A Letter for my Daughter

Dearest Ilya,

I wanted to write this so that when you are older and you look back through these posts to see what you were like as a toddler, you might understand how incredibly special you are. Most parents think that their children are amazing and talented and brilliant. Most parents thrill in the accomplishments that their children achieve and tell anyone and everyone how amazing their child is. Most parents delight in the day to day wonder that their child brings. Adam and I are no different from most parents, but you are very different from most children. 

When you walk into a room, people can't take their eyes off you. Other children gravitate towards you and want to know you. Adults are in awe of your abilities and your charming disposition. Everyone who meets you loves you. 

You have the vocabulary of a three year old. You smile all the time. When you meet new friends (and every child you meet between the age of 1 and 12 is a new friend) you create joy and fun with screeches and giggles and games that involve running in circles. You delight in things like water drains and lady bugs. You sing the A, B, C's and count to three and spell your name. You stir pots when we cook and pour water from cup to cup until you get bored and empty it all on the floor. 

I don't know what I did to deserve such an amazingly wonderful daughter, but I do know that you are special. And Loved.

counting

Ilya has learned to count - except for "one". 

She sounds like this: "two, three!" in a really high pitched voice which I think is what she thinks Adam and I sound like when we are trying to get her to say something.

Maybe we should all just get rid of "one". I mean, really, how many things in life would be so much better if there was more than one. Brownies, kittens, best friends...I'm sure there are others, but I'm blanking. 

She can also say her "A, B, C's"...kinda. It sounds like this: "A, B, C, L, M, N, O, P," and sometimes she adds "Z" just to finish it off. 

Brilliant!

I think we're going to move to Germany!

Some very dear friends of ours have been traveling the country/world for the last year and have decided to settle in Germany for a while. Being the spontaneous, travel-lusting people that we are, Adam and I have decided to meet them there and spend a year living in Germany. This, of course depends on our ability to get a visa, and, seeing how neither one of us will actually be working in Germany, this might be troublesome. I think that it is all going work out, though. Don't know why, I just do. 

So, yesterday, we hoped on craigslist and sold a bunch of stuff that has been cluttering our home for years. We have a long way to go, and the thought of finding a home for all our stuff is quite overwhelming, but, again, I'm not too worried about it. It will all work out. 

Where is this zen attitude coming from, you might ask? Why so calm in the face of such an overwhelming list of things to do? I don't know. Maybe my life is going where it should. 

I've been trying to learn German on livemocha.com for the past few weeks. I can now, with some confidence, call someone fat and poor in German. You gotta love these on-line language learning tools :) 

We would be moving to a small town about an hour east of Berlin named Magdeburg. Housing is really cheap and our goal would be to become fluent in German by the end of the year. 

In other, adorable baby news: Ilya can now get dressed by herself...kinda...

First, she puts the dress on over her feet (please ignore the mess...I was going to give some lame excuse for why it is so messy, but, lets face it, its always this bad)

Next, she pulls the dress up...

And, she's done! She then proceeds to walk around the house with both feet in the arm hole of the dress, which, in case you were wondering, DOES inhibit her ability to walk. Sometimes she adds pearls to her ensemble. 

What to do? What to do?

I give up. I am at a crossroads in my life where I can literally do anything, and I have no idea what I should do. As I am a fan of lists and bullet points, here are some of my thoughts in a nice orderly bullet pointed list:

* go back to teaching - 

Pros: I love the day to day interactions with students, love teaching, summers off, same hours as Ilya when she is in school. 

Cons: bad pay, no respect, angry parents who assume I am giving their child an F because I harbor some deep seeded desire for their child to be a failure rather than because their child doesn't actually understand the material, long hours.

* be an astronomer - 

Pros: love astronomy, love math and physics, want to learn more about our universe, respect. 

Cons: very hard to get a job, lots of school.

* be a computer programer - 

Pros: work from home, flexible hours, great pay, respect, solving logic problems. 

Cons: tedious, isolating, not sure I'm going to like it

* develop my tutoring company - 

Pros: great pay, interesting work, already have a client base

Cons: working more hours than get paid for, unreliable

These are the major options that I've been thinking about. I would love to know what you, my faithful readers, think. Any other ideas. 

