ah-ah-alimony

ava is three now. and i have to admit, that i am greatly surprised to see the amount of change that has occurred in the little bit overnight. one might say that her flair for the dramatic has, uh, increased. suddenly, ava will straighten in her chair as though possessed and exclaim with great feeling, "I will NEVER see her again! NEVER!" and then dramatically stomp out of the room, flinging herself through the doorway. it is impressive.

and odd.

it seems to me that these changes should occur more gradually, that i should be noticing her flair for eloquent paragraphs emerge. instead it seems as though she goes to bed stating simply what she needs at that moment, or what she observes and waking with a story or two to tell, a request to make and a plea for a kitten (included in this plea was a "please, daddy? pleeaaassseee?" so sweet it nearly broke our hearts to hear it. somehow, SOMEHOW ryan's spine was intact at the end of this and he managed a, "we'll talk about this later". to him i say, well done. and also, can we, ryan? can we have a kitten? oh please?)

it is odd having a daughter who isn't a baby, or a budding toddler. i feel like, with all of this communicating going on, that i have a real child. and, with the start of preschool, i have a real child that needs to be hurried along for a class where she comes home repeating, "ah-ah-apple," and, "ah-ah-airplane" (sort of) and, "ah-ah-ava," (okay, not at all, but at least she's got some of the concept down, right?) and a carefully drawn letter A that made my heart swell with pride and i just had to show someone, i had to tell someone MY DAUGHTER CAN WRITE THE LETTER A. and then i would shake them and shout, ISN'T SHE THE MOST AMAZING 3-YEAR-OLD YOU'VE EVER HEARD OF? and they'd have to agree. not out of fear, but because just one glance at that letter would prove me right. SHE IS AMAZING.

i told ryan. i told him and i was excited and i ran out to the car to fetch the paper that clearly had her carefully written letter A on it and i brought it to ryan and then. . .i couldn't find the letter A. because guess what? she's 3. and it was her first written anything. and it didn't look all that much like an A unless some crazy super-proud mother told you it was an A.

regardless, it's on the fridge. and it's still awesome.