19 months: i know baby

Language development continues to be a daily pleasure in our lives.  This is most clearly manifested in reading books, especially lately with Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy, Avery's current most favorite book.  She would sit and have this read 5 times in a row if we would oblige her.  I tend to stop after round 2.  Jon will sometimes go 4 rounds.  There are several areas where she will say what's coming next, exclaiming "mom!" when jewel the neighbor's dog is getting sick.  Avery says "I know baby" just as Fancy Nancy is about to say "I know that".  She has long said 'I know" as this is one of those things I end up saying to her a lot, as I change her diaper, if she gets hurt, etc.   She also spends countless amounts of time finding the mouse in Goodnight Moon.  This evolves into finding the balloon, bunny, kittens on each and every page on which they exist.  She loves that book.   

When we were in Florida Avery started linking 3 words together.  I find this very amusing as often the 3rd word thrown in the middle of the 2 clear words is a seemingly made up linking word, like she knows there is a word that is supposed to go there, but not sure what it sounds like, it sounds like a combination of go/is/um.  Sometimes she gets it right though, like "Daynie go bath?", which is the first one that sticks out to me.  She said this as Dayna walked into the bathroom to do some laundry.  

Also after months of saying "yah" for yes, it has now evolved into "yes".  And she will say yes to pretty much any question, unless it relates to something she really doesn't want to do or eat, to which she emphatically replies "no!".   

She loves her baby dolls.  She has 2 favorites.  A Tidoo/Corolle bath baby from her friend Calvin and Huggums from Grancy.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I am not very creative in naming her dolls/stuffed animals.  I tried to name the tidoo baby "mimi", that lasted about an hour.  Avery has very appropriately named them "baby" and "doll".  If she has baby, she will say "doll?" as she searches for doll, it's so funny.  I am afraid they are destined to have these names forever.  She has however named her lovey and her blanket "mahtch".  Explain that one!  She loves her mahtches.  

Slide Show: Butterfly World - 1-31-09

Slide Show: Jupiter Beach 1-29-09

2020 Olympics Practice

More Slide....

At 18 months, Avery absolutely loves going down slides. As soon as she comes swooping down on her back, she says in an excited voice, "More Slide....More Slide."

Happy Early Birthday Daynie!

Three Beautiful Ladies

There will be many more pictures to be posted from our great trip to Florida, but this is one of my favorites... I think you can see why.

Some Other Great Florida Shots!

18 months

Lots of new things are going on for Miss 18 month old Avery.  She started really running over the past week or so.  This has resulted in a couple of skinned knees but she squeals in delight as she moves quickly about.  She loves to talk and talk and talk.  She lies in her crib each morning and has this string of consciousness that goes something like this morning's: "blahblahblahlblah... daddy bath, mommy bath, avery bath, avery bath, quincy bath, RALLY bath, RALLY bath, Oskar bath, Avery bath, RALLY, RALLY, RALLY.  No moon, no moon.  Moon."   

We said goodbye to bottles yesterday.  There were 3 experiences over the past week that led to this decision.  The first was her pediatrician asking how the transition to sippy cups was going.  "It's going."  Secondly was finding out that kids in the Toddler room at daycare that she is transitioning into do not drink from bottles, just sippy cups or dixie cups.  "Dixie cups?  Seriously, my baby is going to be able to drink from a dixie cup in no time??".  Lastly was while watching a 3 year-old on SuperNanny SCREAMING "BABABABABA!!" as the mother cried at having to take away his bottle and throw them out in the trash.  That was the straw that broke this camel's back.  No more baba's.  She has done great, of course.  It always ends up being my issue, not hers.

She is excited about our upcoming trip on the "AP" to Florida next week to visit Jon's family. She weighed 22 lb 12 oz at the pediatrician last week.  Unlike her lucky cousins who don't have to go to their pediatrician until they are 24 months, Avery had to get 4 shots which we had postponed over the past few months.  As we waited for the nurse to come back after the doctor was finished with us, Avery knew we were up to no good and kept desperately saying "byebye? byebye? byebye?"  Poor girl, she was a trooper though.

This week Jon has moved the headquarters of GWP to an actual office space, freeing our living room up to no longer be an at-home office.  This is a very exciting change for us.  It has become more and more difficult for Jon to get any work done when Avery and I are around, so we are very happy for him to have a great new space in which to work. Avery misses him when he's away.  Once we get the Lexmark office printer moved out of our living room corner and into the new office, I am thinking we'll have a "my living room is no longer an office" party.  Cheers!

