B is for Bissonnette: Happy 2nd Birthday, Ava!

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Happy 2nd Birthday, Ava!

Dear Ava,

You turned 2 at the beginning of last month. So yes, your procrastinating, busy mother is a bit late in writing this. But here I am to finally write out my thoughts and wish you a very happy 2nd birthday. We are so blessed to have you in our family.

You might say we did a lot of waiting to meet you. Of course there was the 9 months you spent in my womb. We wondered if you were going to be a little sister or a little brother for Kayla and Elise, and we waited to see. We wondered who you'd look like and what your personality would be like. And we waited some more to see. And we did an awful lot of waiting on the day of your birth as well. We chose to do an induction because my labor with your sister was so short, and we lived over an hour from the hospital. Inductions are usually a rather long process with lots of waiting too. So we waited some more. But you really wanted to meet us and labor did progress quickly once my doctor finally broke my water. And then the waiting was over and you were in my arms--another precious, beautiful baby girl, but not just "another"; you were our little Ava, and you are so uniquely you. Never could I have imagined the little 2 year old you are today when I looked into your eyes that day, but I didn't need to. Each day I get to wake up and learn a little more about who you are and watch as you grow and change.

At 2 years old, you are a bubbly, silly girl. You have a little of Kayla in you and a little of Elise, and a whole lot of YOU! It's fun to see how in certain ways you are so very similar to one or the other of your sisters, but in other aspects you are nothing like them. Not even a little bit.

At times you follow them around and mimic them, and at other times, you run off and do your own thing entirely as if you were the first, the only! Recently you have been much more cuddly and clingy to me. I think you somehow sense that you will no longer be "the baby" in a short time. So you are taking full advantage of the here and now and run over to me frequently just to give my legs a hug and then beg to be picked up, "Hold you, pees!" Which of course means you want me to hold you, please.

This face.

I don't even have words.

But it's so you. And we love it so much.

You are a great eater, but you seem to have a bit of a weak stomach at times. We aren't sure what is really the trigger (or if there is any rhyme or reason), but at times when we are on the go a lot or when you consume perhaps a little too much sugar (see the picture of you stuffing that Peep in your mouth above), your little stomach just can't take it. The amazing thing is that you are so good-natured that it's hard to see it coming. It's also hard to remember it's even happened sometimes because after the mess is cleaned up, you just move right along without a care in the world (the majority of the time). Your daddy and I have to check with each other to make sure it actually happened because you recover so quickly and happily that it seems like perhaps we just imagined it in the first place....

You prance around on your toes most of the time. It seems we have another ballerina on our hands. The rest of the time you are running after your sisters and your chubby little legs are moving faster than I thought possible, and yet, they are just too short for you to keep up. So you often lag just a little behind, ever rushing to be a part of the action.

Your smile is infectious. Just look at you. How can you not smile back when a little monkey gives you a grin like that? You scrunch up your little nose and are always ready to ham it up, camera or not. My favorite is when you give that cheesy grin and look sideways at me.

Hilarious, cute, and oh, so, YOU!

You love to swing at the park. You swing in the baby swings for awhile and then you ask to get down and run over to the big swings, pleading, "Dis sing, Mommy, dis sing." And you hold on obediently and swing some more. You could swing forever I think.

You are truly a little Russell (the character from Up). You bumble around and never quite seem to know what it is you are doing, but you have a heart of gold and a love that could touch even the most crotchety soul. You fill our world with love and joy, and I have no doubt that you will touch many other lives in the future with your all encompassing love and your huge heart.

At times you are very intense, and your anger can flare up in a second, and be gone in another. You may be the third sister and currently the youngest, but you can definitely hold your own. You are rough and tumble most of the time, though you do try to play "the baby" from time to time as well. More often than not, you run, you fall, you get back up, and you move on. But Lord have mercy on the person who messes with you and pushes you to your limit. You throw tantrums here and there, most of them very short, because you just don't want to waste your time crying when there's so much to experience in life. You do throw some that I consider to be the "stubborn mule" sort, and those are tough on us, because it's those times that you simply won't reason or talk and we have to stand by helplessly and let you catch up with your racing emotions. But like most kids, when you slow your heart down and breathe a little, you want nothing more than some hugs and kisses, and cuddles to reassure you that even when you act out and lose your temper sometimes, our love for you is never ever lessened--not even a little bit.

(Cake #1 with Uncle Paul and Auntie Agnes....)

You are a joy. You are our goofy pants. You are our butterball. You are our silly bean. You are our Aves or AvesB. You are our precious little angel. You are our princess and our twinkle toes. You are our Russell. You are our cheeseball.

You are our beautiful Ava Chantal.