Friday, March 24, 2006

Surprise it's Uncle Dave

Well the girls and I had just settled down for a bit of quiet time this afternoon when we received an unexpected surprise. Abby was watching Ice Age in her toy room and Maya and I were watching a decorating show while she had her bottle when I noticed an unfamiliar car whip into our drive way. I'll admit it made me a little nervous so I snuck to the window to check the situation out. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw it was my brother. Since he lives two hours away pop ins aren't the norm. He was in town doing some video work for a friend and had some time to kill this afternoon. I was glad to see him and Abby was totally over the moon.

Dave was only at the house for a couple of hours, but he packed it full of top notch uncling. Abby was, pretty much, his main focus. They looked through her "look and find" books. He listened to her new knock knock jokes. She sang for him. He chased her around. Even when he held Maya he still devoted a large part of his attention to Abby. All of this does not go unnoticed by either myself or Abby. For her part, Abby is clearly head over heels in love with her Uncle Dave and Aunt Mel. At three she probably hasn't spent too much time thinking about why she loves them, she just knows she does.

For me, well it's no joke I'm a huge suck when it comes to my family. Today I had a big sucky moment as I watched Dave and Abby together. Despite the geographical distance Dave and Abby have forged an incredibly strong bond. That's not something that just occurs. Not when you're dealing with young kids. It would be easy for Abby to feel distant from him simply because, compared to other family, we rarely see him. She doesn't though and it's because he lets her know that she's important to him. He does that by focusing his attention on her, talking to her not at her or over her, but to her at her level. He's goofy with her, he plays hide and seek over and over, he chases her as many times as she demands it. All of this holds true for Mel as well. Her approach to Abby is the same and it has the same rewards.

I thought about all of this today as I watched them together. Thought about how lucky I am. Thought about how lucky Abby is. Thought about how lucky Maya is, even if she doesn't realize it yet. I really just wanted to say thank you to both Dave and Mel. To see how they love my kids, makes me love them a million times more. Seeing how much work they put into loving my kids makes me get a little weepy. I just felt like I had to say that I noticed it and it is appreciated very much.

I think I've been watching too much Oprah. Okay sappy moment over.

Maya's mouth is looking somewhat better today. She has some clear spots on her tongue. The medicine smells horrid and apparently tastes just as bad. Maya goes into absolute hysterics whenever she has a dose. She gets 2 ml three times a day and that's 1 ml squirted into each cheek. It's like some kind of torture. At least she doesn't know enough yet to really fight me when I'm giving it to her.

How about a creative genius update?

I found her lying naked on the landing at the top of stairs.

Me: Why are your clothes off?
Abby: A witch came and said bibbidi and bobbidi and boo and cast a spell.
Me: And what did she make you?
Abby: A whale
Well I guess that would explain the clothes being off.

Everytime I turn my back for a second she's pulling leaves off my tropical plant. Then she runs around the house flapping her arms practicing her flying.

When she's not doing that she clipping clothespins to all 5 of her fingers and that becomes her Batman claw. Tonight she attached them to her top and bottom lip and walked around quacking.
Just a little while ago she threw her little arms around my neck and declared me "the best Mommy ever!" Aww the sweetie. It almost makes me forget about the juice she spilled on the keyboard. It's hard to forget though, when the keys are sticky.

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