Friday, April 15, 2011

awareness

I've often been asked - how long will you write Adabeta? Basically, when do you stop broadcasting all of Ada's most embarrassing moments across the world wide web?

To be honest I have always had two alternatives in my head. 


1) When she figures out what I'm doing and politely asks me to stop, or yells that she hates me, stomps off to her room and slams her door with authority. I call this the 'When Ada asks me to' option.  


OR

2) When she gets old enough to know you only post funny non-incriminating stories on the web, I'd hand the blog over to her to continue on in her own voice. I call this the 'Only in my dreams' option. 


Well a couple of days ago Ada was sitting on my lap and I had this blog up on my browser and she asked me what I was reading. When I told her it was stories about her that Daddy and I had written she got VERY curious. And she asked for me to read her a story, and then another one, and then another one. 


For the record she was partial to the Natalie Sunshine post from a few days ago. If I had to guess, I'd say that isn't the last of good old Natalie.. 


I thought it was just a one time curiosity but then last night as we were hanging out before I ran off to class she asked me to read her a story, a story from my computer. And so we did, we read about Ada growing up. 


This has been so much fun for me. I will be honest - I usually throw my posts up, read them through once or twice to make sure it looks OK and then forget about it. But this week we have gone all the way back to the beginning and it has been so amazing to remember where my mind was 2 and 3 years ago, and even more amazing to remember what Ada was like, you know, back when she was 3! 


Bonus Points to anyone who got that last reference... you are truly a dedicated reader.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

natalie sunshine

The other occupation that Ada seems to be drawn to is ROCKSTAR. 

One of her friends, probably one with an older sibling, taught Ada about Hanna Montana. And that little miss Montana was indeed a ROCKSTAR and therefore someone to be emulated. 

God help us now. 

Anyway, Ada has always been a little bit performance driven. She likes to move her body to music and thanks to a long standing family tradition, she also likes to make up her own songs. I didn't say we had a long standing tradition of making up GOOD songs, just songs. So we'll often find Ada singing through entire hours of her day. You combine the performance, and the inhibition towards song writing and BAM you get a little mini ROCKSTAR in training. 

Right around the time the whole Miley Cyrus (aka Hanna Montana) pot smoking story broke Ada seemed to amp up her desire to play ROCKSTAR, and in particular to be the one, the only, Hanna Montana. 

I'll admit it. 

I couldn't handle the image of my little angel pretending to be this person who was doing things that some would argue are way to adult for the real Hanna Montana to be doing, let alone a little 4 year old. I also didn't want to let Ada get away with just imitating art, especially not when she is so good at creating it... 

So we struck a deal.. 

Ada could play ROCKSTAR if she came up with her own moniker. After much deliberation and a few denied offerings from mommy, she came up with Natalie Sunshine. And so a star, or really a ROCKSTAR, was born. 

Behold... NATALIE SUUUUNNNNSHINE!!!!

 

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

career choices

It is decided.

Ada has decided what she wants to be when she grows up...

An Astronaut.

When Elliot first heard this he informed her that this meant lots and lots of school. First grade school, then high school, then university, then 'astronaut school'... And Ada has signed up for all of that.. she is dedicated. At least for this week.

There are a couple of factors at play here.

1. One of my co-workers who doubles as an airline pilot saw a barbie like doll dressed up like an Astronaut in an airport gift shop, roll-y bag and all, and bought it for Ada. Hey if a barbie doll can do it - so can Ada.

2. Ada's Papa bought Ada one of the coolest space books on the planet (he he). Ada spends hours and hours looking at the pictures in this book and requesting anyone around her to read it to her.

3. One of Elliot and Ada's favorite games to play is "Solar System" - where Elliot holds up a ball and pretends to be the sun and Ada holds a ball and runs around him pretending to be one of a variety of planets, her distance from Elliot determining which planet she is.

4. And finally - Ada's class spends at least a week a year talking about space. Looking at books, talking about the planets, and basically geeking out space style.

And there you have it. Ada wants to be an astronaut so she can take care of Space.  

Sunday, April 3, 2011

a serious turn

Ada likes to get up as early as possible on weekends. 

And who doesn't really? Oh wait, mom and dad, that's who...

I digress...

Due to her early Saturday mornings, Ada has started to participate in a Saturday morning tradition older than time - Saturday morning cartoons. Only now that we have DVRs Ada doesn't get to watch whatever horrible cartoon happens to be on TV, she gets to watch whatever educational cartoon mom and dad have recorded.

So now each Saturday, the second a drop of sunlight hits her precious eye lids they fly open, she pads her way down the hallway to our room, and then one of us sleep walks down stairs to put on Word World, Dinosaur Train, or Dora and then sleep walks back up stairs to catch a few more zzzz's.

This weekend however, Elliot actually got up too because he had to get in a 21 mile training run before the heat set in. Luckily, they both let me snooze away and when I got up for good a little while later I decided to join Ada for some breakfast and cartoon watching. This week's choice was Word World and the episode was about Duck trying to perform on stage in front of all the other word animals but getting stage freight over and over again. But he kept trying, and trying, and trying until he finally managed to get out all the right words to 'Twinkle twinkle little star'.

At this point, I was getting ready to get up to really start my day when Ada turned to me with the most sincere serious voice I've ever heard come out of her little body and said "Mommy, it is very important that we never NEVER ever give up! We have to keep trying and trying and trying."

I'm pretty sure that Duck's trials and tribulations were not the first time Ada was exposed to this lesson, but I thought it was cute that she thought I might not have heard that one before and wanted to take this time to focus on this teachable moment.

Good thing, I'm not sure I would have figured that one out on my own... :)