Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Happy Birthday - Ava Mae



Today is my daughter Ava Mae’s fifth birthday. She’s the youngest of our three children, the second surprise for us (with Lexi being the first surprise).
When we had our first ultrasound, they told us that Ava was going to be a boy. The second ultrasound told us she was a girl. Even though they promised us that they were pretty sure she was going to be a girl, I still wondered. But, they were right and Ava was a girl.
Now, here are a few facts about Ava Mae:
• She has, without a doubt, the loudest voice I have ever heard. Even when’s she’s whining, it’s loud. How can such a little thing be so loud.
• She will be featured someday on the TLC’s Hoarders. I thought I was bad, oh no, I’m just an amateur compared to her. Ava Mae has saved every scrap of paper that fluttered through her attention. I found old post-it notes that I had written on years ago stowed away in her room.
• Without an effort, she can be the life of the party, or…
• When she’s in a bad mood, she’s not content to just state her displeasure, no, she plans to take you and everybody else down with her.
• Ava Mae is the most likely to get Daddy in trouble. Sometimes its entirely accidental (accidentally telling Mommy that Daddy let her drink Diet Coke). But, there are those times where she gets me in trouble just to show me that she can. It’s as if she wants to make sure that I have no misgivings about who really runs this house.
• She is very much a hybrid of her brother and sister. Devin is analytical and will make a great engineer, scientist, doctor, or mathematician. Lexi is the head-in-the-clouds dreamer, very creative, life of the party, with her very own entourage of fans in tow. Ava is equal parts both of those.
• Ava loves ballet. She is obsessed with it.
• Ava is very anxious to start learning the piano. She can find middle-C faster than her brother and sister can.
• One of her favorite television shows was the episode of Arrested Development where Tobias paints himself blue to join the Blue Man Group. She always asks me to see the Blue Man episode. In fact, she has suggested that I write a story about Blue Man. I’ll get back to you on that one.
• On night, Ava stood up at dinner and recited the qualities that make you a leader. I tried to write them down – they were pure Ava-isms.

Being a leader is … someone who is nice to everyone
Being a leader is … someone who helps his or her friends
Being a leader is … brushing your teeth like the dentist says
Being a leader is … making sure have a fancy pony birthday party for each of your WebKinz
Being a leader is … singing songs about Jesus
Being a leader is … dancing to all the High School Musical songs
Being a leader is … being stylish
Being a leader is … going on the potty
Being a leader is … not pushing girls off the playground swings
Being a leader is … being a good line leader
Being a leader is … is being a leader
Being a leader is … going to Jacob’s house
Being a leader is … Lexi not letting me play hide and go seek
Being a leader is … not letting the aliens come into our house and take our faces off

Words to live by.

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