empathy

Ada has always been very observant. In fact if you go back a year on this blog you will probably find a post about me marveling at how Ada just takes in the world and lets it sink in. And as she has started to grow up and mature a little bit so has her observation skills. Add to that the ability to communicate and we have tapped into something really cool.

Elliot and I are now able to watch Ada grow emotionally as well as physically.

The other night as I sat in the kitchen with Ada as she ate her dinner, counting down the minutes until I had to leave for class I put my head in my hands to rest for a second. Ada was preoccupied with something Elliot was doing and I thought I could steal a quick relaxing moment without much notice. But notice she did! As soon as I put my head down Ada turned to me and very astutely said, "Mommy tired". I confirmed this for her that yes, I was tired, but I would be Ok. And without even thinking about it, and despite the fact that she was actually so full of energy that she was close to bouncing off the wall she cocked her head to the side slightly and said in the most reassuring voice she could find, "Ada tired" and nodded. You could tell by her words and her body language that she was trying to let me know that it was Ok to be tired, and that sometimes, she gets tired too, and if it made me feel better she would pretend to be tired so I wouldn't be alone.

Empathy.

I probably responded more boisterously to the first time I noticed she could talk or walk or roll over for that matter. But the moment I realized that Ada was developing real human emotional skills - I melted.

smarty pants

Our weekends have been feeling a little light recently (insert sarcasm here) so we decided to add a Spanish class for Ada on Saturday mornings. We didn't intend to start this at her age but we went to a free class sponsored by the Mom's group at HP and she LOVED it so we decided that since we don't do anything special for Ada on the weekends we would sign her up and start to learn Spanish as a family.

Elliot and I are doing a great job picking up the words we learn each day and Ada's favorite thing in the world to say these days is Adios! She says Adios Papa to Elliot in the morning, and Adios to the house at night before bed. Adios, Adios, Adios.

Yesterday morning Ada took one of her bath toys, a blue foam number 8, out of the bath and was holding on to it while I was getting her dressed. She seemed really into it so I asked her what color it was, expecting her to say Red or Yellow like she normally does, only this time she looked at me and said AZUL!! (Which is Blue in Spanish for those that are like me two weeks ago).

Our little smarty pants!

my day with ada

Due to a work emergency Elliot had to spend Sunday working, so, with a little help from Grampa, Ada and Mommy spent the day hanging out and seeing some of Ada's favorite places around San Diego.

We started out the morning with our routine Sunday trip to Starbucks with Elliot. Ada has started to drink coffee (chocolate or vanilla flavored milk - sometimes steamed) and these trips are pretty funny. Today she decided that she HAD to wear her Mickey ears and carry two of her stuffed animals (the 2010 Olympic mascot and her new lion). After our morning refresher we made a quick stop at home to pick up my soccer stuff and some snacks and headed to the Zoo.

We have passes to the Zoo and have made a few quick trips, mostly hanging out by the monkeys and the elephants, but today Ada insisted on taking a swing by the bears. While we were hanging out watching one of bears play in the water a camera crew from ESPN (and a nosey crowd of onlookers) showed up to do a shot for this week's Monday night football game. So if you see a shot of a bear playing in the water with a Jets and Chargers helmet in front of it, imagine Ada climbing up and down the railing, paying no attention to the camera guy saying over and over again, bye bye bear, hi bear, bye bye bear, hi bear - just off to the right. This was pretty much the highlight of the trip to the zoo and we were soon off to our next stop - Mommy's soccer game.

Ada managed to squeeze in a quick nap between the Zoo and soccer. I thought she might stay asleep while we walked down to the field but she sensed fun and popped awake. Shortly after we made it to the field Grampa showed up to babysit while I played my game and from what I could tell they had a wonderful time together. Each time I looked for them they were in a different spot, reading by the bench, exploring the side of the track, tracking down soccer balls, climbing the stadium stairs, riding the tackling dummy, and using the stair railings as a jungle gym. It is important to note that Ada got very excited when I told her she was going to hang out with Grampa today, but didn't realize it was at soccer. So later on when I said we were on our way to soccer Ada demanded, "No no soccer, Grampa!" When she realized she got to hang out at the stadium AND play with Grampa her day was made.

