g-notes

My baby is two-and-a-half today!

With Facebook, emails and such, I have found I am not blogging that much here on this blog. I want to quit them all! I love thinking and talking about myself and my kid, but it seems now so…futile…or…something… to feel compelled to blog about it all. Either nobody cares…or the wrong people care…or they don’t care in a way that’s so gratifying. I feel a little lost and alone…not necessarily in a bad way…just kind of out there. It’s cool. I think I just want to become a more private person.

Lots of cute pics on our Flickr site!

Ava is cooler than ever and we are good friends as well as mama and kid. She is so interesting and adorable at the same time. Of course, it’s not all smooth sailing, as anyone with a two-year-old knows…however, I am lucky she is as good as she is and I really do like to be with her.

So, we’ve been remiss in our blogging here. It’s been a great autumn so far—rainy, but we’ve been surviving. Ava loves preschool and is learning lots of fun things, like songs, shapes and such. We do alot of fun art projects at home, and Ava is quite the artist, as you can plainly see. Ava got really lucky one day when her Uncle Steve brought over three bikes! We have some video of her trying one of them out on her A.V. blog.

Yesterday was Halloween and we headed out to our friends’ place in Bristow to trick-or-treat. It was a fun time with the houses decorated up for the night, and the kids started getting the hang of it toward the end, just as they were petering out and getting tired. Ava kept lingering a little too long at each doorway after getting her treat, and it was kind of awkward (for silly me, anyway). I think next year Ava will finally “get it”. Here are some cute pics of Ava and her pal Casey…

You can see more pics on our Flickr site.

Besides Halloween itself, we’ve been having lots of fun with seasonal activities in general, like our first trip to Cox Farms, and making Halloween cookies and cupcakes and pumpkin decorating…

Theo couldn’t really help, because of the not having thumbs and all, but he posed and looked really cute…

Ava had a great first day of preschool. Her teachers sent an e-mail to the parents and said they were impressed with how well the kids did. They also said they were amazed at how verbal each of the children were too!  Today, they did puzzles, sorting bears, race cars, jungle animals and crayons at the easel and read “Do You Want to Be My Friend” by Eric Carle and sang a new song “Won’t You Be a Friend of Mine?” at story/snack time. When I picked Ava up, she told me “preschool fun!”

Afterwards, she got one of her favorite things, a “’sant”…

Speaking of ’sants, Ava said something interesting in the bathtub today. She was playing with the water scrubby thing that has a bunch of curly layers of that plasticy cloth-type stuff (see below) and she pretended to eat it and said “it’s a sant”. I think it is so smart the way kids this age, like Ava, see characteristics of something they know in another object and make the connection. Both items have intricate layers!

More bath time smartness I see is in her drawing. I thought it was so cool that she drew the eyes on this train all by herself, placing them in the right context of the face, spacially, and having the motor skills to make such small circles. She also made circles within circles to make more realistic looking eyes!

It’s been a fun and busy summer. Ava and Mommy are best of friends and have lots of good times together. We usually go for a stroller run each morning, go to a playground and mess around—there are many around the house—and have lunch before naps. Then, maybe some blocks, yoga kids DVDs, or another playground or the county pool. We also color, do some other art projects with glue and paper, and play playdough. And Theo always adds to the fun for Ava June.

A couple weeks ago we went on a long journey to see Ava’s Grama Powers and took lots of pictures of our adventures. The pic above is Ava taking a little rest from the action at Congress Park in Saratoga Springs.

Before that, we have a nice beach day in July. Ava even fell asleep on the beach before a big wave came in and almost swept her up, but Mommy got to her first, thankfully! Here she is snoozing…we’re going to the beach again this week.

One of the big developments in Ava’s life, other than talking, talking, talking up a storm of complete and clever sentences using words I didn’t even know she knew, is potty training. I think she is basically trained. We went on two 12-hour car rides with no “accidents”. Of course, everyone makes mistakes and gets tired once in a while, or forgetful, but, we don’t use diapers during the day (except naps, of course). Here’s an early stage on her potty progress chart…it’s pretty free form. She will be all set for when she starts preschool in September!

Ava turned 2 this week. We had a fun weekend visiting Uncle Steve’s where there was a little beach and lake and a cool playground. She got presents Saturday from him, Sunday from the Grandparents and Aunt Mary and Uncle Jeff, Monday (her real birthday) from mommy and daddy, and Tuesday from Aunt Kelley and Uncle Seth! She may get used to this!

On her birthday, we went to the Lake Accotink playground and had a picnic at the beach there. In the afternoon, we played in the sprinkler. For dinner, we had something Ava really likes—Japanese pan noodles. I made us special strawberry shortcakes for dessert with berries from the farmers market. Ava loves going to the farmers market, probably because we always go to the playground, too, and most of the time we get a scoop of ice cream to share from the Middleburg Dairy that has a stand.

Among Ava’s birthday gifts is a tea set. She loves to pour and drink the “tea”.

We’re having a lot of fun with little A lately and as toddlers go, from some of the lore out there about how terrible they are supposed to be, she is an angel! More birthday pics are on Flickr and I hope to post some video soon on Ava’s old AV site!

Other than that, I am giving my other blog a rest, now, and just enjoying life…

New York

Churros & chocolate in Barcelona

Well, a month has passed and we’ve been to Barcelona and back and New York, too…I thought I’d be so glad to be home and settled back into the routine, but, now I miss being away and just rambling around as a family all day long. Now, it’s back to me and A whiling away the days while Daddy’s at work. And me trying to squeeze some work in. Weird.

Ava will be 2 in less than a few weeks! We’re still working on weaning…and sleeping has been a little nutty lately. Sometimes she’s had to manage falling asleep on her own with a few tears after I’ve given up. But, that’s part of her development, I guess, doing more and more on her own.