My new favorite trick

Alice has always grunted like an old, constipated man while she poops. SDN and I think this is hilarious. Apparently Alice does too. Her new trick is telling you what sounds the animals make: Dog = bark, bark. Cat = meow. Cow = mooooo. Duck = quack, quack. If you ask her what sound poop makes, she looks at you and gives a low, long grunt: uhhhhhhhhhhhh, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Breaking Records

Seattle is experiencing a heat wave unlike any it has seen before. Temperatures are supposed to get into the 100's today (which has only happened once before, ever). Alice and I have been trying to keep cool by hitting all the kiddy pools in the area, spending time in air conditioned book stores, and going to the Children's Museum (also air conditioned). This works well for the day, but sleeping at night when the LOW is 71 degrees is quite a challenge. Last night was the worst. At 10pm, I went into Alice's room to check on her and discovered that someone has replaced the upstairs with a Sauna. Poor girl was burning up and she had the only fan in the house positioned direction on her. So, we gathered baby, pac 'n play, and pillows and headed downstairs to the office where we all slept together in the slightly cooler bottom floor room. Even though it was not the best night's sleep I've ever gotten, I loved being surrounded by my husband and baby all night long.

The heat has also made it difficult for me to keep up with my training. For the past few months, I've been training to run a 5K (a goal I considered ridiculous and completely unattainable when I first started), but, much to my surprise, I have managed to work my up to running (aka jogging VERY slowly) one and even two mile stretches at a time. I had no idea I was capable of this kind of exercise. I've become somewhat of an exercise junkie. I feel down when I miss a workout, and I feel great when I'm pushing myself. I have fantasies of someday running a half marathon. Me! Running a half marathon. Up until a month ago, I had never run more than 1 mile at a time. The heat, however, has made this very challenging. Yesterday, I took Alice to the trail near our house for a 2.6 mile run/walk to the bookstore. When we arrived, I looked like I had just taken a shower with my clothes on. I was half afraid that someone would have to call an ambulance to revive me half way there, but I did it. I'm feeling really good about myself right now. 

On an unrelated note, I think my daughter is gifted. I know parents joke about this sort of thing a lot, but I am dead serious. She not only has a vocabulary in excess of 100 words, but she can identify shapes and colors! This child is 14 months old. I guess I'll have to send her to expensive schools and send her to summer camps that half the time swimming and half the time deconstructing the mysteries of the universe. Its very exciting, but, honestly, I would probably think she was brilliant and amazing if all she did was drool and poop. She has got me wrapped around her finger. 

I think that is everything for now. I've been taking some really cute pictures that I am too lazy to upload to my computer right now, so you will have to wait until I work up the motivation to spend an hour learning how my new computer uploads images before you can see the cuteness that is my daughter. Until then, do what all your middle school friends told you to do in your yearbook - "stay cool"

new steps

My amazing daughter is learning and doing so much everyday that it is hard to keep up with her. I realize that I haven't posted about her in quite some time, and I intend to remedy this oversight. So, I apologize to those of you who are looking for an interesting post rather than a list of my daughter's accomplishments, but it is the right of every mother to brag about her child - especially on the internet :)

As of today, Alice is saying: hot, hat, dog, down, up, cat, mama, dada, duck, help, more, milk, hiding, chicken, and any other word that your repeat slowly for her. 

She is walking and sometimes even jogging (usually when she is trying to catch herself after a stumble). 

She can take her shoes off all by herself and does a really good attempt at putting them back on. She puts her toys away when she is finished playing, and can follow simple command like, "bring mama the toy," or "put your clothes in the dirty clothes basket." 

She points to her nose and the noses of every character in her books and goes down the slides all by herself. 

She is so brilliant, I'm sure that I am forgetting somethings. 

On a slightly unrelated note, I start school next week and am a bit nervous - both about the classes themselves (gosh I feel old) and about leaving my wonderful child for three days a week. I know that she will be fine, but every time I think about it I want to cry. I can tell that life is going to be a series of events designed to help me let her go. If I could, I would hug her all day and night forever.