As if this day had not already been full of tons of fun, we decided to get some Jamba Juice and head to the beach after the soccer game. Elliot's office is down by La Jolla Shores and there was an off chance that he would soon be done with his weekend work, plus Ada has a newly discovered love of the water so this seemed like a good trip. Once at the beach we finished up our smoothies and Ada insisted on stripping down to nothing but her diaper. After some initial clingyness she started darting into the water and then quickly darting out of the water running away from the waves. I have never seen Ada have so much fun in such a close proximity to water. She LOVED the muddy sand, and the shallow water. She even stopped her fun for a little while to try to show a younger boy how much fun splashing was. Finally, after about 20 minutes of this I coaxed her over to the shower by the beach bathroom to clean up, letting her out of her diaper. Once I had her cleaned up I got her shoes on but before I could get her clothes on she proudly walked out of the shower area nekkid from head to ankle, nothing but her shiny pink sneakers on. I love this kid!!

Our lives have gone from busy to insanely busy these days and I do not get a lot of time to hang out with Ada one on one so today was extra special for me. I wasn't sure if she was having fun all day but I got my answer as we started our bedtime routine. She started screaming, flailing, and trying to out muscle me to get back to the living room. It wasn't until we got to her bedroom and I made eye contact with her and asked her if she had had fun today. She didn't answer me. She didn't nod her head emphatically. Instead she stopped fighting me, snuggled her head deep into my neck and gave me a big hug. That was all the answer I needed.

kisses

Ada has been watching the our daily morning routine now for almost two years and she knows that after Elliot gets us set in the car, he shuts her door and then gives me a kiss goodbye. This varies some, but that is the routine 90% of the time. Well, Ada has now decided that she wants to be more involved in this part of our daily routine. The other day as Elliot leaned into the car to kiss me goodbye Ada declared, "I want kisses". This was funny enough all by itself, but then we looked back and she was sitting there, strapped into her seat, leaning forward, head tilted back, eyes closed, and lips pursed waiting for a kiss. We tried not to laugh too much and Elliot of course obliged with a goodbye kiss.

This was just the start of Ada's kissing frenzy. She will now decide that she wants kisses just about any time of day. And if she is around Elliot or I and she wants a kiss she will grab a hold of our cheeks and bring our face down to hers and once again declare, "I want kisses!".

Yet another tale I am tucking away for the days when she wants nothing more than to pretend that she is an orphan roaming around the streets of San Diego with nothing as embarrassing as PARENTS to hold her down.

Thanks!

Wow, where did August go! We had a great month. Ada turned 2, had her first trip to Disneyland, Elliot and I enjoyed another year of wedded bliss (5 years!!), and this blog celebrated one whole year of activity!

Thanks to everyone who tells me that they check on a regular basis for new content, this motivates me to write more. I started this blog as a way to let all of you into the life of Ada and hopefully my descriptions are enough to let you see her joyfully bopping through life.

healthy fear of water

Yesterday Ada attended her first pool party of the summer. Last year she went to three or four and by the time the summer ended she was a little water lover. Well, the fall, winter and spring happened and she forgot how much fun water could be. So we spent most of yesterday's pool party with Elliot and I in the water, standing next to the side of the pool where Ada was sitting with her feet in the water. She faked like she was going to get into the water a couple of times, turning around on her belly so she could kick her feet in the water like the big kids, but never slid in. She did agree to come into the water once, early on, until she realized what she had agreed to; and she did jump into the water once but then quickly realized that she had jumped into water and screamed her new piercing scream until we pulled her out. Then there were the three times I scooped her up and brought her into the water with me but those too were accompanied by the piercing scream so we gave up. Ada was content to sit on the side of the pool throwing every toy that was once on the side of the pool into the water.

She did happen to fall in once when she was trying to retreive an orange football that was right by the edge. Luckily both Elliot and I were there to scoop her up out of the water and eventually put her back up on the 'blanket' as she moaned out her request over and over again. This one tumble was enough for her to refuse to come anywhere near the edge of the pool again. And while I'd love for her to love the water, as an over protective worrywart of a mother, I'm also very thankful for her healthy fear of the water.

traveling soul

We spent this past Saturday through Tuesday traveling up to the Pacific Northwest to attend the Campbell Family Reunion (my Grandma Ott's family) and also to visit Elliot's family in Vancouver and Vancouver Island. We were a little worried about the whirlwind nature of our trip and how that would jive with Ada but she handled it like a champ.


The trip started out very early on Saturday morning, we had a 6:30 am flight out of San Diego which meant leaving the house around 5 am. OUCH! Normally, Ada will sort of wake up, look at us like we are crazy, and then go back to sleep until we hit the terminal at the airport. Not this time, she took one look around the car and realized something was afoot and sprang awake. We should have known then that this was going to be a great trip, and it was.

