Ava is 2 and a half

So Ava is officially a city girl now. She greets the doormen with a "hi" and a "thank you" when they open the door for her. She boards the bus and knows exactly where to sit. She patiently waits for the subway like a seasoned New Yorker. She likes to make small talk with the taxi drivers even if they are not very responsive. She pushes the elevator buttons like a pro and does not attempt to evoke our wrath by touching the "alarm" button anymore. She'll walk a couple of blocks without complaining...sometimes. Our first week in the city, she would always say "let's take a taxi" if we walked at all. So overall she is adjusting quite well.

Some of the struggles we have with her are probably just related to usual two year old sassiness. I feel like the scope of my parenting has come down to two methods: threats and bribes. We threaten her with time-outs and no treats, and bribe her with treats (her new favorites are jelly beans and chocolate 'chocayet'). Basically every meal involves bribing her with a treat if she would just finish her food. This probably sounds so mean but a while ago I would say she would have to sleep in Napoleon's cage (Napoleon is a friend's dog-not Ava's favorite dog in the world) if she didn't listen. Desperate times called for desperate measures. I've stopped doing that even if I was totally joking because I didn't want her to develop an unhealthy fear of dogs or have to go to therapy for years because I subjected her young mind to such a cruel possibility. So now the threats seem pretty harmless but I wonder how we can move away from threats and bribes in general.

Ava really is a dainty sweet little girl. She has been trying to assert her independence, but in so many ways, she is still our little baby (not for long!) She says some really funny things that I forget to write down sometimes. Here is a list of some of them:

"Are you happy?"-She asks this all day long, especially when she can tell we are losing our patience with something. Then she'll ask, "Are you upset?"

"Are you a good girl/boy? Are you a good mommy/daddy?"-She is pretty good at knowing who is a boy and who is a girl.

"Are you being funny?"-She likes to ask David this when she is on the phone with him.

"I'm hiding. Mommy, go to the couch."-If I find her trying to poop somewhere, she lets me know that she needs her privacy and I have to go somewhere else. Not sure when the whole potty training thing will happen. She thinks "potty train" is something you ride on.

"Stop bothering me!"

"Dorothy, this is how we eat a banana."-Ava loves watching Elmo's world and will randomly show Dorothy how something is done throughout the day.

Her favorite words to pronounce are "weather, another, other". She really emphasizes the "th" sound.

She has picked up the word "crap" from us and we don't know how to erase it from her vocabulary. We keep telling her that it is a bad word, but sometimes the second after we tell her to stop saying it, we say it ourselves and she'll chastise us by saying "don't say that, that is a bad word". A lot of times, I'll hear her whisper "crap" under her breath, or she will say it really slowly like "cccrrraaappp".

Ava must wonder why I'm always trying to get her to look at me with the sun in her eyes

This is a playground in Central Park that is just a few minutes away from our apartment. Actually there are a few parks really close to us. Ava roams free here.

Chasing after her is quite tiring at this point! But it is all worth it just to see her smile.

Plugging noses to get ready to go under water. The heated salt water pool in our building is awesome.

Ava really looks forward to daddy coming home from work and the whole family going for a swim. However, I may stop going because my 2 piece safari-patterned bathing suit makes me look like a mammoth jungle animal that should go into permanent hiding. I may have been indirectly charged with public indecency because all the residents got an email after I started swimming that requires all swimmers to be completely dressed in the elevators...oops.

So glad the weather is pretty good for these park outings!