Out Of The Mouths Of Babes

Avery's vocabulary has really taken off lately, and her stories and comments are more and more interesting. She's well into the "why" phase, but it's getting more complicated. And her logic skills are growing leaps and bounds.

A few of her funny comments lately have been:

• Seeing Devon sit down on the coffee table the other day, she scolded him with "don't sit on the table, you don't see me sitting on the table, do you?!"
• When I told her that the bathroom smelled bad after she used it, she told me "well, if you didn't have a nose, it wouldn't stink."
• When I felt a wet spot on her pants during the movie the other day, she told me "don't touch my pants, then they wouldn't feel wet." [ultimately I discovered that she sat on an orange slice]
• She frequently sends us to Time Out as she deems our behavior unacceptable -- and often she's right!
• One word: BOSSY!

Yes, we are well into the twos, and diving right into the threes. Sometimes its so funny, and cute, and amazing I can't stand it. I'm sure all you parents out there know exactly what I'm talking about!

Under Construction

(photo by Kelly Wood)

Definitely don't hire Avery as a contractor in your house anytime soon! You wouldn't want to try to reason with this stubborn kid, and I'd be worried she'd eat the nails & drywall.

(photo by Kelly Wood)

Yum, olives too! Luckily we were able to convince her to eat them, instead of putting them on the gingerbread house.

(photo by Kelly Wood)

Well, only if they tasted like gum drops & giant Tic Tacs, I suppose. Avery has been dying to make gingerbread houses with Kate since I suggested it last week, so we finally did them last night. My motto, actually battlecry, was "Art Not Eat" -- yeah right! I felt like the teacher from Charlie Brown: "wa wa wa wa wa wa." Honestly, she is one stubborn kid, as she kept popping gum drops into her mouth without even trying to hide it. Granted, it was late, so we suspended construction while she ate 3 hotdogs (yes 3), then went right back to eating the decorations. Consequently, her house is pretty bare, and it was making me crazy.

Kate, on the other hand, was totally into it! She downed a few gumdrops here and there, but she was all about the decorating.

Jordan gets into the holiday spirit, too.

The snowman twins -- they just HAD to wear these tonight night.

"Happy Feet," Happy Kids

Avery & Kate had their first trip to a real movie theater today! It was quite an event, and certainly a longer movie than I had expected, but they were troopers. They stood, they sat, they snuggled together, they danced, they sat on our laps, but they did it. Avery seems mostly to remember the helicopter at the end, and that it was noisy in the theater. She also shows us how the penguins 'shaked their booties,' and loved how they slid on their stomachs. She is very excited about it still!

I don't normally like cartoons, but this one was pretty funny, and certainly had some adult holding power. And to be honest, I'm so out of it these days, when my mom mentioned this movie a couple of weekends ago, I didn't even know what she was talking about. That's what I get for cancelling my newspaper subscription & hardly watching TV I guess.

To top it off, we had snowflakes on and off all day today. Nothing stuck, but little white bits were flying all around for a large part of the day. Won't it be exciting if we get some to stick (like the weather folks are predicting over the next couple of days)?! Call in the penguins!

Long lost friends hugging in the parking lot. You'd think they hadn't seen each other in years.

I guess this makes it official.

The tights Kate wore to her first movie. They were just so cute I had to put them in.

(All photos by Kelly Wood)

The Long And Snowy Road

We made it home in one piece -- 8.5 hours later. Yikes! It was snowing all the way from Hope to south of Bellingham. We drove for miles at 10 miles per hour in a whiteout. We were expecting heavy traffic, but not heavy snow. Jordan was pretty stinky & Avery was bouncing out of her seat (she learned how to unbuckle it!). Overall, they did better than expected, but we were certainly glad to see the unpainted front of the former garage when we pulled in tonight.


We saw Crystal, Jarrod, & Heidi a couple of times (on the road, at Tim Horton's, crossing the boarder - I guess there weren't that many people on the road), but we didn't see them after that. Actually, we could hardly see the car in front of us by the time we crossed the border. I hope they had better luck getting home to Seattle, perhaps by taking a different route.

Giving Thanks

The holiday season is now upon us, and although I truly have a lot to be thankful for, I know that the next few weeks are going to be pretty emotional & exxhausting overall.

Yesterday evening, before our turkey dinner, I asked Avery if it was fun to have a cousin like Heidi to play with. Happy & energetic, and very much a toddler, dear Heidi was having a ball trying keeping up with Avery, and Avery was having a ball showing her all kinds of things bigger kids do (like drinking bathwater and picking their noses, just to name a few lovely habits Heidi embraced this weekend). But then, as usual, I was struck with Why doesn't she get to share these things with Jordan?! That's what younger sisters are for, right? Awhile later, I heard an uncomfortable mumble: "Such a shame." That comment really needled me. Jordan is not a shame, she's just Jordan, and we love her whether or not she can drink bathwater & pick her nose.

It's always such a mixed bag with our little Jordan -- one minute I'm depressed because of her severe developmental delays, the other minute I'm defending her because I really couldn't care less about those things. Yep, that old roller coaster of life.

But now I'm extra worried because the holiday season is here. Forget the stress of finding just the right gifts, getting the perfect holiday pictures, sending cards & writing letters, tree hunting & house decorating, bad weather & illnesses, travelling, & keeping a clean, well-stocked, welcoming house. Then forget the emotional bonanza of counting blessings, reflecting on the past, and planning for the future. It would be enough to just have 2 birthdays & an anniversary within 8 days to deal with. So, needless to say, our physical, mental, and emotional plates will be full.

On 22 December Avery will turn 3! Next thing we know we'll be sending her off to college. Where does the time go, and when did she turn into such a little "person" instead of my baby girl? Cliche, I know, but cliches exist for a reason, I suppose.

