quotable

Last night as we explained to Ada that we had just purchased tickets to visit Nonna Donna in September the following conversation ensued:

"Why are we going on a trip"

"Well, to visit Nonna Donna"

"Yay"

"And so Mommy and Daddy can run in the half marathon"

"Why"

"We like to run in races, it is fun"

pausing and shaking her fingers at us - "You guys should stop running marathons"

Apparently someone is a little sick of being toted around in the jogging stroller and left with a variety of friends while we participate in each race.

I guess it is a good thing that we decided to NOT run in one of our favorite races in San Diego as it lands directly on Ada's birthday!

politeness

We spent this past weekend driving up to San Francisco, hanging out with friends, running a half marathon, and driving back.

That is a LOT of driving for one weekend if you are an adult, and an eternity of driving if you are a small child. Especially if you are then expected to get out of the car, play and basically live with friends you see only twice a year (and boys at that) and since you are a guest at someone else's home you are also expected to be on your best behavior and get this... Polite!

Well that is exactly what we did to Ada this weekend. And she was a politeness rock star. Due to our short time in San Francisco and the need to do all of the prep for the half marathon Ada was left to hang with her new buddies Eli and Ian and their dad, Scott. That's a lot of boys if you are Ada. But she LOVES these boys, she spent the whole drive up remembering how much she loves these boys and so she had a great time.

But she is still an almost four year old kid. And at home there are a lot of manners we are trying to instill. We've had 'Thank You' and 'Please' down for a while but lately she has had to be reminded. A lot. So I was a bit nervous for how all this would play out in the house of boys. Apparently Ada got the "It is not OK to be rude to other people's parents" memo. While we were eating dinner on Saturday night she was asked if she wanted more noodles several times and each time a quiet "Yes, Please" emerged. At one point it got a little ridiculous and she gave Scott about 4 "Yes, please"es in a row.

She also showed that while she has not yet successfully pulled off the "May I please be excused" phrase at home, she is perfectly capable of throwing that down on the table if she is a guest. On Saturday morning when the running crew took off to pick up our numbers I had a quick chat with Ada that went something like this:

"Ada, we are going to the expo to pick up our numbers. We will be fast. But while we are gone, Scott is in charge"

"OK"

"Do you know who Scott is?"

"Yes, EliandIan's dad"

"Yes. He is in charge. You need to do what he says."

"OK"

Well Ada figured that meant he was in charge for the rest of the weekend. And to be fair, he did more than his fair share of kid duty. But in Ada's mind, he was the Grand Pu-Ba of San Francisco. So each time a meal ended. Even if Elliot and I were sitting right there with her, she would turn to Scott and say in the sweetest, most angelic little voice "May I please be excused" and it was only once Scott had acknowledged her and provided permission to leave would she get up to run around like a crazy kid with the boys.

Scott is now invited to come visit us in San Diego any time. In fact, we might get a cardboard cut out of him to place at the dinner table to help Ada.. eh hem.. remember her politeness.

body image

Last night the family had some much needed cuddle time while we were watching 'So You Think You Can Dance' and one of the boys on the show was doing his solo contemporary piece. Ada loves to watch dancing and always has comments on the dancing, or the dancers, but mostly about the outfits. While watching this one particular solo she said "He isn't wearing a shirt". And then threw a sort of quizzical look our way to ask why the heck not?

Ada has always been pretty aware of her body, and like most kids likes to walk around naked, and has even taken to stripping out of her PJs after we put her to bed. So when she shot me this quizzical look I said - well he is a boy so he can dance without a shirt on and he has nice muscles that he likes to show off, sort of like how you like to get naked and show off your beautiful body.

Done and done. Right?

Sort of. Elliot had gone out to the living room to get something and Ada followed him out as she often does. But instead of just running after him, she walked out (she had just had a bath so was in her bathrobe) and as she got close to him opened up her robe and said 'Look at my beautiful body'.

I wasn't there but I'll take Elliot's word that it was just about the cutest and funniest thing she has said in a while and like any father unprepared for the fragility that is a young girls body image he busted up laughing. Laughing so hard that I heard him back in the bedroom. And then I heard Ada.

"This is not funny!"

"I am not funny!"

"My body is not funny!"

By the time I made it out to the living room she was trying to hide herself between the couch and the ottoman. Crying. I felt so bad. I know how she felt. I'm not sure I felt that way when I was almost 4, but I think just about any woman out there has felt that way at one time of another.

