Friday, July 15, 2011

Two, Five, Eight, Nine

I started this post two weeks ago and was moving along  at a good little clip until the computer gave a death rattle. Serious bummer. I gave this particular lemon harvest a mighty squeeze to produce some extra tasty lemonade: my new laptop is due to arrive soon. I do love a silver lining, especially when it is aluminum wrapped around a 2.7GHz i7 processor.

As expected,  fellowship call beat Tim to within an inch of his life over his call weekend. Poor guy. Not much I can do for him than provide a peaceful place and some food when he can stop by home. It's kind of like a ghost breezes briefly through our house and then is gone again leaving a faint impression that something is different. This will be an interesting year.

Ada and I  kept busy...as busy as you can be when you spend the whole weekend in old yoga pants and a baseball cap. Sadly, since I haven't been writing things down many of the details and stories are now forgotten. I have randomly visited other blogs between appointments at work but haven't been able to comment. It's amazing how much time I suddenly had once I was forced to stop messing around online. For example, I had so much time that I finally tuned that curtain I got for free into a bag.

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I really will add ric-rac to anything. the pocket was an un-planned, uncalled for detail. 

Summer Bucket:


I got to cross two things off my summer bucket list. I finally made a version of Taylor's summer peach, corn, and heirloom tomato salad. It isn't exactly the same but it is so good that I think we'll be eating a lot of this.

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 I wanted to spend 4th of July somewhere warm. I assumed this meant leaving the city and I was ready to redistribute this point to next year's summer bucket list but I was wrong. It was actually really warm over the weekend. We went to the beach with Kathi, Sarah, and Tom. It wasn't that warm...we still wore jackets. Tom was a crazy person and actually went swimming in the bay!

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Fun and Yoga Moves:

We had fun doing some things that might be considered so incredibly boring by some. A sidewalk chalk train track and choo-choo was perfect for running. We drank lemonade and chased the cats. We said "hello" to everyone who passed by. We walked to the playground and found that a bus stop shelter is a good place to play hide-and-seek. The perfect place for bubbles is wherever you are. Ada will practice yoga anywhere.

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First Haircut:

We went out to my Dad's one day over the weekend to let Ada splash around in a little pool. She had fun and was swishing her feet through the water as I was rubbing even more sunscreen on her tender baby skin. The next day we went to Sarah's house and swam in her pool too. They were naked babies so no pictures. I don't want to get arrested.

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After swimming at my Dad's she got her first haircut. Oh, I had resisted so long! I didn't want her precious baby curls to be cut off but her bangs were out of control and she won't leave a clip of any sort to hold them away from her face. There were tears - all mine! She looks so freaking cute though - I didn't think it was possible for her to get any cuter. In the end, I'm glad that her first haircut was with someone who loves her. Grammy Rob used to cut hair. Some of the pictures were really blurry - she's still lightening quick and sure with the scissors.

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Friends:

We hung out with Kathi and Sarah a lot over the holiday weekend. Swimming, playgrounds, and just hanging out. These two together are like a symbiotic thing - one feeds from the other and then the other feeds from the one. On they go like this and it is hysterical to watch.

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Ada has also taken to having tea parties. Oh, it is so sweet!! She puts out the napkins and pours tea. She gently stirs in an imaginary spooful of sugar for Elmo and tips in a bit of milk for Dora. Then she helps her little guests to take a drink. My goodness, this child. She is just so gentle and caring.

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The other night we were lucky enough to have a visit from Matt and Christina and their son Christian (notice the scarves and jackets? It's back in the low 60's here). I love this family so much. Matt married Tim and I. Christina did my hair for the wedding. They are on the short list to raise our child should we both die in a fiery crash. Ada must have known too. After burying her face in my shoulder for all of 20 seconds - just long enough to make a show - she warmed up to them, crawling into laps for stories and bringing Elmo hands for games. These friends are just incredibly easy to be around.

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There were so many other things:
we met Erika and Christy with their kids at the playground and we talked until our kids were dragging us home, Renegade the next weekend, running around the house with her friend Sophia, a date to discuss discipline and boundaries, gossip with the girls on a Wednesday night, coloring her birthday thank you notes, all the planning that comes with an assisted cycle...and then there is her.

We had her 2 year pediatrician visit yesterday. She is perfect, or as the pediatrician syas, "Oh, Monica. She really is just lovely." Ada shared her airplanes (she calls the helicopter a "da-choo") with Dr. Anderson and jumped up and down excitedly when Dr. Anderson called her airplanes "very special". I love our pediatrician. She always makes me feel better. There are a few things that Tim and I have been concerned about - namely, that Ada is far behind in language. She doesn't even have 75 words yet - I wrote them down so that I could have an objective count. Dr. Anderson is not concerned at all. The number of words you read about in child development books - yeah, she just waved her hand and turned her head, giggling and wrinkling her eyes. I guess this comfort level comes to you when you have watched thousands upon thousands of children grow up just fine even when they started out more than 3 standard deviations from normal.

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So our normal kids does normal but totally adorable stuff like count all wrong, "Two, Five, Eight, Nine."
She also says things like, "One. Hop. YAY!" and claps for herself.
She feeds the cats by herself - she gets a fork and a can of cat food and brings them to me when it's time. She knows as well as they do! She holds her toes up for me to wash with the slippery soap - the bar soap at Whole Foods? I've been passing it by for years. Why? WHY? I love this stuff! She combs her own hair and undresses herself. She is growing up so fast. It's amazing to watch.

I hope to be back to more regular posting soon. Until then, I am quietly keeping up with others and trying to record what I can by hand so that her history isn't disrupted.