Camp Paula - Day One

 

Guest Post: Auntie Paula recounts her week with Ava

After having breakfast with Brian and sending him off on his business trip, Ava and I officially kicked off Camp Ava/Paula with a trip to Target. Our mission was simple. The shopping list was short. Ava needed a new toothbrush and we were going to make a special dinner for Joe. Ava was quick and decisive in selecting her Hello Kitty toothbrush and toothpaste! Ava selected spaghetti with meatballs and salad for Joe's special dinner and Funfetti cupcakes for dessert.

This was looking to be one of the quickest shopping trips to Target...but then we entered the toy department! Hello Kitty items were everywhere. Puzzles, coloring books, games, and stuffed animals. Initially, Ava had a difficult time narrowing down what to get. However, that quickly changed the moment Ava turned down the baby doll aisle. Hello Kitty who? After spending nearly an hour becoming acquainted with each and every one of the baby doll options, Ava selected Lily, some baby accessories for Lily and four Hello Kitty puzzles to work on while Lily would nap!

Once home, we had lunch on the patio and then both had some quiet time. After resting, I "helped" make the cupcakes by placing them in and taking them out of the oven. As you can see from the pictures, Ava is a professional baker! We wrote in our journals and played Candy Land until Joe came home from work. After dinner, the three of us played Candy Land, Chutes & Ladders as well as Hide-n-Seek in the basement.

Day One - sweet success!

 

 

 

 

June 2013

June began with a work trip to D.C. for Brian, with Ava joining along to attend Camp Paula. There, she spent five full days without either of us (definitely a first) as Auntie Paula and Uncle Joe kept her happy as a clam. That is until the nighttime came and she decided that maybe she was just a little bit homesick :(  Perhaps in a self-fulfilling prophecy, she then got a 24-hour stomach bug, which derailed some of the fun they were having. Despite the vomit-filled visits to the Walgreen's drive-thru, Paula and Ava made it through the untimely illness and are still two peas in a pod. Stay tuned for Paula's guest-post, coming up soon.

The rest of the month was quite celebratory, with Father's Day and Nana's (Sue) birthday.  For Father's Day we had a picnic on Mt. Tabor, with Ava keeping us on our toes with some shockingly fast bike riding, sans braking skills (still working on that!).  We spent the afternoon at Sue and Rod's for Sue's birthday and played Ava's new favorite game "telephone." Ava LOVES whispering but hasn't quite mastered the art. She has two volumes: on and off, but more likely off.  So the game of telephone involves her breathing hot silent air into your ear drum, and then lots of giggling and wide-eyed looks of anticipation as she waits for everyone else to have their turn. It's pretty precious.

May 2013

It was an active May for us. While Helen sometimes has trouble making it past the front porch with both kids, on two separate occasions Brian packed the kids up and went on some impressive mini-adventures. Once to the coast so they could imagine how nice it would be to play in the ocean if we lived in a different state where that was possible.  And another day-trip to the forest to climb on stumps and throw rocks into streams. We also hit the zoo, the children's museum, and then went strawberry picking (or, more accurately, "strawberry snacking") on Sauvie's Island.

Not pictured is Mother's Day, which, disheartened by the antics of the children, Helen spent alone at a Cafe. I'm recording this fact here so that someday we might remember it and use it to shame the children (Kidding! Sort of.) It's not all fairy dust and butterflies over here.

What is pictured is the parenting blunder of the month, where Helen told Ava, "I'll catch you!" as she jumped off her cozy coop car and then didn't at all catch her. Instead Ava did a head-first, un-cushioned, swan dive onto the ground.  After shaking it off with some good old-fashioned tears and whimpers, she offered only a confused look, asking, "Why didn't you catch me?" Good question!

Rubber to the Road

This girl can really GO.

STOP...not so much.

Pop goes the...

That lion gets him every time.

18 Things About James

James is now 18 months old. Wha?! Here are 18 fascinating facts about him.

1. James hugs a lot. We haven't done an official count, but he's probably averaging 20 head-on-your-chest hugs a day.
2. James continues to be an oddly large child. At his 15-month check-up, he was still off the charts for height (almost 35 inches) and newly off the charts for weight (just shy of 30 pounds). As Ava likes to point out, however, he is still one pound lighter and a few inches shorter than her.
3. Jamesie-pooh is CRAZY about going outside right now and would never come inside if he didn't need to eat at semi-regular intervals.
4. Eating with James is maddening. He's fairly picky at this point, but will repeatedly yelp for "more" if he sees any food nearby, no matter how much of that item he has on his tray.
5. A favorite word of James's right now is "baloobaloo", or balloon. He systematically goes through all the books containing balloons and points out the balloons on each page and then moves on to the next one. It's kind of shocking how many children's books contain balloons. Perhaps he's not the first with this obsession.
6. James is particularly fond of kitchen activities. He still loves to prepare meals for us in his kitchen, but he's equally at home in our Tupperware drawer, which gets ransacked on a daily basis.
7. James trots with very stiff legs.
8. There are very few things that can get James as angry as a diaper change. As if cleaning someone else's poop could get any worse, now we have a huge wriggly, screaming toddler as our diaper-change partner.
9. James loves watering cans, which he uses to water his feet and the driveway.
10. James has 14 teeth.
11. Our 30-pound child generally demands to be carried at all times. If you refuse, he falls to the floor and pounds his fists and wails. Just today we had a breakthrough and walked halfway to the store holding hands. Baby steps, as they say.
12. James likes wagon rides so much that he will retrieve the wagon and just sit in it until someone takes him somewhere.
13. James is mesmerized by cats (his favorite), dogs, and birds. He uses his best animal calls whenever he sees one.
14. We keep a harmonica in James's car seat at all times so that he can play us some sweet tunes while we drive around town.
15. We have to reprogram the stereo several times a day. It's one of his favorite toys.
16. If James is able to lift an object, he will throw it across the room. We spend a good deal of time telling him, "If you'd like to throw something, you can throw a ball." Then he replies, "ball!" and gets a ball to throw.
17. James really likes waving and has a stiff-arm beauty-queen wave.
18. Whenever James sees something that looks like a phone, he puts it against his ear and says hello, then giggles.

