The Goose These Days

...is pretty wonderful. Her large personality and petite stature make for one pretty awesome kid and I love seeing her become more and more of who she is each day. Which is a curious, precocious, silly, smart assertive little pipsqueak. Some fun facts about the person who thinks they are running our household these days:

1)She rolls deep.  All of her animals are her babies and she still spends quite a bit of time burying me in them everyday.  There is constantly one tucked tightly beneath her arm.

2) She knows her colors. Around 16 months I thought she had them down but every once in awhile she'd confidently try to tell me something black was pink making me think she was just a good guesser the rest of the time.

3) She can count to ten. The numbers are correct but the fingers can use some work. After ten usually comes twelve and fourteen. What can I say? She likes even numbers.

4) She is still a dancing machine. She's moved on the from the kiddie stuff (Raffi? Please, that's for babies) and now busts her move to Pharrell's 'Happy' every night. . .about 37 times. There is a LOT of dancing going on in this house especially in the late afternoons/evenings.  If your miss your zumba class feel free to stop by, we'll hook you up.

5) She likes to accessorize. Sunnys, crowns, beads, as long as its 'fancy' she's in. Again, not something she got from her Mama.

6) She has a good vocabulary. Words like 'whisking' and 'mustache' or 'motorcycle' come tumbling out every once in awhile and like a lot of kids she'll repeat anything. And I mean ANYTHING, as in, she'll repeat your whole sentence replicating the exact inflections and attitude to go with it. (That guy did WHAT?! Oh nooo he didn't!)

7) She'll tell you everything she knows. Waking up in the morning is like watching a car go from zero to 60 in no time at all. Her eyes open and she'll say 'foot,' 'other foot,' 'two feet,' socks, pink socks, small socks, two socks. . .you get the picture.

8) Her 'No' phase (if that's what you can call it) is pretty cute. If you ask her a question that doesn't involve wanting to dance or coloring with a pink crayon, there's a good chance you'll get a no in response. And let me tell you, its the most prim and proper, matter of fact, I'd rather not but thanks for asking petite little 'no' you've ever heard. The 'bye-bye' phase is totally in effect though, meaning she has to say 'bye-bye' to the slide, the swing, the sand, the sky, the clouds, the worm on the ground. . .before we EVEN think about leaving.

9) She has an elephant like memory. She can tell you every person she saw last weekend, which animals were at the tidepools and what the monkey at the zoo was eating. . .three months ago. I've got a pretty good memory (which happens to be the way I survived school) so I'm hoping this continues to serve her well.

10) We are buddies. I am so grateful for getting to spend so much time with this little human and being proud to call her mine. We spend hours talking, snuggling, dancing, playing and walking around the neighborhood. I am already so proud of who she is becoming.

The GREAT Pumpkin

Last year for Halloween I was a ghost. Not that I dressed as one, but that my kid spent the morning in the OR and I was as white as one due to the stress. This year I am happy to report that I was my normal color this year and all smiles getting to spend the day with our little fam. Mark took the day off since he was flying out to the east coast on a red-eye right after trick-or-treating wrapped up, so we spent the day at the park, carving pumpkins and just doing generally scary things.

The only criteria for the costume this year was that it be something she liked and knew what it was which would up our chances of her keeping it on all night. I usually start plotting and working on my homemade costumes unseasonally early each year so getting a store bought costume was a bit of a hit to me, but there are years to come for that unnecessary stress.

As for trick-or-treating, she loved it. She hopped in and out of the wagon, knocked on doors, received the candy, said 'thank you' (sometimes) and tried to pet every fat, furry Halloween spider decoration she saw. Ick. I can assure this is NOT a trait she picked up from me. And aside from the jelly bean she snuck into her mouth last Easter, she has, to date not had any candy so we were curious to see what she would think of it.  And all she thought was that they were little, colorful toys and she spent hours sorting and re-sorting them naming out their colors and laying them on the carpet. She was pretty stoked to add the word 'sucker' to her vocabulary and has successfully learned to take candy from strangers. All in all a very happy Halloween for everyone!

