. . . the pumpkin patch

Every year since her birth, we-the-parents have taken Miss Adorable to a pumpkin patch.  The first year, she just sat in her stroller, covered in a warm blanket and stared.  The second year, she wandered around looking at the tiniest ones, but not really understanding the concept of fall.  The third and fourth years, she remembered, actually remembered, that fall was coming and fall meant pumpkins.  And this year, our four-year-old reminded us as soon as the first hint of orange arrived at our favorite patch that it was time to round up her baby and head out to find some harvest fruit.

. . . four, and then some.

This is a three-year-old girl.

This is what a three-year-old girl looks like on her last day as a three-year-old girl. And now, she's four.

Her less-than-fabulous mama didn't throw her a big party, but her so-awesome-he-rocks-too-Dadoo planned the perfect surprises for her and invited her Mimi and Grampy to come all the way from North Carolina and her Auntie and Uncle to come all the way from Mississippi (Eagles are FIERCE) to help celebrate.

Our sweet girl spent her last days as a three-year-old playing all her favorite games, eating all her favorite foods, and visiting all her favorite parks with her mama, dadoo, her baby sis, NC-grandparents, and her Auntie & Uncle. It was two weeks of cake, cupcakes, ice cream, multi-colored sprinkles and more cake: sweet on so very many levels.

The sweetest of all was our precious four-year-old. Here she is on the 4th anniversary of her birth. Oh how we all love her.

. . . a three-year-old-Christmas

This was the year. This year. The year that our sweet Averie really understood the magic and beauty of the Christmas season. The year that we could see it in her eyes, and hear it in her voice and smile and laugh at the wonder of it all.

From gingerbread houses (she made three) to cookies (she made several dozen) and Christmas hymns (she loves 'O Holy Night') to carols (we had no idea she could identify 'Carol of the Bells' - and she can, be it played on strings or brass), from lights ("Wights! Mama! Look! It's multi-colored! That's my most favorite kind of sprinkles!") to lawn 'art' ("Dadoo! Look! A reindeer!"), from holiday movies to holiday art, she had a full and excitement-filled start to the Christmas season.

This year, she had her own 'wish list'. She added items to it frequently, and we-the-parents are fairly certain she didn't really understand the concept of the 'wish' part. This was evidenced multiple times (we thought) by how easy it was to pacify her through the toy aisles of any given store. Anytime she asked to 'have' something, we told her she could put it on her wish list. "Ok", she'd reply. "I want this on my wish list". And then she'd calmly put the item back in it's place on the shelf and keep moving. It worked like a dream. We were slightly worried that it might come back to bite us when she realized that the majority of the items she put on the list didn't make it under the tree (it was a REALLY big list), but we figured we'd cross that bridge later on.

Imagine our surprise when on Christmas morning, her first request was for her sister. Her second request was for some M&Ms with her cheerios. And her third request was to take off her jammies. For nearly an hour and a half after she woke up, she asked nothing about the gifts. Finally, sometime around ten a.m., she asked if she could open a present. When we told her yes, she squealed with glee, ran over to the tree, grabbed a tiny box from the bottom of the pile and placed it carefully into my hands. "Mama!" she shouted. "We got this for you, Mama! It's very special earrings for you! But don't tell because it's a surprise!" Imagine our hearts when we realized her first thoughts were for people other than herself.

And when she finally began to open up her very own presents, she stopped, content, at two. The very two she'd asked for most, and the first item on her wish list. The next hour saw her fully happy and fully occupied with those toys, unconcerned with the rest of her stash resting beneath the branches. And the rest of the morning continued much the same as it began ... and we-the-parents count ourselves very blessed.

Better than all the stuff of the season is this crazy joy. The hard stuff is still hard. The bad stuff, well, it's still bad. But the joy of seeing her see it all ... well, it's mushy and funny and happy and awesome and sappy and squishy and GOOD.

And just in case you think you've had your fill of adorable, here's proof you're not full yet. Our baby-girl-the-first-adorable on her fourth Christmas ...

... big girl sleep with the aid of jelly beans

Our sweet girl has been, most of the time, a pretty good sleeper. We've had our nights of unrest, but for the most part, we-the-parents have escaped the same kind of nighttime torment many of our poor friends have experienced with their children. We-the-parents, though speaking seldom of it, have always been thankful of this great mercy in our lives, conscious that it's a rare gift to have a child who goes so easily to sleep.

