ps

I totally forgot one of the most hilarious moments in her 30 minutes of practice. As Ada was standing perfectly balanced on her skates and trying to convince us that she needed help, she raised her hands in the air and with every ounce of perfectly toned sympathy said, "I can't balance!"

Yes dear, and the sky is not blue, and the Earth is not round, and your name is not Ada...

She is already able to amble along in her skates as if she is wearing sneakers. The ice is not far from our future.

skates

Elliot and I have been looking for ice skates for Ada since she turned two but up until recently we were unable to find anything that would fit on her tiny little feet. Elliot being the ever vigilant father kept checking for skates every month or so and finally, earlier this month, while picking out his birthday present (skates) he finally found a pair of skates in Ada's size. The only problem is that they were blue and since Ada does her best impression of a chemical burn victim every time she is forced to wear anything in a color other than pink we weren't sure she'd even want to put them on.

Well the skates arrived yesterday and apparently Ada's desire and excitement over wearing skates and having her OWN skates overrode the color preference. Although she did point out that they were blue, but since they also had snowflakes on them she seemed to be able to talk herself past the lack of pink.

After we squeezed the skates on her feet Ada stood up to walk. She was a little like a baby deer as she wobbled and eventually fell down. She did get back up but insisted on having help as she walked back and forth on the carpet. We did this for a little bit and eventually settled back on the couch. I was thinking Ok, that was a good start, we'll do a little more each day and eventually she won't need help and once that happens we'll move to the ice. But Ada was thinking, sweet, I finally have my own skates, let's get in the car and drive to the ice rink RIGHT NOW!! She refused to take the skates off. Finally Elliot and I told her that if she wanted to go on the ice she needed to practice on the carpet. So Ada jumped off the couch and started her hobbled walk around the coffee table. She struggled a little bit, sitting down at one point and telling us she fell down, but Elliot calmly talked her through getting back up on her feet.

This continued for the next 30 minutes!! After 30 minutes Elliot and I tried to coax Ada into taking off her skates so we could go for a quick run. Instead she insisted on being carried to the jogging stroller so she could wear her skates in the stroller. She kept the skates on the whole run and was still refusing to take them off. In fact the only way we could get the skates off her feet was to tell her we were going to polish the skates. This seemed to make sense to her so she and Elliot started taking off her skates while I went to find something to polish them with. As I walked back into the living room I overheard Ada telling Elliot that they were going to polish her skates PINK!

Of course.

speller

The other night Ada and I were hanging out on the bed chatting, Elliot was busying himself around the house coming in and out of the room and after one of his departures Ada turned to me and asked, "How is his name?" Thinking she was asking what his name was I told her that she calls him Daddy but I call him Elliot. She looked at me a little funny and said, "No, E..R..I..C".

While she was totally wrong, going with Eric in our family makes you right more times than not. I credit her spelling with her obsession with Big Eric (her uncle) and Little Eric (her cousin) when we sing the name song where we spell out different people's names. But as her MOM, I had a little proud moment, she actually spelled something, on her own, and it has been months since we sang the name song so this was TOTALLY huge!

Diva

One of Ada's new fascinations is learning people's names, or as Ada would say it, "what is him/her called?"

Last night as we were watching the latest episode of So You Think You Can Dance Ada kept asking what each dancers name was, and after a few of the names she asked me what their last name was. I was thrown a little bit because to this point Ada hasn't shown any sign that she actually knows what a last name is let alone an iota of care about what a person's last name might be. And I certainly have no idea what Randi's last name is and while I normally might have come up with something witty I was tired and uncreative so I just told her that Randi didn't have a last name - she was just Randi.

Ada seemed to take that at face value and stopped her inquisition for a moment, long enough for me to ask her what her last name was... She turned to me and said, my name is just ADA, I don't have a last name. When I tried to convince her that she did indeed have a last name, even repeating it several times, and drawing it out slowly she stuck to her original statement. NOPE, no last name, she was definitely just ADA.

Our little Diva!

Flitter

Ada's daycare class has a class "pet", Flitter. Flitter is not your standard pet, Flitter is a little stuffed butterfly and comes with a picture book of all of her adventures. Each child in the class gets a chance to take home Flitter for the weekend and this past weekend was Ada's turn. Ada LOVES Flitter and will do just about anything for Flitter. Trust me, we used this to our advantage.

Friday night we were hanging out in our room after work and Ada wanted something from her room but when she went into her room it was dark and she came back to our room she wanted Elliot or I to come with her to turn on the light for her.

Sidebar: When we set up Ada's big girl room, with the big girl bed, and the new layout, we purposely set up one of her sets of blocks directly under the light switch so that she could stand on top of the blocks and reach the light switch. She KNOWS how to turn on the light.

