Kind of a whirlwind weekend, but we made it through OK. We were all just thankful that the weather cooperated this year, after shutting out Leah’s birthday the last couple years.
On the Ava front, a funny story from yesterday: So Ava’s really into spelling right now. Or, rather, identifying letters. Almost every time she sees letters on something, she reads them out. Well, we were out for coffee late yesterday morning, and on the way to get it, we stopped off at Walgreen’s for a quick errand. I thought it would be fun to take Ava inside with Leah and Georgie, so we all went. Once there, Ava started misbehaving. After a failed trip to the restroom (she wanted to go in the urinal in the men’s room, which wasn’t happening), she broke down and started pinching me, saying I was dead, etc. I told her we were leaving, and we did. I was pretty pi$$ed, but I tried to keep my emotions in check.
When we got to the car, I strapped Ava into her seat and then strapped myself in up front. She was crying pretty good by this point, and I simply sat there and watched her in the rear view mirror. She quieted down to a snuffle after a couple minutes, and between tiny sobs I heard her start reading out: “D-R-I-V-E-T-H-R-U.” I was spelling it out in my head as she spoke, and I leaned forward to look up on the side of Walgreen’s where the “Drive Thru” sign was hanging. I was fascinated that Ava would still be thinking about spelling at a time when she was so distraught, and I concluded that maybe it was simply a way for her to exert some sort of control over a situation over which she didn’t have much control.