When we found out that our Baby-Toddler-Preschooler-Bee would become a big sister to Bun, we-the-parents contemplated the ways that baby-adorable-the-first 'might-could' react to the introduction of the new family member. We read about tantrums and regression and tears and prepared ourselves for giving extra attention, having more patience and returning to the 'pull-ups' stage for a bit. And while we knew that there could be (and probably would be) times when our newborn's cries would wake our elder daughter, we did not anticipate that this family transition from three to four would influence the well-established sleeping habits of our three-point-five-year-old to such a great degree.

Bun's arrival didn't bring any tantrums*. Our sweet big sister was excited to meet her "new baby", and has not shown any of the typical symptoms associated with the addition of a younger sibling. Except one:

She is no longer willing to go to sleep. Mama should actually include the qualifier, "alone".

The tiny girl is absolutely willing to go to sleep with a friend. She'll go to sleep at her friends' house (**thank you Mrs. Beth for caring for our first baby while we had our second**). She'll go to sleep in the company of the entire family as we ride in the car. She'll go to sleep in her uncle's arms as he carries her from the carousel back to the bookstore. And she'll go to sleep at home, in her own bed even, as long as either her Mama or her Dadoo (though preferably her Dadoo) is cuddled up right next to her.

This unwillingness to fall asleep alone is not confined to the initial falling asleep, but extends to every falling asleep throughout the entire night, so that each time a plane, helicopter, tree-branch, motorcycle (thanks biker neighbors for your super loud cruising at eleven p.m., we love it, really), squirrel, dishwasher, ice-maker or whisper from her parents awakens her, she needs/wants one of us to crawl back in bed with her.

Though we'd struggled a tiny bit with this sleep thing before baby-the-second arrived, in the weeks preceding the birth, things had settled down a bit. Then, we brought the baby home, and things ceased to settle ... at least in the evening hours. Mama spends most of her evening hours awake feeding Baby-Bun, and Dadoo spends most of his evening hours awake, calming Baby-Bee and attempting to persuade her into long slumber.

Our success has been limited, like our sleep and our dwindling patience. Until the introduction of what some, more judgmental persons (who are obviously better parents) might call a bribe. We-the-parents call it desperate times, and thank heavens for William Schrafft or whoever created the jelly bean.

Big girls are polite, obedient, and rested. Big girls sleep all night long in big girl beds, all by themselves. Big girls eat big-girl-breakfasts of jelly beans, cheerios and occasionally, Pez. And we, ladies and gentlemen, are raising a big girl. A sweet, going to bed with less and less assistance kind of big girl who loves Jelly Belly beans in watermelon, bubblegum, blueberry and cherry. A big girl who, though lying awake and singing for an hour after we put her there, stays in bed, alone, all night.

Well, at least for the last few days. Still, it feels like we're closer to being back on a relatively normal sleep schedule, and we'll hold onto whatever hope we have right now. Because, as previously mentioned, it's desperate times in the sleep department. And we-the-parents are rapidly re-affirming the realities that:

a.) we are no longer in our twenties,

b.) we are much better and more coherent people when we get at least three hours of uninterrupted sleep in the evenings, and

c.) our tiny-bee is much happier and well-behaved when she, too, gets at least three hours of uninterrupted sleep in the evenings.

Hear, hear and hip, hip for the jelly bean! Long live the bean and the refreshing minutes of rest it affords! Hooray for our big girl! Hooray that she loves her little sister and is merely struggling with sleep and not some urge to beat up the baby. Hooray for big girls who go to sleep late, but sleep in a little later so Mamas get time for coffee. And blogging. *wink*

**We-the-parents do realize it's early days, and we're not counting any chickens at this time.**

. . . 26 days of sisterhood

It's been three weeks and five days since our first tiny baby became a big sister. In just two more days, a near month will have passed since the arrival of baby sister. Life here is different and wonderful and lacking lots of sleep for the three eldest family members, big sis included.

Nights and days blur, no one has his/her own bed anymore and things that used to be relatively easy, (making and eating lunch, for example), are now more complicated and require a greater time commitment from all parties. Even our big girl, (who's really just a little, tiny girl, says mama) is taking more time to get through her daily routines (brushing her teeth, finding her shoes, drinking her juice, going to sleep).

It's still the hardest thing we've ever done. And it's still the best thing.

And our sweet, baby-adorable, now a dear little girl of three ('and a half, mama' she often reminds me), is the most precious big sister, bringing kisses and hugs and toys and comfort to the tiny baby who "came out of mama's tummy", as Averie informs anyone she deems in confusion over the arrival of her sister.