So back to Ada trying to con Elliot and I into helping her turn the light on... We went back and forth a few times with Ada continuing to insist that she could not turn on the lights without assistance and Elliot and I holding firm to the idea that we have taught her how to turn on the lights and she has demonstrated time and again that she can do it without help. Finally it dawned on me, FLITTER!!!!

At this point Flitter was hanging out on the bed with Elliot and I, so I picked up Flitter and told Ada that Flitter wanted to help her turn on the light. Which she heard as "Ada, Flitter wants to turn on the light, will you help her?" Tomato, Tamato. Ada took Flitter into her room, Elliot and I waited, and waited, and waited, and then, YES, the click of the light switch!! Ada ran back into our room and told us that SHE had helped Flitter turn on the light in her room.

HORRAY for Flitter!!!

bum bum

Early on in our quest to get Ada to agree to put on pull-ups, I mean big girl night time underwear, on at night we tried a variety of things to make it more fun for her. Most did not work but for some reason, one night as I held a Cinderella pull-up in my hand I decided to try to coax Ada into wearing it by talking to Ada in the voice of Cinderella. In my very best princess voice (which is for some reason heavily tinged with an English accent) I said, "Ada, may I please go on your bum bum?" A HUGE smile spread across her face and she slowly nodded and started stepping into the pull-up. I don't know if it was the thought of Cinderella talking to her, or the thought that Cinderella really really wanted to hang out on her rear, or just the fact that she thought the term 'bum bum' was just to precious to turn down. Whatever it was, it worked.

But this little success in the night time potty control war resulted in a very innocuous solution to the whole "do we give her privates a name or just go with what the books call them" debate. In general I am a fan of calling them by their proper name - takes out the mystery and the allure. And up to this point Ada has used the proper names when telling us she is having issues down there but the other day while standing in line for coffee Ada fell down while in mid-twirl and landed straight on her butt. She didn't cry or whine but when she stood up she said, "I fell on my bum bum".

Needless to say she was not amused when we started laughing but the name has stuck we are now officially a 'bum bum' family.

mental workout

Ada is a different little girl when she gets enough sleep - she is energetic and talkative and totally wonderful. Last night Ada fell asleep while we were running and transitioned to bed easily so she again got enough sleep.

Fast forward to this morning - Ada was a delightful bundle of energy. As we were driving into day care her imagination took over and among several other activities Ada decided that it was time to go skating. She "walked" into the rink, and told me it was cold so she put on her jacket. Then she was still cold so she put on warm pants. Then she walked out on the ice but her shoes were too slippery so she walked off the ice to put on her skates. Then once she got her skates on she started to skate. Now you have to picture Ada, in her blue butterfly dress, strapped into her car seat, no shoes on (except her imaginary skates) kicking her legs up and down as fast as she can - that was her imaginary skating. I was going to tell her it was more of a push out motion than a running motion but that is really Elliot's job so I let her start her bad skating habits.

Then after skating at a vigorous pace for about 30 seconds she stopped and started talking about how sweaty she was. She then skated off the ice and took off her skates, drove home and took a shower (including washing her hair).

I know this because she talked herself through the whole thing. Her imagination is so vivid that I almost felt the cool air of the ice rink on my face while I was driving in.

Now if we could only get her reality to move this fast and have real life Ada clean up so nicely as imagination Ada. Maybe we should start adding props to her imaginary life so she actually DOES do all of the things she talks about.

growing

I think Ada is growing. I present for you the following evidence:

1. After hamming it up for the hockey boys on the 4th, attending the Coronado parade, and BBQ'ing at Nana's house Ada fell asleep on the way to BBQ #2 at approximately 5:30 pm. She proceeded to sleep through getting pulled out of the car, walked into a loudish party, being placed on a bed in a room directly adjacent to the loudish party, having several party goers go in to check on how cute she was, being lifted up and carried out to the car, put back into her car seat, pulled back out of her car seat when we reached home, had her underwear changed to big girl night time underpants, and then the rest of the night.

She woke up at 8 am on the 5th, hungry and needing the potty.

2. She fell asleep for her nap at approximately 3 pm on the 5th while we were out running errands. She proceeded to sleep in the car (with Daddy) while Mom shopped for groceries and then through the car ride home, being picked up out of the car and being placed into bed.

She woke up around 6 pm, hungry and again needing the potty.

3. She ate about 5 oz of steak for dinner and then also ate her portion of apple slices with peanut butter.

The only thing that slightly resembled her normal state of being was her resistance to going to bed on Sunday night.

So either she is growing or she is morphing into a different child that Elliot and I will have to adapt to all over again. We are hoping for the former, but haven't counted out the latter as Ada seems to like to change things up just as we get used to the routine.

Wouldn't want to make things boring. :)