It took awhile, but I was able to coax her out of her hiding place and cuddle her, and get her to tell me what had hurt her so bad. And she was so genuine and so hurt. And now I was hurting for her, and for Elliot who had no intention to hurt Ada with his laughter - she was being funny, just not intentionally. Elliot, being the smart man that he is backed off and let me talk Ada down from the ledge. I am still amazed at how hurt her little almost 4 year old heart can get. I was able to get Ada back to cuddling on the bed, but she was very adamant that she was still upset with Daddy - even though he had already apologized. The rest of the night was fairly standard, but this morning when Ada woke up she called for me instead of Elliot. We did some giggling and cuddling but when she saw Elliot she flipped back into her hurt mode.

Note to self - Ada can hold a grudge... a good long grudge.

Well I was having NONE of that. She was told that under no uncertain terms she needed to give Daddy a hug and forgive him - it wasn't OK to still be that upset. The hug started out reluctant at best but by the time it ended she had melted into Daddy's arms and had mutter the cutest "Daddy I forgive you" I've ever heard.

birds and the bees

I thought I had more time before this came up. No. Really. I did. But Ada's current BFF has a little sister and Ada is also a smart and curious little monkey. You combine the two and the inevitable occurred.

"Mommy. When I was a baby. Before I was born. How did I get in your belly?"

Now I'll preface this with the fact that when Ada asked about her belly button we went over the whole - "you were in my belly to grow and I needed a way to feed you" discussion. It took a few turns but she grasped that concept pretty quickly and and no further questions.

But not now.

No.

It was time for the talk.

I've long believed that I would do as my parents did and use the proper terminology and be straight forward with all talk about the body and reproduction. So when the question first hit about 5 minutes into our 30 minute commute home I started in on the truth. Leaving out some of the graphic details - she is only 3 for goodness sake.

So the story we aligned on was that there was an egg from mom, and a sperm from dad (yeah that was a fun explanation), and they were both very small so small you can't really see them. Well they got together and made an Ada and she grew in my belly until she was strong enough to get out.

That should have worked for a three year old with a short attention span. Right? Not so much. She spent the rest of the car ride (about 20 minutes) grilling me.

"So you picked me out?"

"Yes. Well, sort of, your egg was very aggressive, it pushed its way to the front"

"So then, daddy liked my egg?"

"Yes. Well, sort of, daddy's swimmer (that's what she called it) was fast and liked your egg."

And so on, and so on... I have never been so happy to see our driveway.

Well it sank in. Ada has now given the birds and the bees talk to several of our hockey friends, both Elliot and I, and I'm guessing all of her class and her teachers.

Well the other night, as she was talking it through with us she informed us that the egg and swimmers were really small, so small you couldn't pick them up with your hand. So I asked her if she knew how they came together.

I wish I hadn't. Only. It was so funny. So so funny. That as soon as it came out, I knew I had to write about it.

She said, well the swimmer goes into your mouth and down into your tummy to find the egg and you go like this. And she sat there with her mouth really really wide open for what was probably only a few seconds but felt like an eternity. And she was sure. No she was positive with a capital P that she was correct. I swear, that is not what we told her. I mean never. Never with a capital N, never.

I started to correct her. But she quickly grew bored of my insistence that she was wrong. So I finally asked her if she really (I mean REALLY REALLY) wanted to know how it all worked. Luckily for me she quipped 'No' and quickly jumped off to some other topic.

We will eventually correct her on the full story, but for now, according to Ada, we picked her out and that is the end of the story. As much as I think it would be great if this were true, truth be told, we just got lucky!

flair for the dramatic

Last night Elliot and I picked up Ada from school and headed to the playground for what we thought would be some pre-run fun for Ada. Turns out Elliot's hip is hurting him and I was tired so we decided to just head home and do some stretching and claim Wednesday as our day off.

This was great for Ada, she got to run around the playground with Daddy and she didn't have to endure 40 minutes in the jogging stroller. However, once we got home all heck broke loose. Ada had decided to rip off one of toenails on the drive home. I'm afraid a horrible nail clipping incident when she was about 6 months old has scarred her for life. However, when she ripped off the toenail she went too far and it got painful, very painful, screetching at the top of her lungs painful. Luckily we were close to home, and we went into turbo parent mode as soon as we hit the driveway. Clipped the nail, ice pack applied, funny faces made, and a quick read of 'Goodnight Gorilla' and we were back on easy street.

Or so we thought.