One of the best parts of every day is the morning, when big sister wakes up and asks first thing to see baby "Iwah". This is what that kind of love looks like.

. . . 3 years, 3 months, 27 days

In the flash of the last 8 months, our baby adorable turned three. She's officially just about three-and-a-quarter, and the reality of that seems impossible.

In the flash of the last 8 months, our tiny girl has gone from diapers to pullups to panties, and training cups to travel mugs to not needing or wanting that first morning milk. She's changed shoe sizes and pants sizes and grown an inch and a pound. Her hair is long, long, long. She walks (runs) everywhere and doesn't want to hold our hands except when something near her is loud. She talks about lots of things and asks a lot of questions and makes a lot of accurate observations. She sings and makes up her own songs. She laughs and makes up her own jokes. She lets us rinse the shampoo right out of her hair with no hesitation, no washcloth, no worries.

In the flash of the last 8 months, she's adapted to a lot of changes, learned how to write her name and added a million words to her speech. She dresses herself daily in a minimum of two different dresses. She even gets the buckle part right on her shoes ("I put the buckles on the outside, Mama!"). She pretends to sleep during naptime, but plays with her trains instead. She still doesn't eat much meat besides chicken, calamari and hamburgers, and she still loves sweet tea. She loves hotels and had a great time at Disney World.

In a few short weeks, she'll officially be a big sister to her very own little sister. She wants to name her 'donut' or 'fountain' or 'cloud'. She wants to teach her how to dig in the sand and how to walk and how to stand on one foot. She doesn't want her baby sister to sit in her chair or play with her trains or wear her new dresses. But she does want her baby sister to sleep in her bed.

As we-the-family near the day when our three becomes four, Mama still can't quite believe her tiny baby adorable is so grown. It did fly. It really, really did.

. . . a quick panic, followed by dessert

Dadoo & Averie in living room.

Overheard by Mama:

Averie: (Screaming) AHHHHHH! Uhhhhh! Oh No!
Dadoo: (Running out of kitchen) Averie, what's happened?
Averie: Ahhh! Mosquito! Mosquito! Mosquito! Oh no!
Dadoo: Well, that's a mosquito hawk. It's not bad. Remember, we like them.
Averie: Ahhhh! Ahhhh!

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

Averie: Did you get it?
Dadoo: No.

Thwack! Thwack!

Averie: Did you get it?
Dadoo: No.

Thwack! Thwack! Bang! Thwack! Thwack!

Averie: Did you get it?
Dadoo: Yes.

Averie: You did?
Dadoo: Yes, Averie. Don't open the door, ok?
Averie: Oh, ok, Dadoo.


. . .

Later, at dinner:

Dadoo: Averie, would you like some cake?
Averie: Oh! Sure! Sure I would. It's in the kitchen. I saw it there. I better go check on it. You stay right here, ok? I'll be right back.

. . .
*Um, yes, it's been awhile. Life, etc. More soon. Well, hopefully.

. . . 25 things

Right. It's not facebook. But it's a free country, and everyone has a right to post their own 25 things. Here's the baby-adorable's list:

1. Baby-adorable is almost two. Yes, two. Two years ago at this moment, mama was on mandatory bed-rest waiting, waiting, waiting for the girl to arrive. She didn't arrive for another fourteen days. It was a long wait.

2. As we-the-family near this second year milestone, we realize that our 'baby' is no longer such. And we are excited about how she's grown. And we are sad about how quickly she's grown. And we love her more than ever.

3. The sweetest girl talks a lot. This morning while getting dressed, she said, 'Mama, shoes on and watch George. Socks on and watch George.' After the socks and shoes were on, she sat down on the floor and said, 'Mama, sit down! Avie sit down, too, Mama.' More words come every day and every day she forms them into longer sentences. Lately, she can't talk enough of the 'Helicopter big, Mama. Helicopter orange an' white, Dadoo. Big. Up in sky'.

4. Baby-healthy eats her veggies. She loves peas and broccoli best, but also eats cauliflower, green beans, tomatoes, peppers and mushrooms with garlic. She does not like lettuce or radishes, but will eat spinach if it's cooked with lemon and garlic.

