Eating and Eating and Eating

Patrick measured Ava this afternoon against the living room door frame - she's grown 1/4" in 22 days! Her appetite is enormous so far in 2010 - two or three breakfasts, a snack, another lunch or two, more snacks, "oh boy, it's suppertime" with two or three servings, and then another snack or two before bed.

We were at Hannaford the other day, in the produce section, and she spotted a container of raspberries that somebody had placed in with the apples - you would have thought she had discovered gold! "Gammer, RASPBERRIES! And it's the LAST BOX!" We got a few smiles from nearby shoppers, and one lady murmered "I wish I got that excited about fruit..." We put the raspberries in our cart, and Ava had them almost gone by the time we checked out.

On another day, again in the produce section, she decided she wanted a couple of green beans, so I let her take two from the display case, and she munched on them as we shopped. We had gotten to the other end of the store when she asked if she could have more, so this time we put 7 or 8 beans in a produce bag, and paid 16 cents for them. She ate them on the ride home, and as we went over the bridge in Lisbon Falls, she started crying because she only had two left. She wanted to go back to Hannaford and get more! In a flash of brilliance I said, "Ava, just break them in half, and then you'll have four beans..." That did the trick, and she was happy as a clam.

She loves to eat good food - organic strawberry yogurt in a squeeze package, berries, vegetables, fruit, etc. A favorite snack is a little bowl of frozen peas. She asks for carrots and apples instead of cookies. Her Halloween candy is still in the bucket - she has no interest in it. Not to say she doesn't have a sweet tooth, because occasionally she does, but she really prefers something made by Mother Nature.

Tonight Patrick cooked a pork tenderloin, with rice pilaf and green beans. That girl ate four servings of meat, all of her green beans, and two big scoops of rice. We looked on in admiration!

For breakfast, she likes to make her own scrambled eggs. This morning she had two eggs, and half of Gaffer's onion bagel and cream cheese. She also likes cereal (Froot Loops is a favorite, and Rice Krispies, and Frosted Flakes) and oatmeal and pancakes and toast.

She went through a "soup phase", where she was eating Chicken Noodle (or Stars) soup two or three times a day, but that seems to be past now - she hasn't asked for soup in a while. She likes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and tuna sandwiches, and bologna, and chicken nuggets for lunch.

She's great about trying things - will always agree to taste something, and usually tells us she likes it, even though she may not want any more of whatever it is. Last night we had tacos, and she tried the salsa, the guacamole, and the sour cream! She was helping Gaffer cook the taco meat (ground moose) with her apron on, when Gaffer discovered we had no cheddar for the tacos. When I said I'd run down to the store to get some, Ava wanted to come with me, but didn't want to take off her apron - wanted everyone at DV to know she was cooking!

Aminals

As an "only child" Ava has a lot of toys, but her favorites have always been her "aminals" (as she still pronounces it). She has a collection of little plastic animals that if they were placed end to end in a parade would reach from one end of the house to the other - we know this because we've done it.

She particularly likes the Schleich brand - made in Germany, and extremely life-like, with everything from dinosaurs to puppies. We first found them at Aubuchon Hardware in Lisbon - I believe "Mr. Moose" was the first. After that, we also discovered that Play N Learn in Freeport carries a huge selection of them, and now Ava's very favorite place to go in the whole world is to Play N Learn.

The other night, just before her birthday, she asked me if we could go to Play N Learn the next day. I said, "Ava, you just got a bunch of toys for Christmas, and your birthday is Saturday when you'll get even more toys, so No, we're not going to Play N Learn tomorrow..." She burst into tears (she's not used to being told No!), and commenced to plead and beg. It was very hard to hold my position in the face of her agony, so I finally told her to go talk to Gaffer about it.

So she went into the living room and proceeded to plead her case to Gaffer. It was hilarious to listen to from the other room - when Gaffer tried to reason with her, by telling her that she can't just be buying a toy every day, she said through her tears, "But Gaffer, I'm serious, I only want a toy tomorrow! I won't ask for one every day!" The back and forth between the two of them went on for a good twenty minutes, and he finally arrived at a compromise with her - that we'd take her to Play N Learn on her birthday, so she could choose the animal she wanted, and, exhausted with emotion, she agreed.

So, on her birthday, in a blizzard, we headed out to Play N Learn - Ava had asked to go as soon as she woke up! She takes her animals very seriously! At the store, she studied all her choices and settled on a big woolly mammoth. Then we also let her get a bison, and Gaffer told her she could get a second different bison because her other one at home is missing. She was happy as a clam, and then I picked out a cow and a calf and told her these would be for me. She smiled with delight at the thought of Gammer getting animals for herself, and then said, "Will you let me play with them sometimes?" I put them in her arms and said, "Actually, Ava, these are for you!" She was ecstatic and kept saying, "I can't believe I get to buy so many animals!!"

That's the thing about Ava, she's spoiled, but she's not rotten. She truly appreciates what she is given, and takes the best care of all her things. She loves her things as part of her family, whether the things are her plastic animals, her stuffed animals, her dolls, or her puzzles - they're all so special to her.