She says so many words and it’s so, so cute. She’ll say “I miss you” when you’re right there and give a big hug. She knows foods she likes and asks for them…cheese, yogurt, nuts, fruit bars. And she calls naps and sleeping “rest down”. Sometimes in the middle of the night if she wakes up and cries a little and I go to her, I’ll let her nurse for a little while…and if she doesn’t let go or settle down after a few minutes I just pull off and tell her it’s time to “rest down” and she generally accepts it after brief protest. (Thank God!)

So, after all the traveling and running around, I guess I am glad to be back to the day to day life of home again. We have some in-town outings we’re going to try…a couple concerts, maybe a ball game, the beach, etc.

Today we went to check out preschool for Ava in the fall. It will be two days a week for four hours each day. Looks like a fun place and one of my friends in the neighborhood sent both her kids there and really liked it. Ava wasn’t nervous and didn’t show any separation anxiety today when we visited. She just explored the rooms with their toys and climbing equipment and really liked the playground. She jumped right into playing on the playground, which was filled with older kids! Maybe that’s a sign that we can start going to the gym again. She had been crying when we went and I dropped her off in the playroom ever since we’ve been back from vacation. But, today when we went to Whole Foods, which is near the gym, she was saying “playroom, playroom!” So, tomorrow we will try again.

It’s been a little while since our last post. We’ve been busy! So much had happened over the past month. One bad thing—Ava got pretty sick and came down with pneumonia, on Easter! It was sad, but you can’t keep a good Boose down. After alot of napping and crankiness over just one day, she was playful and on the move throughout the course of her recovery. Got well just in time for a visit from Grama. The weather warmed up, so we’ve been having more outside time and even broke out the pool, and the summer clothes, like this cute retro-80s tee I found at the thrift store for Ava. I love this shirt!

Ava says so many words now, she can tells us what she wants, and always does, it seems constantly. This is always changing and she always want it now. It’s a little hard dealing with a toddler who has budding independence and is trying to find who they are, but we’re getting through. I descirbe some of my struggles on my other blog Mama? Me? Yeah! but I am recognizing that I am going to need to cut down on the web time in order to be more present for Ava and make better use of my time. Work is work, messing around on the internet is another thing. I do enjoy it and it is a nice escape, and, I would add, it is somewhat educational, but as I note, I have to make sure I gravitate toward the things that serve me best if I am going to be spending the time on the web, which I do feel I probably need to cut down on.

Anyway, Ava knows her colors, which I love. It is so heartwarming to hear her call out what color various object are. She often identifies things with the word “one”, too. Like she’ll say “red one” or “blue one”. I love the way she puts words together. She says “Elmo world”, “diaper need”, “milky own” (not sure what that last one is other than maybe trying to tell me she thinks she owns my boobs? which brings us to another issue, the imminent weaning that is going to need to happen this summer…also on the other blog).

OK…she is waking up, so gotta run! Vayamos a España en una semana!

We all went down to see the cherry blossoms Saturday. They were pretty, but it was like it always seems to be when we go—cold and windy! After seeing the trees, we hung out and watched the parade, with a finale of Elmo, Ernie, Bert and the Count—all of whom Ava identified. She had great fun at the parade, dancing to the beat of so many marching bands, identifying horses and cars, laughing at weird stuff like big-headed former U.S. presidents and dog mascots. We saw the Geico Gecko, too. Another highlight was this pig we saw at the Japanese festival.

Ava has grown alot since last year’s blossom season, and we managed to capture some of it in these comparative shots…

No new news. We’ve just kind of hit a happy stride where we’re living life, learning and enjoying ourselves. I’ve focused a little too much on reading the web, participating in social media (facebook, twitter…) and formulating thoughts for my other blog lately, especially with that stupid “Case Against Breastfeeding” article that had me going last week. I want to try and find a voice that celebrates the happiness and fulfillment I feel being an attached, work-at-home mom, while not denigrating anyone else’s experience. That is sometimes challenging. Anyway, back to my little monkey—Ava is so fun and delightful to be around. Randall and I just really enjoy playing with her, watching her do her thing, taking her on little outings—like this one to the Natural History Museum. She’s a bright, energetic and curious kid. She is saying all kinds of words now, too many to list, and is just the sweetest and cutest little person.

She likes to play with her toys in creative ways that go beyond the toys’ “official” function. Like we put little animal figures on this toy that pops open little doors and we watch them pop off and “fly” or we put the animals on this gear thing that spins around. She likes when her play tent is up on her slide so she can peek out and hide. She loves to look at books and objects in real life and name them, or wait for us to name them for her, almost like she is playing a game. She loves puzzles and says “puzzle” and she is getting into her baby computer that hooks up to the TV, but that can frustrate her, too, because the button action isn’t fact enough for her. She likes to tease Theo and play chase games with different toys of his. She calls him “Eeya”. Oh, and she is really into her kid yoga DVD. She asks to watch it, gets out her mat and actually does some of the moves. She like especially to do the hot air balloon where its flying around the room.

She is 21 months today!

One of Ava’s favorite things to do is color and draw with markers and crayons. She also likes to paint. This is great because these are things I enjoy, too, and it’s really fun to share these activities together. However, Ava always draws over what I am working on when we are sharing a big pad of paper. I try to tell her that it’s not nice to draw over someone else’s picture, but she doesn’t get it. I think maybe my flowers and attempts at drawing plastic toys from life are just too pedestrian for her and get in the way of her lively, expressionistic bolts of color.

Here is an aside…we discovered that the library is a really fun place for toddlers. In the kids section, there are all kinds of bright posters and displays to look at and books to grab and read through. Colorful kites hanging from the ceiling, too. And, there is a little nook with bears living in it where kids can sit and read, or mamas and daddies can read to them.