5. Like every other toddler, the tiny girl loves animals. She's especially loving her sea creatures bath tub animals. Last night during her bath she made sure she got them all clean. 'Wash cow's 'gi-nah, Mama. Wash dol-feen's bum, too.' ***

6. As you may have surmised from #5, the girl can name nearly all her body parts. We-the-parents didn't skip any, though we struggled with what to call the, ahem, lady parts. We decided to call them what they are. And she does.

7. Baby-polite is mostly good about using her manners. She most often forgets the word, 'please', but nearly always says 'thank you'. We-the-parents are working on demonstrating this more ourselves.

8. Averie loves shoes. She loves her black boots and will even wear them over her footed pajamas. She's started to request specific footwear in the mornings. Yesterday it was imperative that she wear her 'purple ones, Mama'.

9. She 'reads'. More accurately, she's memorized her books, and will sit on the floor and recite them to herself. She even laughs at the appropriate spots - especially the 'oops!' in Blue Hat, Green Hat.

10. Dadoo's ipod is a recent favorite and she will sit and listen to it as long as we let her. The earbuds are too big for her ears, and they fall out if she moves. When this happens, she always says, 'uh-oh song! uh-oh song!' until we realize the problem and put them back up to her ears. She still loves electronica and sometimes listens to a chill house mix before bed.

11. Another of her favorite toys is a stick she picked up in the yard with her Dadoo. It currently resides inside the house, next to the front door. She carries it around like a staff and is strangely very careful with it.

12. She likes to eat cheese, but has recently begun demanding that it be placed in the direct center of her flat, fingers-out, palm up hand. As soon as she stuffs one piece in her mouth, she extends her palm and taps it with the other hand, almost as if she's asking for some cash. We-the-parents laugh every time she does it.

13. Though she's never been a big fan of meat, we've recently discovered that she will eat nearly anything if it's covered in ketchup. Appropriately, "Chicken & ketchup" is now a menu staple here at Chez-bebe. A good thing for the protein department but bad timing with the recent mercury issues. The great news is that any red sauce passes as 'ketchup' in the world of our toddler, so we often have chicken and (red curry) ketchup, or (sausage) chicken and (tomato sauce) ketchup. This does not work with shrimp.

14. Baby-freshest loves to brush her teeth. Every morning she stands on a chair and brushes her teeth while mama puts her hair into pony-tails. She always requests Dadoo's assistance with the 'top ones, Dadoo!', and she always demands that we turn the water on 'loud'. After she brushes her teeth, she wants make-up.

15. She asked for ribbons in her hair. Mama gave them to her, although a part of Mama's pinky was trimmed off in the process of cutting the ribbons. The tiny girl wore them all day without pulling them out.

16. She does not like snow peas, sippie cups, apple skins, rinsing her hair or having her curls touched.

17. She loves salsa, crayons, pretzels, jumping , singing and tickling her parents, her cat and herself.

18. Baby-sweetheart is friendly. When we pass other children on the street, at the park or in a store, she always says, 'Hi friends! Hi!'. She also loves babies, though she identifies any toddler her own size or smaller as a 'be-be'.

19. Averie has never tasted peanut butter. With the current peanut problem, mama thinks it may be a bit longer before she does.

20. Though she doesn't like many sweets, she loves scones, lemon pound cake and animal crackers. The two former are usually 'treats' from Starbucks. The latter we carry with us everywhere.

21. During her recent illness she refused almost all food and drink. In an act of desperation, Mama gave her a candy-cane. She loved it and carried it around for an entire day before it mysteriously disappeared around dinnertime. The experiment didn't turn out too badly, though it made an incredibly sticky mess of her hair.

22. She is getting taller and has an unbelievable reach. She has also begun to remember things - like what Mama used to cut the flowers (scissors) and where Mama keeps them (the very back of the kitchen drawer). This combination of increased height, reach and memory is resulting in an all new design for child-proofing our home as well as many 'how did you get that?' moments.

23. She acts much older than her age, and sometimes we-the-parents forget that she's still not quite two. We are often surprised to see her doing something we associate with a toddler . . . and then we have to stop and remind ourselves that she is a toddler. This was the case during last night's dinner when she took a huge drink from her adult-sized glass with ease, carefully set the glass back on the table and then slowly let all of the bright red juice dribble out of her tiny lips, down her neck, under her bib and onto her just-bleached-clean-by-mama-white-shirt.

24. When she was a little younger, she called her pet cat 'Waddy'. His name is Rèmy. Not too many days ago, she heard her Dadoo call him 'Rem'. She picked up on it immediately and now refers to him as either 'Rem' or Rèmy. Part of us is sad that she's outgrown her mispronunciation. We-the-parents are thinking of amending his name.