April 2013

At the beginning of April we welcomed a new Edwards into the family! Leo is Tom and Emily's third child in so many years (we kid you not...their oldest is 3 1/2), which has landed Tom and Emily into the "certifiable" category in our eyes. We can say that because we know without a doubt they won't have time to read this blog post. Thus far, we have only Skyped with the young man, but we will be meeting Leo for reals when we go on a big ole Edwards vacation to the Cape in July. We can't wait.

Next to bringing life into this world, I suppose our April was comparatively uneventful. The entire family got a week-long stomach bug and for the first time both Helen and Brian were sick at precisely the same moment which made caring for the other two sick humans in our house quite miserable. It's times like those that we long for the days when being sick meant a relaxing day off of work watching Ellen and The Price Is Right.

The majority of April was gloriously warm and sunny so we shook off the winter blues and spent pretty much every day outside, or "ow-dide," as some call it.

Life in Balance

I was going to make all sorts of (likely hilarious) jokes about our lives being totally balanced right now--which is most assuredly not the case--but really this video just makes me giggle. Even though they are the same age, Griffin is so much heavier than Ava we actually had to move the seesaw along a notch so that Ava and Griffin could even attempt to seesaw together. And here's the result:

Gymnastics

Ava has finally made her long-anticipated entrance into the world of gymnastics. She's so excited she even allows her hair to be put in pigtails. The Children's Gym doesn't mess around though--by the second class she'd tried her hand at the rings, beam, vault, bars, and (her favorite) the trampoline. 

Warming up with the other athletes

What they don't tell you in the brochure is that viewing the Tiny Tumblers class is a wildly inappropriate pastime for an 18-month old. I'm not sure what I was thinking but I assumed there would be some sort of a barrier between the spectators and the "athletes." Instead, they have a few chairs set up right next to the mats so that your curious 18-month old can take a running start and then a flying leap into a tumbling pass. In fact, a relentlessly curious 18-month old can continuously take a flying leap into a tumbling pass for a full hour, until the class ends. Had I known, I certainly wouldn't have scheduled Ava's class on a weekday during work hours, thereby requiring the pursuit  and containment of said 18-month old to be a one-person job.

While gymnastics seems to be in the Rabold blood, it most certainly is not in the Edwards', so this could be a short-lived endeavor.

March 2013

This month, our trip to Chicago afforded Ava some fun time in the snow, and she was all, "Yay! Let's make snowmen!" James was not quite as impressed and he was all, "Why are you doing this to me? So cold!"

Development-wise, James is now using words in combination with yelps to get across a point. He has a vocabulary of 25 words which all sound a little like "mah," "bah," and "pah." You really have to analyze the context to decipher the meaning of his babbles.  When in doubt, we rely on his nods.  One VERY slow nod up and down for yes and a bobble-head shake back and forth combined with an "uh-uh" for no.  It's far from an exact science.  We wish the famed 18-month language explosion would just go ahead and explode already so we can figure out what's on this boy's mind.

As for Ava, she's become quite the character. To give this character positive labels, we might say that she is "opinionated," "assertive," "curious," and "dramatic." This has left us "at our wit's end" and "struggling to adhere to our positive parenting techniques." Y'all be nice to Ava. She'll be your boss some day.

And here's the month in pictures:

This Is 40

At the beginning of March we packed the whole family up and headed to Chicago to surprise Brian's sister, Brooke, for her 40th birthday. And by surprise, we really mean surprise.  Helen, Brian, James, Ava, Paula, Joe, Layne, and Gary all showed up on her doorstep to celebrate and shacked up for the weekend at Brooke and Tony's house.  Though surprised, Brooke was a gracious host and we all had a great time taking over their home for a few days.

Happy Birthday, Brooke. You don't look a day over 20.

Hello!

When they're not pulling each other's hair out (one of James's new tricks!), our children are doing this:

James Loves Him Some Animal Noises

February 2013

In the interest of just catching up, here's our February album, sans commentary.

