorts of toys for Ada. Small toys, big toys, loud toys, quiet toys, soft toys, and toys that hurt when smashed into mama's head. We also have all sorts of grown up toys. Toys that Elliot or I had before we even thought about bringing another life into this world. Most of those toys are electronic in nature and have been stashed up in places that Ada can't reach. However, some of our grown up toys are just grown up because they are associated with more adult activities. These we are less careful with.

For the most part Ada is more interested in her toys that clash and bang than any grown up toys, with one exception - Elliot's poker chips. These were a gift to Elliot many years ago and have sat in our living room on a side table, unused, ever since. Well unused until Ada discovered them. Apparently you have never known joy until you have flipped an entire round of poker chips on the floor. Ada will spend hours emptying the round of chips, putting them back, and emptying them again. Often accompanied by giggling and sometimes grunts of concentration. I expect Ada to have mastered the finger roll by Christmas.

buddies

From the very early days of daycare, Ada's teachers have told us that she has a buddy, Reese. When they were younger they would play side by side and now that they are older they play with the same toys and with each other more and more.

Today I had an early meeting and was actually able to get out of the house a few minutes early so when I dropped Ada off I took some time to sit and play with her. She has been clingy at drop-off these days and I thought this would help her out a little bit. Her initial reaction seemed to support this thought as she sat in my lap as I played with a toy. They have such cool toys at daycare.

This lasted a whole 10 seconds, until Ada noticed that Reese was toddling over to us. Reese stopped a couple of feet in front of us and Ada stood up and toddled over to Reese and they sort of looked each other over and then turned and walked away together... And then tripped over the same toy.

proper motivation

Elliot and I decided to fight the heat last night by getting smoothies from Jamba Juice. Ada had taken a really long (yay!) nap late in the day (boo!) so she was full of energy and we thought the trip out would be a good change of scenery. I order all fruit smoothies so that I can share with Ada. Usually she will put the straw in her mouth and bite off the smoothie that is near the top. Occasionally she will accidentally suck through the straw and get more of the delicious fruit concoction, but every time we put water in her sippy cup that has a straw she ignores it completely. Well last night Ada seemed to really grasp the straw sucking concept so I poured some of my Peach Perfection into her straw sippy cup and what do you think happened? Yup. Suckage. Turns out it wasn't a question of understanding the concept, but wanting the contents.

sunglasses at night

As part of the gift bags at Ada's birthday party we included these cute foam sunglasses for all of the kids. They were a steal at Michaels and I thought they might provide a good chew toy for the little ones. Well, Ada actually really likes to wear hers. More accurately she likes to have us put them on her face. When she finds her glasses among her toys, she will carry them over to one of us, put the glasses in our hands, and then scrunch up her shoulders and squint. This rivals her tickle and dog licking anticipation on the cuteness meter - and I think she knows it...

definitely not in charge

Ada has been waking up at least once a night to feed. She is so small and obviously hungry at these wake ups that I don't want to take them away from her, but I'd rather the feed happen before I go to bed than in the middle of the night. I have heard about "dream feeds" where you nurse your child while they are still sleeping and then put them back to bed with a full tummy. What a perfect solution, I thought. So last night I went into Ada's room around midnight, lifted her out of her crib, and sat down in our nursing chair. She didn't even notice. When I tried to feed her, her mouth was clamped shut. She wasn't hungry at that moment and there was nothing I could do to get more milk in her tummy. Giving up I stood up from the chair and she arched her back until she felt herself being put back down, reached behind her head, grabbed her binky, and managed to open the jaws of death long enough to get the binky in. Basically saying - I could have opened my mouth if I wanted to, but I obviously didn't want to, if I had I would have cried out and THEN you should have come in to try to feed me.

bed time giggles

Most nights are a bit of a struggle when it comes to getting Ada to bed. We have a bit of a routine, but lately she pops awake and starts to cry the second she senses the crispness of her crib mattress underneath her precious little head, even though she is dead weight in our arms. Tonight seemed like another one of those crazy nights but when I layed her down in the crib she stayed down, so I stroked her back, eventually moving to a little baby back rub, thinking she was almost asleep. Little did I know she was setting me up. As I started to move my fingers in little tiny circles I hear a noise coming from the crib mattress - I listened a little more carefully and realized my cute little monkey was giggling. Wide awake but not wanting to miss out on any tickles. I have no idea where she gets that from. ;)

4 years ago...

Elliot and I were enjoying the open outdoors in Yosemite - our first married vacation. The official wedding anniversary was this past Saturday and in a grand romantic gesture, Elliot planned out a full day of fun activities, all without our little munchkin (as much as we love her). It was a nice break and I think Ada probably had as much fun as we did as she got to spend the whole day hanging out with dogs - possibly her favorite creation other than the whole nursing concept. I won't go into details of the adult day except to say that I am really really bad at golf - but Ada's day deserves some second hand story telling.

Ada spent the day hanging out with her Auntie Katie and after a whole day of Katie whispering "Auntie Katie" into her ear, Ada has started saying "Aunnn TTTT". As I mentioned Ada got to spend her day with dogs. First with her favorite dog of all time, Katie's lab mix, Thea. Thea and Ada have this great deal - Ada will spread food around her face and Thea will lick it off. Thea will also lick Ada's fingers and toes if Ada asks nicely - but for the most part she sticks to Ada's face. And Ada greets these licking fests with giggles of pure joy. She has taken to giving me a fake laugh when I'm tickling her - but the face licking laughs - those are totally real. Katie also took Ada to hang out with Melissa and two other, new dogs that Ada had never met. This amounts to just about heaven in the Ada ranking of unexpected events.

They also did some shopping and dancing and other general fun girl stuff. But most importantly - they napped. Ada has never been a good weekend napper. I can't blame her - she gets to spend the whole day with almost instant access to mommy mookie and that alone is enough to keep her up for hours on end. She will usually crash for about 40 minutes at some point during a weekend day but never more than an hour. However, playing with Thea must have been much more exhausting than playing with mom and dad because she took a 2 HOUR NAP!!!

So while Elliot and I were relaxing and remembering what it was like to eat a meal and have an adult conversation AT THE SAME TIME - Ada was enjoying her break from mom and dad with just as much abandon.