Avril in April

Dear Avril,

Well the month of your namesake has been a month of great development for you. You got to visit the park for the first time and you loved the wide open space, running until you found an interesting stick or some mud to play with. You loved swinging on the swings, leaning into the momentum, fearless and joyful, giggling the whole time. You've also learned a couple of new words "gogour" = yogurt, "baow" = ball and "nana" = banana and you grin and rock back and forth with excitement when you say your word and we give you a spoonful of yogurt or a piece of banana; i love that you're getting notion of spoken communication. You absolutely love reading books, smiling from ear to ear as you run up to me with your favourites, and reach up into my arms eagerly to turn the pages. You've also started some acrobatics, climbing up onto chairs to reach the third shelf of the bookshelves. Just when we got comfortable with the house 'baby-proofed', you grow and change beyond the boundaries. I love it though, keep growing, keep changing, keep surprising us.

The kindness of strangers

Dear Avril,

Your dad had quite the winter of illness. Those with more experience than I have tell me to expect more of the same with you in daycare and then school :)

We had a little adventure together this weekend. We went back home to Cornwall for your great-great-great Aunt Edna's funeral. You actually met her this summer and she was just delighted by you. Her 92-year old arms couldn't hold you for long, but she just loved you. Your grandmother tells me that when she passed she had this photo on her mirror.


On the way, we stopped for a bite of lunch, and the rest stop we happened upon was quite bustling you were quite distracted by all the people so i was feeding you by hand like i used to before you became independent and wanted to feed yourself. A man walked up and said, "Excuse me, but I was watching you feed your daughter - I'm a father myself and my daughters are 12 and 15 - and I noticed you having fun and enjoying yourself as a dad. I just wanted to say that keep on enjoying every minute, because it'll pay you back for the rest of your life." I almost teared up as I smiled and thanked him and wished him a safe travel. Made my year.

You got to meet a lot of your relatives that I haven't seen in quite some time, mostly 3rd cousins and great-great-uncles. You had a ball in the viewing room, of course oblivious to the urn and photo at the front of the room, running around smiling at everyone, playing peek-a-boo with your great-Aunt Joce and cuddling with your great-Aunt Ben. Unfortunately, later that night I got very sick and we had to leave before the funeral. You were quite cranky with me on the way home - no wonder, cooped up in a car for 6 hours two days in a row. You were so happy to see your mom when we got back that you wouldn't let go of her, you just wanted to cuddle and cuddle.