Pumpkins

I like them. A lot.  And after disowning my husband last year for suggesting we visit the 'pumpkin patch' at the mall, we were lucky enough to be up on the CC for the weekend to be able to spend some time at Avila Valley Barn for a REAL patch and have some good old fashioned fun.  Having been there a few weeks earlier pre-pumpkins, the Goose greeted the goats like they were old friends, gave a shout out to the donkey and the llamas and then made her way to the pumpkins. Complete with tractor ride, sunflower field and pumpkin patch, it was a pretty solid Fall experience to begin with, and then . . .it happened.  While we'd passed the horses a handful of times before it wasn't until she saw a kid mount one of them that her already large eyes doubled in size and she was drawn to the corral. While we couldn't sign the forms fast enough (you're supposed to read those?) I thought she'd flinch when they had me hand her over, or at least when they made her keep the helmet chin strap on, but no luck. She was riding that horse. And she did. Like a bobble head on the dryer she made numerous laps around the corral with the saddle in one and and a witch doll in the other before they let her go and stand on her own. And it was awesome.

Look at that mullet!

Happy Goose, mildly amused horse.

What up witch?

Cousin love?

She had more success with the maze for minis then I did with the one for. . .well, not minis.

The Yellow Submarine

One of the things that I can't get enough of is how this Goose can find joy and amazement in just the little everyday things. Her happiness when she sees an animal (real or fake) and is compelled to say 'Hi!', ask for a 'Hug?' and then blow an air kiss, the excitement when the 'doot doot' truck comes by on Wednesday mornings to pick up trash, or how it is physically impossible for her not to dance when music Raffi's Yellow Submarine comes on (ok, so for a hot minute in college I can relate to that last one - Nelly anyone?).   Either way our nightly ritual now includes a  strictly scheduled and attendance mandatory dance party every night in the VIP room (hers) at 7 pm.  If you'd happen to be a fly on the wall at this hour chances are you'd witness a variety of dress (business attire, a diaper, and whatever happened to be clean that day) and an even wider array of dance styles (I can discern Dubbie's Irish folk dance but the others. . . jury is still out).

Aside from the Soul Train happening upstairs, there has been a LOT of lap running around our house. And by a LOT I mean hours, of running, in circles, a lot.  Sometimes it involves pulling a doggy, pushing a toy or kicking a ball while we chase her around the pool table for HOURS, and sometimes it simply requires that we run in endless circles in the backyard. I don't have a picture only because if you're present, you're required to run, but on multiple occasions I've taken a mental picture of the shenanigans and it looked exactly like this:

Either way, I can tell you that she is a happy, active, talkative little person who keeps us on our toes!

Ohio!

A few weeks months back we made our annual trek back to Ohio for a week of sun, water and wakeboarding.  We were a little apprehensive about making a cross country trip + drive with an active Goose we all survived and the only potentially traumatizing event came when they took her beloved fox and sent him through the x-ray machine - oh the humanity! The tears were instant and the loss devastating, but all was right in the world again when he came out the other side and we were on our way.  Many passengers came up to us after the flights and mentioned how great she was and how she must love flying, which she was and did, its the layovers she could probably do without but I just said 'thanks' and all in all it was a very successful trip.



While she seemed pretty fond of the boat as a 3 month old last year, we were happy to see that she was in love with it this year, and all things water. Every time she noticed that the lake was there she'd yell 'Wa-woo!' and 'Whoosh!' cause that's obviously what you do on a wakeboard. She loved to go fast, she loved to watch us ski and wakeboard and she was STOKED to get a little time in the tube herself. While just riding the boat chop by the dock she kept yelling 'More! More!' to our chagrin.  Water baby status confirmed!

ASLEEP!!!

Boat monkey

She also got to spend some quality time with her cousins out on the farm. A midst the chaos of house full of kidlets while the boys partook in some bachelor party chaos of their own, she logged some good time on the porch swing and loved watching the cousins catch fireflies to show their California cousin.