I Know a Rhino

Ava drew you a picture of a rhino.

 

January 2013

Slowly but surely we're catching up on blog posts. At least we're into 2013, so that's something. Sadly, Brian was out of town for three out of four weeks in January, and our camera was at the repair shop, so it is slim pickins for January photos.

   

The biggest news, of course, was Ava's fourth birthday. She asked for a lollipop. Ava is fairly sugar deprived and she still tells the story of the lollipop she had one year ago at her friend Cormac's birthday party. For her birthday we gave her the biggest lollipop around and then she took two licks--apparently that's all she needed--and threw it in the trash. She's put in her request for a lollipop for her 5th birthday and talks to James about it every time we pass the display in the grocery store.

As for James, he's turned into a big steamroller of a toddler. He runs, he screams, he laughs with his whole body. He loves to read (by himself just as much as with others) and gasps, squeals, and drops his jaw in mock surprise with every turn of the page. He happily joins Ava in her pretend play and spends much of his time serving the family dinner and rocking his stuffed animals to sleep. After a 2-year hiatus, we've returned to music class. While the magic of Music Together seems to have run its course with Ava, James couldn't be more excited. He hums the songs throughout the day and will sing notes and wait for someone to copy him, just like in class.

Four Acts of Kindness

In honor of Ava's fourth birthday, Ava "decided" (or perhaps more accurately, "agreed") to do Four Acts of Kindness for others.  Everyone's doing it...get on board, people.

Ava was pretty thrilled to take part and she chose each of the four acts, apart from the first, which had already been chosen for her.

1. Food to the Food Bank - This year, Ava had a joint birthday party with two of her best buddies, Griffin and Jolie. [Though she may not be aware of it, Ava has known these kids since the earliest days of her life when--sleep-deprived, confused, shocked, elated, and overwhelmed--the new mothers banded together in a new-mom's group, wisely determining that parenthood was not a battle to be fought alone.] In lieu of gifts, party attendees brought donations for the Oregon Food Bank. We collected 66 pounds of food at the party and later took a field trip to deliver the donations. The Oregon Food Bank is a pretty amazing organization and Helen's good friend and Associate Director of Development at the Food Bank, Ellen Dully, gave us a tour of the facility.

2. Cookies for Postal Carrier Allison - Ava knows the name and personal business of everyone who lives on our street, along with most others who walk down it. So we are pretty tight with our postal carrier. Ava runs onto the porch whenever she sees her coming and attempts to keep up conversations with her as she dips in and out of houses for deliveries. On Ava's birthday we baked her cookies and she outdid us by surprising Ava with a purple vest for her birthday. Seriously?! That woman is awesome.

3. Cupcakes for Nate, Amy, Olivia and Carter - Our beloved next-door neighbors were out of town for Ava's birthday party and Ava felt like they really deserved some cupcakes to celebrate in her honor.  After making the cupcakes, we realized that they were again out of town so Ava dutifully sat by the four cupcakes until they returned that evening to receive them.

4. Coffee Gift Card for Clark - We have the sweetest neighbor, Clark, at the end of our street. Every morning he takes his coffee mug and walks past our house to go to one of four coffee shops, where he meets his friends for coffee. Ava is OBSESSED with this lovely man and runs out of the house every time he passes so that she can scream hello. We're fairly sure he can't understand a thing she says but he's always happy to see her. We got him a gift card to one of his coffee shops and I don't think we could have confused the man any more than we did when we told him that for Ava's birthday we were getting him a gift.

Monster Mash

Ava drew you a picture of a monster.

December 2012

Mele Kalikimaka

The Rabold family escaped to Hawaii in December for an early Christmas treat. We met up with Brian's parents, his Aunt Joanne and Uncle David, and Paula and Joe. And though Joe waited to perfect his Mai Tai recipe until after we left, we still managed to enjoy ourselves.

For James, this was his first flight. Apart from being understandably disappointed at being caged into a 4 x 6 ft space for 6 hours, he remained jolly and spent lots of time flirting with the airline attendants.

This wasn't James's first trip to the ocean but it was the first time anyone had threatened to put him in it and he was quite horrified by the idea. Because we are wonderful parents, we made sure to dunk him down to his shoulders, amidst his screams of protest. Luckily, he does love to roll around in the sand and made himself quite at home in the kiddie pool.

Since our last trip to Hawaii two years ago, Ava has made a complete turn-around and loves the ocean, and loves the pool. She also loves the hot tub, and she stationed herself nearby so that she could wait for unsuspecting parents to put their babies in the water and then lecture them on the spa being too hot for small people.

In addition to lounging around at the pool, we also took a trip to the Maui Ocean Center, where Helen went SCUBA diving in a tank with 30 or so sharks. James and Ava looked on, waving and blowing kisses. Oddly enough, Ava was terrified by the idea of Brian going into the dunk tank at our block party a few months ago--screaming, wailing and gasping for air--but seemed at peace with the idea of Helen swimming with man-eating sharks. We'll try not to over-analyze it.

It doesn't feel like we had enough time at all, but we're glad we got to spend some quality time with the East-coast Rabold crew.