An Historic Day

"... This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath ..."  Barack Obama 1/20/09

I had the great pleasure of working on inauguration day and Avery did her very best in trying to transition to the next room "toddler 2".  On our way home we listened to NPR and were fortunate enough to be driving home as they replayed President Obama's inaugural speech.  The above line had stood out to me this morning when I watched the speech at work in a hallway with many others crowded to watch one of few available televisions.  It stood out to me in the car because as the crowds' applause rang through, the tiny little 18 month old hands in my backseat could be heard clapping with the crowd.   What a day!  

For another amazing image, please visit my sister's blog.  Absolutely precious.

My First Sand Castle & AA meeting!

Of course we didn't have a camera with us this morning, so this is only a representation of Avery's first sand castle that she built with her own loving hands. To really imagine exactly what it looked like, picture it without the animal figurines, mermaids, moats, ornate spires, and exact scale replicas of 17th century historical buildings and then STOMP all over it. This will give you an idea of what it looked like. She had so much fun building it.

We then got to walk (slowly) by an AA meeting that was being held on the beach. Venice is such a great place for kids!

Books

So we have rearranged Avery's toys to occupy the bottom 9 boxes of an Ikea piece of furniture that used to house all kinds of non-kid stuff.  It has now been taken over by Avery's things.  She loves to pull ALL the books off.  As today is nearing it's end I was placing the books back on the shelf after looking at them skewed all over the floor all day long and Avery immediately came over and started pulling them off the shelf.  I playfully said, "Why, why do you pull all the books off the shelf?" and I heard her say (as only a mother could), "Because I love books".  An outsider probably would have heard something along the lines of "a foo la boox", but I laughed because it sounded so much like "because I love books".  Happy stories to you all.

PS I have a new macbook pro (yeah!!) and no longer have to share Jon's work computer so I hope to keep up with this blogging a bit better now :)

True Hollywood Story - Batman Saves Quincy!!!

Quincy and his beloved half-brother, Ernie

Where do I begin on this one? I (Jon) took Avery and Quincy over to our friends parents' house. Quincy was going to play with his half brother Ernie the yellow lab and Avery was going to get to see the horses. Their house is in the most unique & cool part of Los Angeles. One minute you are in the middle of the hustle and bustle of LA and when you take a turn down this hidden road marked private it brings you into a rustic canyon community that looks and feels like a "Country Time" lemonade commercial crossed with a Norman Rockwell painting. There are horses, open streams, horse back riding trails, no sound of traffic & picturesque mountains in the background.

Their parents have lived there for a long time and over the years the neighbors have changed. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous have taken over their neighborhood. So as we were walking and Avery was petting $100k horses (seriously), our friend was telling me that Christian Bale, aka Batman from Batman Begins & Dark Knight just spent millions of $ on the property at the end of the street. He hadn't moved in yet and never visits it because he is going to rebuild the house, but he built this amazing swing set. Our plan was to sneak the kids onto this really cool swing set and let it get the use it deserved. When we approached the house we saw people sitting in the yard having a picnic in the yard. I was keeping my eye on Avery, when I looked again I saw a yellow lab run across the yard and boundlessly leap into Christian Bale's swimming pool. I said out loud "Oh look, they also have a yellow lab." I then saw the yellow lab try to get out of the pool, but he didn't know where the steps were. Just then, this man comes running over and grabs the yellow lab by the collar and lifts him out of the pool. My friend and I look at each other and say that's not their yellow lab, it's QUINCY!!!! We go running over there and who of all people was it that pulled Quincy from the pool... Batman. Quincy's pool-hopping plans for the afternoon were foiled by Batman! Needless to say, Christian Bale wasn't that happy about having his pool hopped by Quincy. We shared some small-talk words with him and he was pleasant, but you could tell a little annoyed. While walking back we were all sure he would have a massive fence and gate built by next week.... Only in LA.

Lions, Tigers & Bears - WOWWW!!!!