But, as I said, the animals are her very favorites, and they are her friends, most of them with their own personalities. Little Foot is really the cornerstone -- I think of them all, he's the one most special to her. He's been with us for a couple of years now, and has gone to Florida and on a moose hunt in Aroostook County (where he was almost lost by the shore of a lake, but Gammer found him - it was a miracle that I spotted that little green guy amongst the flowers and rocks) and camping at Chesuncook. He's a baby "long-neck" dinosaur, and is very brave and adventurous and kind to his friends. His best friend is Sarah, a baby "three-horn" dinosaur. This actually is Sarah #2, because the first Sarah was lost on the plane coming home from Florida in February. Sarah is the bravest of all the animals - even over the grown-ups. She's quite a girl, that Sarah.

Sarah is extremely close to her dad, "Father Three-Horn", and Father Three-Horn always sticks up for Sarah to Mother Three-Horn. If Sarah goes off on an adventure to rescue another animal, without telling Mother where she went, and then Mother is angry, Father always tells her not to be mad at Sarah, that Sarah had to do that job, Mother just needs to understand that.

Mr. Moose is another hero - he comes to the rescue of someone nearly every day because his large antlers can catch somebody when they fall, or carry somebody when they're hurt. Diego the tiger is another upstanding citizen, and one of her favorites. She has a big T-Rex that is called Jackson, and sometimes he's good and eats leaves, and sometimes he's bad and scary. But when he's bad and scary, Sarah always teaches him how to eat leaves, and then he's nice.

Her buck is "King of the Forest" and he's usually called on when there's a decision to be made, like if T-Rex is allowed to come into their land. It's understood that he is at the top of the animal hierarchy, even though he's not the strongest. A lot of times all the "men" have to gather together to fight off the angry T-Rex, while the mothers keep an eye on the babies. But you know who stays with the men to fight, and saves the day - Sarah. Of course.

One of her most precious animals isn't plastic - it's a hand-sewn brontosaurus, created by Emily's uncle Vincent over 20 years ago. Her legs can move, although they've become wobbly with age, and she wears a pearl necklace. She is "Granny Long-Neck" and is Little Foot's favorite relative. All the other animal babies love her, too, and she's often found with little animals sliding down her tail, or cuddling under her legs. She babysits while the parents go to work, and takes excellent care of all the little ones, whether they're dinosaurs or tiger cubs or fawns. She has a place of honor in Ava's mind, you can just see it by the way she handles her.

When we play animals with Ava, she usually has a story-line already in mind, and our job is just to move the animals around and basically say what she wants us to say - sometimes she gives us our lines, other times we must improvise but sticking with the plot. If we go outside this plot, she gets quite upset. As I said before, she takes her animals very seriously! Many times the story-line is about somebody being sick, or lost, or in trouble for some reason. Then somebody (usually Sarah, or the T-Rex) comes to the rescue.

For her birthday, we bought her a big tree-house playset with some jungle animals included. She likes it, but it's funny - she really doesn't need any "props" when she plays. She's not one to position animals in a doll-house or use a vehicle - all she really needs is a floor (or table, when our knees give out!) and the animals - and her imagination goes from there. I think the tree-house playset was more for me - just to kind of liven things up a little bit for my own imagination, and to bring a little variation to the stories...

She uses what's available at the time - when I'm cooking in the kitchen, she'll bring some animals in and stand on the kitchen table and make them do tricks from the ceiling fan - hanging by their feet or jumping off into Mr. Moose's antlers or into Manny the Mammoth's tusks. Book cases are mountains, and under Gaffer's chair is a cave where the poor baby elephant got lost after he wandered off in search of water and lost the herd.

When Ava and Gaffer went to the DeLorme map store in Yarmouth, she spotted a collection of baby dinosaurs in a tube, and of course Gaffer bought them for her. One of these, a little red one with a striking similarity to Little Foot, became "Rhett" - he's a mischievous little fellow, who has a bad reputation for not telling the truth. Many of our games lately have been having Rhett tell the group a wild tale, something completely not believable, like there is a unicorn around the corner. Of course, nobody believes him because of his reputation, but then, sure enough, up walks a unicorn, just like he said, and the word goes out to everyone - "Rhett told the truth!" Rhett has yet to tell an actual lie since he's lived in Durham.

All of the animals love the bathtub. Usually the baby animals have swimming class, taught by one of the older animals. Sarah is always the first one to jump off the high diving board (the faucet), and the heavier animals enjoy doing cannon-balls from the faucet - the walrus makes a heck of a splash when he does his cannon-ball! There is always a lot of rescuing that takes place at bath-time, as animals "accidentally" fall from the edge of the tub into the water, and yell for help.