25. She's really, really good at going to bed. She's really, really good at telling us when she's tired. And when she's tired, and ready to go to bed, she doesn't want to mess around with it. She wants to get her jammies on, have some milk and get to her pillow. But it's important that she also have her bear, bear's blanket, her blanket, her 'udder blinkit, Mama', her lady-bug, her music, her 'Amal-sounds' book and her 'Hippo book'. Once all this is in place, she's off to dream. With no fuss. We are thankful.

***Mama wishes to note that baby-brilliant realizes that it is indeed the cow (and not the bull) that has a 'gi-nah'. Additionally, we stole borrowed the word 'bum' from our friends because it sounds so sweet coming out of their older son's mouth. And, we didn't like the sound of the word 'butt' coming out of our daughter's tiny little lips. ***

. . . it in 'the sky'

Exactly six months after baby-adorable was born, she got a super special present in the form of a seven pound baby boy named Tyson. She loved him as soon as she met him, and even though she occasionally stole his socks, he loved her back.

Since baby Ty lives in Mississippi, baby-sweetheart doesn't get to see him all that often, so you can imagine her excitement when she found out he was coming to Georgia. She quickly packed up all her travel necessities and headed up to Stone Mountain for a weekend of camping and holiday adventures.

Averie and Ty had a grand time playing together, and we-the-parents had an awesome time hanging out with his Babymama and Daddy. The tiny friends had a stroll on the grassy plain, took a trip up the mountain, had a morning dance off in the camper and even got the chance to experience a little bit of Christmas with a train ride.

It was a wonderful weekend with wonderful friends, and baby-sweetheart even had the opportunity to recruit 3 new members to her cult. The baby girl misses her friend, and has spent the last day calling out his name and walking around looking for him. Early yesterday evening, she finally said, 'Ty home, mama'.

Here's a photo of the girl and her friend playing straw wars. It's gonna be the cutest thing you've seen today - promise.

. . . some spooky

and without further ado, we-the-parents present the cutest little kitty cat you've ever seen:



The ever independent baby-cat did not deem it necessary to cooperate with mama during photo sessions, and so there are few photos of her and her costume in it's entirely. Most of the graphic record of her second Halloween is either her facing away or missing her ears. Nonetheless, you can see the full-length her right here.

After an awesome party with her friends, she ventured out to a local hot-spot for tortillas, glow sticks and several stolen gulps of mama's tea. Later on in the evening, she enjoyed some cuddle time with daddy and milk in the glow of her pumpkin before heading off to bed in her special Halloween pj's.

It's hard to believe that a year ago, our tiny Bee looked like this.

. . . a pink ribbon (or two)

Back in the 1950s, baby-sweetheart's great-grandmother purchased some amazing fabrics. Like most seamstresses, she had a lot of things to sew and not enough time to use up all her fabrics. Years later some of her textiles were passed down to her daughter - baby-adorable's Gram - who is also an amazingly gifted seamstress. Gram sews up a lot of lovely things for the growing girl much to the delight of Babymama who wore so many of Gram's creations during her own growing up years.

A few days ago, a special present arrived in the mail. Mama and her girl opened it to find the most adorable cotton topper. Mama immediately fell in love with the vintage fabric and the innocent pink ribbon tied neatly across the pink, brown and blue squares. The tiniest girl couldn't get enough of the ribbon, and played with the tails, curling them around her little fingers until the ends were frayed with her pulling.

It's fitting that the baby girl received such a sweet gift in the middle of October, which is, after all, the pink month. And it's perhaps even more fitting that this tiny gift and pink ribbon comes with an even sweeter secret. The vintage fabric Gram used to make it was left from great-grandma, picked out long ago with her very own hands, the tiny squares of baby-pink and blue perhaps chosen for just such a tiny girl and finally, years later beautifully stitched by the loving hands of her daughter.

Averie will only know her great-grandmother through the stories and memories of her family, for she is the great-granddaughter of a woman who survived breast cancer and a mastectomy only to die of lung cancer years later. And sadly, the odds are that she will know the all-too-real worry of whether not breast cancer will affect her own life.

Mama hopes that time will change this. Mama hopes that soon we can find a cure, so that her little girl, and all little girls, can grow up to know a world where a pink ribbon is only a pretty symbol of a child's innocence and grace.

Learn more. And then help make it happen.