Then on 30 December, Devon & I will celebrate our 6th anniversary, and Jordan's 1st birthday. I'm sure we will greet this momentus day with even more contemplation than most anniversaries & birthdays. What a year it has been. There were many times over the past year that we didn't believe Jordan would make it to her first birthday, but now as the time draws near, we feel like she is settling into her course through life, and we are, too, to some degree. We know that except for colds and reactions to medicine, she is basically a healthy kid. At this point her heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, bladder, and other major organs are working fine. It is just her brain that isn't quite up to par. Of course she has not been diagnosed with anything yet, and this all may change over the coming years, but for now we know that, although developmentally delayed, she is pretty much a healthy kid. We also know that it's fairly likely that she will never be diagnosed with a specific disease or disorder, and we will never fully know the what "happened," or what condition her general health will be through time. But for now she is healthy, and for us, that's alot.

So, heading into this holiday of the season, I can definitely say I'm fully overwhelmed, and a little sad, scared, and unsettled by the randomness of our life, and of Jordan's upcoming second year. But at the same time I'm equally thankful for many more things (but couldn't they be more evenly spread throughout the year instead of packed into 6 weeks?).

I'm thankful for friends who lend their support, whether it's a visit, a shoulder to cry on, a homebaked meal, or a trip to the store, or park, or even a meal in public. I'm thankful for our families, who have and still do help us out on a daily, weekly, monthly, & yearly basis (you know who you are, and I honestly don't know where we'd be without you). I'm thankful for people in our lives who love us for who we are, on the good days and the bad days. I'm thankful for all of you that care enough to read this drivel everyday about the ups and downs of our family (it's certainly not like we are the only ones struggling through life). And truly, I am thankful for having 2 healthy girls, no matter what path life takes them on (although it would be nice if Avery stuck with this "I'm a doctor" thing she's into right now).

And I'm thankful, in a mom sort of way, that Jordan is one of the best snugglers around, and will be for along time (unlike Avery and every other developmentally "normal" kid). That's just an extra special bonus for a mom!

Oh The Weather Outside Is

Still Snowy! In fact, we were without power from ~10:00pm to ~3:00am last night, so, no chance to post this until now.

It's a good think Linda & Earl are heading south soon; they keep jinxing themselves. First it was "it never snows around here," followed by "we won't lose power, we're on a private grid." Ha! Jinx! That's what you get!

Nonetheless, we had a nice, relaxing Saturday, with lots of naps & lots of food! Grandma grandma Mavis in Chilliwack joined us for our Thanksgiving dinner this evening, too. The girls played & played & played until they crashed. I think the most fun for today was going up & down & up & down the stairs. Crawling, walking, sliding, just not sitting still. I know my nerves were a little shot by the end of the day, worrying that it was just a matter of time before one or both headed down in a somersault. Luckily -- No Injuries!

Here are some shots from the day:

Avery's first meal with real china. . . .

I guess we should have started Jordan's exercises a little earlier in the day, or at least before the turkey.
Finally, bedtime. Avery chose Crystal to read her fascinating stories about spiders (arachnids, not insects, 8 legs, not 6, etc).

Oh Canada

(Note: I really have to get the flash on my camera fixed, it's been on the fritz for a couple of weeks, and now has fully died. That's why some of the pics look so strange.)

Finally, Jordan's first trip to Canada, and the first time using her passport. We came up to Hope, BC, on Thursday (Thanksgiving Day) to stay the long weekend with Grandpa Earl & Grandma Linda, before they head south for the winter.

Avery's room, with a view of the mountains. But at night she has to share it with all of us, while she luxuriates in "Fort Avery" on the floor. We're going cold turkey without the binky this weekend, so it's been a bit rough falling asleep, but we're hoping that a couple nights away from that routine might break it.

Jordan slept on the floor, too, but she isn't allowed inside "Fort Avery," so she snuggles up next to mommy & daddys bed.

It was a lllooonnnngggggg drive in the rain, but Avery did great, and Jordan was quiet as a mouse. Hmmmmmm. Yep, she was getting sick & slept the whole way. We thought she might be getting sick, so we packed the feeding pump, and boy did it come in handy! We hung it off the handles in the back seat, and were able to feed her without too many stops, or me getting sick riding in the back while feeding her.

Of course Jordan was in heaven (despite being a bit sick) due to all the holding she got today. Devon hooked up a make-shift IV pole by attaching the pump to the lamp, and the food bag to the curtain rod via bungee cord. It worked, and it seemed to slow down the barfing -- always the main objective.

It took 3 hours to get to Olympia (normally 1.5 hours), and then we stopped in Seattle to stretch our legs. McDonalds for Thanksgiving dinner. Actually, Avery just wanted to play on the jungle gym, but it was closed, so she and daddy shared a hot fudge sundae while I gave Jordan a break.

Is McDonald's the new Starbucks?We were just thankful they were open and still had ice cream.

Then we woke up to a super treat this morning! SNOW. And lots of it. A couple of inches by the end of the day. Avery made a snowman in the back with grandpa, then another one in the front with daddy.

Other activities for the day included: Linda, Devon, & Avery preparing the turkey for tomorrow's dinner, grandpa & Avery swimming at the community pool, grandma & Avery making double chocolate chip cookies, Devon & Earl shovelling the driveway, and a delicious dinner of lasagne with Jarrod, Crystal, & Heidi who joined us this afternoon. Heidi loved following Avery around, trying to keep up, and she's such a big girl these days she was doing a pretty good job of it. All the girls had a bath, although Crystal wasn't too happy about Avery "teaching" Heidi to drink bathwater, but hey, what can you do?!?! At least Avery wasn't feeding her tortilla chips and magazines like the last time.