We have been trying to get the LA Zoo for the last three months. Every time we have tried to go, everything from sickness to natural disaster (LA Fires) has come up. We were determined to make it there this Friday and nothing would stop us. Of course it turned out to be the coldest day of the year in Los Angeles and many of the animals hid in the back of their enclosures under their heat lamps or were too cold to move and looked like stuffed trophies. Avery was the only smart one in the family because she chose to wear a full winter jacket and hat,while mommy and daddy unwisely chose light jackets.

Avery did have an amazing close encounter with a gorilla. The gorilla came right up to the glass and pressed her eyes and mouth against it while Avery's face was up against the glass. The two of them made eye contact and definitely shared a "moment". When the gorilla then walked away Avery began to cry because she didn't want their moment to end. She also loved many of the other animals she saw. You could tell this by her gleeful exclamation of "WOWWWWW!" The animals that got good responses were Zebras, Giraffes, Bears, Hippos, Monkeys, Seals and Parrots. One funny thing was Avery was walking around the zoo asking to see "Elmo" (she got an Elmo Live for Chrismakah). We will definitely be going back when it warms up so that she can really see all the animals in action.

Verbal Breakthroughs

Since returning from our trip to KY, Avery has had 2 verbal breakthroughs. Firstly, she has never called Quincy, our 6 year old Yellow lab, anything resembling his name. Usually it was "dadoo". She now calls him Princhy. It's really sweet. He doesn't realize she's talking to him, but she says it constantly. This has made us realize she doesn't say c or k sounds yet. So for now he is her princhy.
She also has started saying 2 word phrases which is really neat. She says things like "oskar's shoes", "daddy's socks", "daddy bath", "mommy vacuum (badow)", "orange badow", etc. It's so fun. There is the tiniest of pauses between the words as she strings them together. She also says "byebye ____" to just about anything and everything, Quincy, Oskar, moon, baby, mommy, daddy, elmo. We enjoy her immensely everyday.

Family

Avery Lucia Elliott Mazie

Grandpa, NanaLin, Auntie K and me

Pretty Ladies: Amy with her neices S (9) and S (7)

Me, Auntie K, Chris and Amy trying to recreate a Christmas photo of the 4 of us from 1978

Santa

Grandpa and NanLin's House

Christmas in Kentucky

We flew to Kentucky the Tuesday before Christmas to be with my dad, his wife, her kids and grandkids and my sister and her family for the holiday. The flight was easy, we got in early around 2 pm. My dad picked us up at the airport, a decision he will long regret. By the time we reached the car it was raining and the streets were just getting iced over. It was 32 degrees. We immediately drove to a Kmart to pick up a new carseat as the one my dad had been kind enough to borrow for us was a little to rickety for what turned out to be the most dangerous day to be on the roads in Kentucky.

Traffic was insane. There were accidents everywhere on streets, highways, salt trucks shutting down stretches of roads to lay ice who then crashed and shut down stretches of road while they were towed away. It was soooo frustrating. We spent several hours driving very slowly and several other hours standing still. We were thankfully able to get a subway sandwich early on in the debacle and later on we were able to stop at a grocery to get food/milk for Avery and to stop at a Bob Evans for supper. Everytime it seemed the traffic situation couldn't get worse, it would. At midnight we made the split second decision to take a small country road to try to get to the small town where my dad lives. It thankfully started to rain harder and the temperature warmed up to 37 degrees so that road was not too icy. My dad did a great job driving in these less than desirable conditions. Avery was such a trooper, she had a couple of meltdowns, the worst of which came at midnight when she woke up after a 90 minute nap to find us STILL in the car. She calmed thanks to the MacBookPro that we quickly yanked out to play music and a slideshow. We arrived at the hotel at 12:45 AM. 10 hrs after we left the airport. Thankfully we were all safe, we had been fed. There were a lot of people who suffered loss that day due to the ice storm and we are fortunate that all we lost was a little patience.

All the above pictures represent why that 10 hr car ride was well worth it. We had a great time with Grandpa (or as Avery calls him Papa, when he's not trying to scare her with his deep scary voice) and NanaLin. They had everything ready for 4 babies descending on their house. Highchairs from their local country club, pack and plays for all the babies, food galore and presents aplenty.
Aunties K and B and the triplets fortunately missed the ice storm as they came from the south. We enjoyed every minute with the cousins. They are all a joy. NanaLin's daughter Amy and her husband Bill spent Christmas day with us and her son Chris, his wife Dana and their sweet daughters joined us the day after Christmas. There was an open house where Grandpa and NanaLin's friends came to see all 6 grandchildren. It was a very nice party. Avery slept through half the party but enjoyed the later part of it.