One new adventure came courtesy of Mark's aunt who has a friend in the alpaca business (yes, there is a business) so we got to visit the farm and have some up close and personal time with the alpacas. Not sure what she would think of the fuzzy headed pick-pocketing creatures, we were happy she got a kick out of the 'baa's and liked petting them and even tried to engage them in a game of peek-a-boo or two.

While the weather was much colder than it usually is on trips back and the water a little less inviting, some of my most precious moments and memories will always be reading to her at bedtime on the porch watching the fireflies surround us overlooking the quiet lake.

Sweet, Sweet, Goose

I usually rely pretty heavily on my elephant-like memory but it is going on two weeks now and I can't for the life of me remember where I put my keys so I've decided to document some of the precious moments of our sweet goose here, just for safe keeping.

1). She's a chatterbox. She says 30 words in English, about half a dozen in Swahili and also moonlights as an MXC announcer. Needless to say we've got a little linguist on our hands.

2) She is an excellent sous chef. She must be fully active in all things cooking, whisking every bowl, stirring every pot and seasoning every dish. So when Mark asked why the zucchini pancakes were too salty I totally threw her under the bus when she got a little heavy handed with the shaker.

Earning her keep

3) She is an excellent eater. She's got a discerning pallet but will happily eat almost anything we put in front of her which says a lot since our CSA shipments have thrown some unidentified green veggies our way in recent weeks.

4) She LOVES water. The sink, hose, swimming lessons, ocean. . .if its running water, she's there. She even loves getting pounded by the waves and has zero reservations about charging the surf.

Splash pad

5) She keeps us on our toes. She loves soccer and loves to yell 'GOAL!' every time she gets a ball in front of her just getting warmed up for World Cup!  She is addicted to the trampoline and is incredibly fast for someone with such short legs.

6) She has 'juice eyes.' We call any beverage 'juice' around here (although she's never actually had juice) and makes the funniest 'stay away from me eyes' while drinking.

7) She's got her daddy's dance moves. We have no less than 5 spontaneous dance parties each day where she busts out the fist pump and break dancing moves which she can aptly apply to any Raffi song.

8) She's friendly.  She is particularly fond of the 25-35 male demographic as she always chooses to wave at them out in public. Perhaps caught off guard by her directness and smile, they ALWAYS feel compelled to wave back. We'll keep an eye on this behavior in coming years, but for now its quite comical:)

Hiking Torrey Pines and talking to EVERYONE

9) She's smart. Of course I'm going to say this because I'm here mama, but if her mastery of body parts and animal sounds is any indication, we're in for big things.

10) She is a little lady. There is no doubt she is a tough kid but she already loves to play dress up, carry a purse and just be all sorts of sweetness.

In less fun news, we've been seeing some signs that her condition is progressing, something we didn't expect to see until many years down the road. Since we are kind of in a holding pattern until she turns two and we discuss trying a new, more aggressive treatment, we decided we might as well get a second opinion from a center at UCI that treats her condition.  So the three of us went up there with high hopes and left with somewhat heavier hearts.  Not only does this syndrome affect only 1 in 100,000 people, I mentioned that she is the only documented case of someone also having an omphalocele, not to mention 90% of the case studies say that it NEVER crosses the midline leaving 10% just saying rarely. . .but hers does anyways. We are a little more conflicted, confused and apprehensive about the future knowing there are many incredibly hard and scary tests and treatments we'll have to go through without really knowing if they will help her or not. So while we'll take the doctors words with a grain of salt knowing we don't really know what we're dealing with, I'm also keeping hope that these hard appointments will just be fodder for Bob Costas' 'look back' on how they told her she couldn't do this or that as they pan to her grinning ear to ear from the top of the podium.

I can't say for certain if its because of or in spite of all of this, but she is WONDERFUL and my mom often reminds me that I should really be like her and not worry about what's to come but enjoy every moment. And I can happily say that I do.