Here are some highlights:

Picnic: The big inflatable slide!! Ada easily spent half of her time at the picnic on this slide. She started out cautiously (not surprising) forcing her Dad to carry her up the rope ladder and then slide down with her on his lap. However, once she convinced her Grampa Ott to take her over to the slide he convinced her to climb up the ladder herself and slide down on her own (with him close behind). It wasn't until Mom took her over that she was forced to do it all on her own. I am SO mean! Had we given Ada a choice between staying at Al's house on the slide and going on the rest of the trip with us, I'm not sure she would have selected the time with us.

Coffee with Auntie Jackie: On Sunday morning Ada's auntie Jackie let Elliot and I go for a run while she took Ada for a walk. They went to get coffee, well milk for Ada, but Jackie called it coffee and I think that made Ada think she was so much cooler. Once Ada had her morning coffee she opened right up and chatted up Jackie all the way to the park where they watched swimmers and saw ducks and pretty much entertained each other.

Great Grandma's Basement: Who wouldn't love a basement full of fun stuff to explore and jump off of. Making it extra cool was Grampa Ott and Daddy helping her discover all of the really cool things like dynamite boxes (empty of course) and a vice.

The Trampoline at Erica's house: Ada got to meet two more of her cousins on this trip: Erica and Niccolo. She has met both of them when she was younger but this time she actually interacted with them. She and Erica became fast friends on the trampoline in the backyard. They worked so hard we all burned hundreds of calories just watching them. Ada also insisted on Erica joining her in the blue plastic car so that Mommy and Daddy could give them spins around the yard.

The big hotel bed: Our hotel room in Vancouver had two beds, so we let Ada own one of the beds. You could just tell how regal Ada felt as she lounged on the big fluffy pillows and pulled the cozy comforter up around her. Of course she did not want to sleep in the bed alone so (after trying to climb into bed with Mom and Dad) she slept in her pack-n-play, but first thing she did in the morning after waking up was crawl back into her throne.

Great Grandma's muffins: When we were at my Grandma's house on our way up to Vancouver Ada ate more bran muffin than anything else, so we were sent off with a baggie full of muffins. This turned out to be a life saver as we didn't have time for breakfast the morning we headed over to the island and these muffins served that role just fine. Ada liked them so much she even ate the wrapper of the first one we gave her. Of course she insisted on eating her muffins while sitting in her throne.

Balloons: Since our trip was so close to Ada's birthday she received many gifts while we were traveling along. Her favorite was really not a gift, but it was the balloons that were on her present from her Grampa Hicks and Grandma Lynn. These balloons provided intermittent entertainment the entire time we were at their house.

The beach: Elliot's Dad lives right on the beach on Vancouver Island. Ada is not a huge fan of water but after some coaxing she did manage to make her way down to the beach. She even walked on the sand (and over rocks and shells) until the water hit her feet, where she quickly scampered up my legs and into my arms. She then INSISTED that I walk out into the water, and once we hit my depth limits she insisted that I walk up the beach - still knee deep in water. Elliot eventually came to join us and took over the job of holding Ada above the water. However, Elliot was much meaner that me - he lowered her feet into the water and pulled her through the water. And for a second Ada forgot that she has sworn off water as she let out a giggle and even managed to smile a little bit.

The hose: When we came back from the beach Grampa Hicks brought out the hose to hose the sand off our feet. Ada loved this and eventually managed to gain control of the hose and figured out how to pull the handle on the nozzle and aimed it at both her Dad and Grampa. She LOVED this.

The ferry: The ferry ride over to the island was not all that eventful. Ada did lots of exploring and dragging Elliot and I around. The ride back however we were able to get a row of two benches with seats facing each other, as well as a window sill just wide enough for Ada to sit with her back against the wall and legs up on the sill watching the water below us go by. She climbed down every so often to get some food or to wake Elliot and I up, but for the most part she was the Queen of the ferry.

Getting home: While we definitely enjoyed our trip, the look on Ada's face when she saw her own crib, and all of her own toys was one of relief and comfort. As much fun as she had traveling the coast, just like Elliot and I, she was happy to finally be home.

We really enjoyed catching up with everyone and our only wish is that we could see all of you much more often. Many thanks to all of those that took us in, fed us, entertained us, and just let us visit; and special thanks to Elliot's mom for timing her visit to coincide with ours.