Disneyland

I had forgotten how much fun Dumbo can be!

December 4th my dear friend Deirdre (Ella and Charlotte's mom) and Avery and I went to Disneyland. It was Avery's 1st trip to the Magic Kingdom. Living in southern California, it is a rite of passage for all toddlers to venture into the world of characters, princesses, rides and crowds. Charlotte was just 8 weeks when she first had the privilege. I managed to hold off for 16.5 months. Avery really enjoyed it. We got to go on a few rides, stroll around in an attempt at naps (failed for Avery, the other 2 were great stroller nappers), watch a parade and see it "snow". It was a wonderful day spent with our friends. Here are a few pictures.

We all rode the carousel together. Avery was afraid at first, then had a great time.

We got to ride the newly refurbished It's A Small World. It was all decked out for the holidays and Avery loved looking around at everything.

Video: When Life Gives You Lemanana, Make Lemananade

Sixteen Months

Last Sunday, Avery turned 16 months and we were all so fortunate to be together. I wasn't working and we were all healthy. That is a first in the past few weeks so we tried to enjoy our time together. We went to the Farmer's Market with Deirdre, Ella and Charlotte and our neighbors Marisa, Mattias and Oskar. We didn't want to spend too much time outside as several parts of LA were in the midst of a firestorm and the air quality was terrible. On the way home from the market, Avery decided she could now say "Ella!" and proceeded to say it about 50 times that day, long after Ella had gone home. Actually now whenever I take Avery on long car rides anywhere (besides school) she asks for Ella because apparently we usually go on long car rides to see Ella.

Avery showed us at Oskar's how she can climb into a little chair to sit. We had no little chairs at our place, but now we do, thanks LEM:

She is currently infatuated with the moon. As we drove home from work last week she pointed out the window and showed me the moon when I could not find it in the sky (don't worry I was stopped at a red light). I knew she had found it because her incessant "moon? moon?" turned quickly into "moon!! moon!! heehee!". Since the fires we haven't seen the moon again so we have looked in books for moons and it is quite impressive how just about all of our regular reading with her has a moon on at least one page.
When she gives hugs, she will pat your arm or back in a soothing way like we have always done to her.
She likes to point at her belly button and say "button", although it has recently shortened to "butts" and no matter how many times I say button, she won't revert back.
She has started to eat sandwiches which makes her seem very grown up and yesterday at daycare she ate a whole graham cracker as Jon watched in awe (I had never thought to give her graham crackers).
Jon and Avery play a game of who can shout the others name louder, it goes something like, "Avery?", "Dada!", "AVERY!", "DADA!", "AVERY!!!", "DADA!!!" until they both burst out giggling.
We have taken care of my friend at work's Sheltie a couple of times in the past month and Avery LOVES Rally and she doesn't really understand that when Rally goes home she isn't at our house. She is always asking for Rally.

Video & Picture: Oskar (aka Ahshkah)

For a long time now Avery has known that Oskar lives next door, asking for him more and more frequently. She says, "ahshkah?" (sound it out, it's oskar, trust me) when we leave for school at 6 in the morning (oskar is sleeping, maybe we'll see him tomorrow). "Ahshkah?" when we return from school, grocery, a run, anywhere. (maybe we will play with him tonight). We sometimes can hear little footsteps down the hall and a baby knock at the door or jostle of the doorknob because when Oskar gets outside he likes to run on over to see Avery and Quincy. But then we'd get them together and they would have ver y little to do with each other. Well this changed Sunday when I dropped Avery off at Oskar's and ran back home. When I returned, Oskar's parents said that Oskar and Avery had kissed. Then Wednesday night they played together and she would say "Ahshkah" to his face like she finally understood that he was there and she could actually interact with him. With a little prompting from both mommies and Jon, they kissed again. We are so lucky to have Oskar living next door to us, he is such a sweet boy and a joy to be around. He is a big boy but very gentle only occasionally testing his brute strength on Avery. He has big paws like a puppy which is great for us because we now get to use his crocs that he rapidly outgrew.

We had to see him on Wednesday because Thursday he left to go to Chicago to look for a new house because he is probably moving soon. She still asks for him every day and even though she will not remember, my heart will break a little for my maemae when Oskar moves away.

Happy Halloween!