Super Mom & Dad

…Or at least striving to be. Mom, because she had her first client this week! She did much better than she expected and is very excited to use her degree once again. She also went water skiing for the first time in years on Saturday and got up on the second try (that’s on only one ski)! What a woman!

That makes Dad super (by default anyway) because he got to spend lots and lots of quality time with whom we affectionately call “The Princess” while Mom was gone. She first came to campus with Dad because he had a meeting with all of the clinical students. She was very well received (and she would expect nothing less) and very well-behaved. We had the most fun in a stairwell playing with our echos.

For some reason, though, Avey thinks that Dad putting her down for a nap does not mean anything close to Mom putting her down for a nap. With Mom, it’s nap time. With Dad, it’s party time. Saturday night she had some problems too. It looked a little something like this:

Hence “The Princess”. It is her bidding that we stay up and party, so her will must be done. I’ve come to the sad realization in the last three days that Avey outsmarts me left and right all the time. When feeding her (attempting, anyway), if she decides the winter squash is not to her liking, she merely sticks her thumb in her mouth. That’s it; it’s over, man. Check…mate. I just sit there in the chair in front of her holding the teeny plastic spoon with a glob of squash slowly getting cold, wondering what on earth to do with the situation. I try putting the spoon to her mouth anyway, but sure enough, that hand is still there and I just get squash on her sleeve. After several failed attempts at giving her examples of how to eat, coming in at different angles, trying logic and rhetoric (when I’m really desperate), etc., she feels sorry for me and takes her thumb out of her mouth to allow in a few more bites. “Thank you, oh merciful one… I’m not worthy…”

I need to find that wee little research journal of hers to figure out her plans.