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.