The big Breyer horses, most of whom are over 35 years old - my treasured playthings as a kid - interact with the other animals at times. Ava's favorite horse is Man O' War , who over the past several years has been dropped so many times that his legs and body have come apart, and he' s now held together by glue and pins (thank you, Gaffer and Grandpa - who both know his anatomy intimately having spent hours repairing him). I commented to her last night, "Ava, I'm surprised you love Man O' War so much - he's all broken and ugly!" She looked at me with surprise and said, "But he's nice, isn't he?" She loves him, and he's the patriarch of the others - the leader, the rescuer, the smartest and, obviously, the fastest. He knows he can't run much these days, though, because of all his prior injuries, so often-times he's the judge at races, determining who is the next-fastest, after him. He doesn't have to prove he's the fastest - it's a given.

So now it's 10am, and Ava is ready to play. What adventure will we have today? Ava just told me that we're going to play "sick paw" - one of the lions was running away from a tiger and stepped on thorn. She said that's what she and Grandma played yesterday, and it was very exciting!

Christmas and Birthday

Ava started the Christmas holiday weekend by staying holed up in her bedroom at Gram and Gramp's!!

We had packed up her new bright red Christmas dress with the velvet, white-fluff trimmed jacket and shiny black shoes, and had brought her down for the family party Howard and Kay always have on Christmas Eve. Ava hadn't been too keen on going, and once we got there she didn't want me to leave. She grabbed me by the collar with both fists and Grandma literally had to pry her fingers from me as Ava screamed that she didn't want to stay! We left her there, assuming she'd be okay once we were gone, and went to my mother's to meet Brenda there and play cards until 6:30 when it would be time to go pick up Ava from the party.

When we walked into Gram and Gramp's house, the party was still in full swing - little kids running around everywhere, and grown-ups from one end of the house to the other. Kay came up to us with a look of exasperation and told us that Ava had not left the bedroom the entire time! Various family members had gone in to try to get her to join the party, but nobody had been successful. I went into the bedroom to find Ava tucked in under the covers, and the party dress and shoes still in the bag...

Once I got her up out of the bed, and carried her through the throng over to the dining table to get her ready to leave, she started warming up. People gathered around as she smiled and opened her presents, while sitting in the security of my lap. On the way home, she asked us why we didn't stay at the party with her, and we tried to explain that even though Gram and Gramp were her family, they weren't our family... We told her that "back in the old days" I had been married to Grandpa David, and that blew her mind. A week or so later, out of the blue, she said to me, "I can't believe you were married to David - aren't you glad you have Gaffer and me now?"

After we picked up Ava from the party, we drove to Brunswick to get Joe. He wanted to spend the night with us, and once we got home she put him right to work, being a veterinary assistant - she had gotten a veterinarian coat, stethoscope, etc., and had fun taking care of all her little plastic animals.

On Christmas morning, she didn't wake up until almost 8:30, and then it took over four hours for her to make her way through all her presents. Bobby and Katie arrived about 9, and then Kerry came in at noon. Ava played with each present as she opened it - she really enjoyed every single gift. Santa had given her an Easy Bake oven, but had forgotten to include a light bulb, so that was the only present of the day that she couldn't try out.

Later in the day, we drove over to Aunt Brenda's house for the family get-together, and Ava had a great time running around with Alivia and opening more presents there. She finally got a chance to wear her pretty red Christmas dress and shiny black shoes, although she wouldn't let the white tights stay on her body for two seconds - as soon as I pulled them up over her bottom she started squealing that they were too tight!! She likes loose things... But she looked beautiful even with her bare legs hanging out!

Today is January 3rd, and Ava turned 4 yesterday. She was funny, trying out all the things she can do now as a 4 year old! She's taking it very seriously, and said to me last night, "I'm not a toddler anymore!!"

She didn't have much a party - Mother Nature provided her with a snowstorm for her birthday that kept everyone home except Aunt Brenda. But we had fun anyway, and Ava hung pink streamers from the fan over the dining room table and used lots of tape to stick little pieces of pink streamer to randem objects - the glass sliding door, my pocketbook, the doorknob, etc. - around the house.

I made her two birthday cakes, both new recipes, and we had to throw the first one away - I never saw a cake come out of the oven looking so awful!!! But the second cake came out great. We used food coloring to make it pink, and she loved it.

For her birthday, we gave her an Animal Planet jungle treehouse playset and a Go Diego Go rescue jeep. She asked if we would take her to Play N Learn so she could choose some new "aminals", so that was fun - we braved the snowstorm to drive to Freeport and she picked out a big new mammoth and two bison, and then I chose a cow and calf and told her they were for me. She gave me a big smile, like "Cool!! Gammer's getting amnials, too!" and then said, "Will you let me play with them?" and then I said, "Actually, Ava - these are really for you!!" She was ecstatic - kept saying, "I can't believe I get to have this many aminals!!" She's spoiled, but she appreciates it!!

Later in the day, we took her for a ride through the woods on the snowmobile. She loved it! Gaffer had told her to look for deer, and she'd give us updates from time to time - "I haven't seen a deer yet!" She sat up in front of Gaffer for a while, but seemed to prefer sitting between us. We got home just in time, though - as I was taking her gear off, she started crying that she was cold. She couldn't wait to jump into my bed and snuggle in. She said her feet had stayed warm and her face was warm, but her body was cold. And this with LL Bean winter coat and snowpants on! Next time we'll do more layers.