Ava's Birthday

Ava turned 9 this November.  I can't believe it.  She made me a mother and everyday I'm still learning from her on how to do that exactly.  The oldest kid is just like a lab rat.  I remember driving home from the hospital feeling like we had just held up a bank or something...really?  They're letting us take this helpless infant home...but we know nothing!

She was an angel baby.  Too bad I couldn't just chill out.  I was too busy logging all her bowel movements and checking if she was still breathing every five minutes.

I think this was the first time I'd really gotten gussied up after having her, i.e., a shower, makeup and hair - the trifecta.  Apparently I'd spent the previous nine months in a cave.  Casper is that you?!

She loved her binky.

She was a good eater...

So she grew...

Did I mention she was a good eater?  Look at those rolls!

At about 9 months her hair had an identity crisis.  It went curly.

Ava and her Dad.

And then when she was 4 she wanted a haircut.  And her curls never came back.

Along came little sister.  I think her face says it all.

But she learned to love her.

Our relationship is not always easy.  She's a very strong willed girl, and it's tough to come up against iron all the time.  But she is also so smart, and really intuitive when it comes to kindness.  In fact she's always doing things to surprise me, whether it's setting up an art gallery in the basement or selling fruit I just brought home from the grocery store on the sidewalk in front of our apartment, she has great ideas and goes after what she wants.  Happy 9th Ava Katie!