After amping up for this ordeal I started to feel a bit more awake and decided that I would do a quick run on the treadmill. Pretty simple task, right? Well I forgot about Ada's love of the 'tread-in-nill'. Ada likes to get on there (with adult supervision) and pretend like she is pushing the house up the hill. It is actually pretty cute and she has great endurance.

As I started my run, Ada came in and asked if she could run with me. I was pounding along at a pretty good pace so I said a quick 'not right now' and Elliot swooped in to distract Ada. Only Ada didn't want to be distracted, nope, in fact she had heard what I said, had been injured by my tone, and was distraught that the world that usually revolves around her was - for that moment in time - not. She stomped off to her room (across the hall) and started wailing - 'Nobody hates me'. She was indeed correct except she thought she was saying 'Everyone hates me, no one is listening to me, I'm all alone, and my parents just don't understand me!' And she repeated this for the next twenty four minutes. As I finished up my run and had the treadmill going at a more Ada like pace I asked if she wanted to join me. You would have thought I told her we were going to take all of her stuffed animals out to the backyard to behead them one by one. The dramatics. The flail. The tears that kept coming and coming. And there I was drenched in sweat from my run and therefore unable to do the one thing I want to do - give her a hug and tell her it would be OK.

Ada has informed me in the past that I am, under no circumstances, to touch her, any of her, when I am sweaty.

So I had to reason with her, and this is when I found out that she was one good Cure song away from a full blown teenage meltdown. And just as quickly as the mood hit, it was gone.

Turns out Ada had discovered my new hockey shoulder pads and was busy laughing at herself as she put on the over-sized equipment. This lasted until dinner and then once she had scarfed down pasta and fish the next phase of teenage meltdown kicked in.

Ada decided she wanted to put on her PJs. However, instead of just walking back to her room to change, or asking one of us to help out, she flipped back into the dramatics. This time she was so distraught that we couldn't figure out what was wrong. Lucky for me, this time I was completely dry and non-sweaty so I picked her up, sympathizing with what seemed to be a hormonal breakdown, and soon discovered that she just wanted her PJs. After applying another dose of funny faces and tickles we started racing back to her room, full of joy.

As I sprinted after her I thought - wow - if being almost four is this tough on her - how are we EVER going to survive when she actually hits her teenage years? And then she turned the corner, slipped on the wood floors, and BAM..

Some nights you just can't win...

Competitive Spirit

Ada loves to hit balls with sticks. Plastic softballs with whiffle bats, floor hockey balls with hockey sticks, foam red balls with toy light-sabres - all a good time. Whether she has any talent that would translate to an actual sport remains to be seen, but she definitely has enthusiasm.

To expand her arsenal of objects to swing, we recently picked up a few youth golf clubs. And no, we don't have any delusions of raising the next Tiger Woods - this was just for fun. Whenever we walk into a Sports Authority (which is fairly often in our family) Ada makes a beeline for the putter testing green, where she will spend as long as we let her trying every putter and whacking the balls around.

Recently we brought her new clubs out for a test spin, playing with them in a grassy field. After randomly whacking some balls around the field we developed a little game where Ada and I would each have a ball and a club and we race from one line to another, using our clubs to knock the ball over the finish line first. Ada thought it was a hoot.

Now, Ada loves to play games, but what she really loves is to win. After each race she would raise her club in triumph and declare "I beat you, Daddy. I won!" This is not something new. If we're out running Ada will insist on going ahead with Mommy so she can yell back "Daddy, you're too slow!" If we are going to get something from her room, she'll push past in the hallway and run ahead to declare victory. If she finishes her morning toast before I do, it will come with a jovial "I beat you, Daddy."

While it is a mystery to us how our daughter could have ended up with such an ardent competitive streak (surely it couldn't have been from her parents - we're not competitive at all...), we're pretty happy that she has the drive to win. What is tricky is teaching her how to not win.

After letting her win a few golf races, I decided to edge her out in a close race, popping my ball across the line just a few seconds before she did. Ada, upon finishing, immediately declared herself the winner and launched into a celebration. Katie, acting as ref, informed her that in fact Daddy had won. Ada did not take that well at all. Like a miniature John McEnroe (with less swearing) she argued adamantly that she had indeed won. When it became apparent that she was not going to change our minds, she stomped off and collapsed to the ground in her best I-can't-deal-with-this-unfair-cruel-world pose.

Several minutes later, after a long discussion about the impossibility of winning all of the time, the virtue of rising to meet the challenge again, and some conciliatory hugs, we packed up the golf clubs and headed home. Which lead to a race to the bathroom. Ada won.