Once a shy and at-times reserved toddler, these days Avery is a bit of a wild child - often running around with a huge smile and loud laugh and at times acting naughty. (“Just joking!” she’ll call out when she does something she knows she’s not supposed to do.) The one thing that has remained unchanged about her, though, is her sweetness. Some examples: The other night I commented that my back was hurting and she came up to me, patted the couch and said, “Rest now, Mama.” I was playing silly one day by asking who her sister was, and she responded with a “My Zoe. I love her.” And when I burst into tears after a doctor’s appointment with her the other day (details on that coming soon), she looked up at me with concern and said, “It’s okay, Mama.” I picked her up and she proceeded to touch my face and tell me it was going to be okay as I held her in my arms.

(sniff, sniff)

-M

Yesterday morning Zoe presented me with a Mother’s Day card she had made at school; inside, next to a picture she had drawn of me, it said, “I love my mommy because she sings me 99 Bottles sometimes and I really like it.” I was both amused and touched that that was the thing she highlighted – amused because I wondered what her teachers thought of my choice of lullabye, and touched because I used to sing that song to her when she was two and she still remembers!

Later that day, after a fun morning out (see below), Avery was overtired and in need of some extra attention at naptime. I sat with her and bounced on the bed and when she asked for a song I wound up singing 99 Bottles – something I haven’t done in quite some time. It was only fitting.

-M

The other night Q and I saw a version of this Procter & Gamble Mother’s Day commercial – and the scenes of the moms quietly and heroically doing everyday (but ultimately really important) things for their children really got to me. By the time the last frame played and tears rolled down my face, I knew I had to share the video’s simple-but-perfect closing message here:

The hardest job in the world is also the best job in the world.

I really couldn’t have said it better. Happy Mother’s Day, everyone!

-M

Avery was hesitant about napping yesterday, so I suggested that she sleep in a new place. Needless to say, she fell asleep right away…

-M

Today was one of those “do-over” parenting mornings. It started out promising – I was excited about keeping Zoe home from school and having a Mommy/Zoe morning – but things went downhill when I returned from dropping off Avery to find a grumpy Zoe refusing to get dressed and saying she didn’t want to do any of the things I had suggested. I should have chocked it up to her being tired, but I took it personally (I had presented her with a little print-out of several fun outdoor options last night, and I couldn’t believe none of them appealed to her) – and our discussion quickly escalated into an argument. After both of us calmed down and apologized to one another (thanks to Q’s mediation), I asked Zoe if she wanted to just hang out and run errands with me instead, and she said yes.

And so, our Mommy/Zoe morning consisted of a trip to Target and the mall (followed by a lunch overlooking Lake Merced – at least something outside), and we had a perfectly fun time. At one point I asked Zoe, “Do you like just running errands with Mommy?” and she excitedly said, “Yeh!”

I can’t get a “do-over” and change my less-than-cool reaction to what I perceived as Zoe’s ungrateful attitude, but I can take from today two lessons. First,  I need to remember to keep cool during conflicts with Zoe. Yelling – hers or mine – gets us nowhere, and only makes both of us feel bad. (“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” Zoe sniffled at one point.) And it would be good to figure out how to best manage conflict with her before the teen years – when issues will be bigger and feelings stronger. And secondly, I need to remember that things with kids don’t always have to be “perfect.” I had envisioned the two of us using our special time together to frolick through Golden Gate Park or the zoo and make wonderful memories (hence my hurt feelings about her rejecting my ideas) – but the truth is that Zoe was just as happy simply hanging out with me. That was perfect enough for her!

-M

Over the past several weeks, numerous people have made comments on how much Zoe and Avery look alike – “Oh, wow, you can’t tell those two are sisters” was the latest (said sarcastically) from a dad we met after swim class on Sunday. I usually tell people I’m too close to it to actually see the resemblance – but I have my moments. And one such moment occurred the other day when Avery was wearing the same shirt and pants that Zoe once did. I got major deja vu when I looked at Avery, and yes – I could see it!

-M

Unseasonably warm weather meant another trip to the amusement park this past weekend. Here are a few pics.

-M

Life with a young child, as I’ve written before, can be very up and down. One minute they – and you! - are gleefully happy; the next minute there is crying and yelling and everything feels dark and miserable. This is becoming less the case with Zoe, but Avery (as Q is constantly reminding me) is only two, so we still get a few Jekyll and Hyde moments.

Since Avery is my second, I wasn’t unprepared for this up-and-down stuff – but I still very much enjoyed reading about another mom-blogger’s surprise over what life with a two-year-old is like. She writes:

I knew there’d be Extreme Clichés, like, up all night, vomit-in-your-face clichés, but I figured even that was probably somewhat exaggerated gargoyle-faced lies, just like everything else in the movies/on the Internet/in the lore about parenting.

…

Boy, was I one unicorn-finding idiot. You know how in The Exorcist, the whole possession is super scary and even pretty gross but you know that deep down in there somewhere is that sweet little girl Regan who just wants to cuddle up and be besties? Or like in Poltergeist where they’re all like, “It knows what scares you. It has from the very beginning. Don’t give it any help, it knows too much already.” It’s like that.

A baby, such as my actual baby, might be splashing about in the bath and exclaim, “I got you, bubbles!” and you will all delight in the joy and warmth of parenting and love. And then she might turn around and fling those bubbles directly into your eyes. And then laugh. Maniacally.

…

One time we refilled her cup of milk at snack time and she said “Oh! That’s better!” and we all laughed so joyously and with such earnest truth that it rang into the California mountainside for all the world to hear the purity of our love. And then she dumped the milk onto my laptop.

-M

When we were in Phoenix, Zoe asked a doozy of a question. From the backseat of the car she inquired, quite out of the blue, “Who was God’s mom?” (And, later, she asked who the first grandma was.) I tried to provide an age-appropriate answer, but wow: That was a tough one!

-M

A few videos of the girls splashing around earlier this week… My favorite part is in the first one, when Avery gives her a sister an enthusiastic “good job.”

-M

If the kids weren’t swimming while in Phoenix, they were likely playing in the sand or relaxing in our “towel bed.” (And I love comparing these pics to those from our first trip to this hotel. Avery sure has grown!)

-M

The first batch of pics from our trip…

-M

We just got back from a little get-away to one of our favorite spots in Phoenix. We usually visit in the summer, when 100 degrees is considered cool, but this time around it was sunny and in the low 90s. (Just perfect for swimming and sunning, which was basically all we did from Saturday until early today.) More pics soon…

-M

In preparation for our trip to Phoenix I had Avery try on several pairs of shorts and skirts the other night. After I pulled on and eyed one pair – blue with little ruffles on the sides – I was just about to comment on how cute they were when Avery bust out with an “A-dor-able.” (She obviously gathered how good they looked from the look on my face.)  I couldn’t help but laugh – and also couldn’t help but be reminded of when a much-younger Zoe used to call things “So cute.”

-M