I love to watch you play

I was reading a survey somewhere on the interweb about what parents of professional athletes said to their children to encourage them in their pursuits.  The survey overwhelmingly found the phrase, "I love to watch you play," repeated again and again.  Such simple words and yet when I first read them a chill ran down my spine.  I was overwhelmed at how deeply moving they were.   It was saying "I believe in you in, in that thing you feel so passionate about.  I love you and I'm so very proud of you."  Who wouldn't feel emboldened by those words?

She's got her own style

So, Abigail,

                  ...I love to watch you in gymnastics.

                  ...I love to watch you throw your head back and laugh.

                  ...I love to watch you eat chocolate ice cream.

                  ...I love to watch you climb.

                  ...I love to see you hug the Fink.

                  ...I love to hear you say, "watch this move," and you show us  a new dance move.

                  ...I love to watch you hula hoop.

                  ...I love to watch you watch handball players and wonder when you'll be able to do it.

                  ...I love to watch you flip.

                  ...I love to hear you sing the "I Don't Remember" song you created.

                  ...I love to watch you read in bed.

And today when you had your first playdate with a girl from your class, I loved to watch you say "that's me," when she held a baby picture of you.  You were proud of youself as you showed off your room with all the drawings, photos, colors, books and toys that help make up who you are.

I love to watch you be you.

Self portrait!

Abigail started school this past week and we already see her confidence growing. She's speaking up for herself at the playground, she's talking about fire drills and she's drawing her self portrait!

It's been hot, hot, hot! And she's hot stuff.

School!

Well, we all made it through today.  Abigail's first day of school.  She was glorious. 

Big Changes

My goodness there's a lot that's been going!  Between the move--we're now The Towers Ettingers--and Abigail's birthday, there's so much that's been going on.

We moved just over a month ago to our wonderful new apartment in Jackson Heights.  Here's Abigail enjoying the swings in our backyard:

We're loving the glorious light and space of our new home.  We're loving our neighbors.  We love to see Daphne run down our long hallway and Fink lay in the sun.  And Abigail, well Abigail just loves her new room.  Rooms we should say--a bedroom, a bathroom (yeah two bathrooms for all of us!), and a playroom with chairs and a table she picked out herself.

On the day Abigail turned three she exclaimed, "I am delighted with my birthday."  She is such a big girl now.  From sleeping soundly in her big girl bed, to saying (just today) "I have to go to the bathroom," two whole times!, to whizzing around on her bright yellow scooter, to coming up with hilarious songs about Fink, she is blossoming each day into quite a li'l lady.

Moving

Well, we are days away from being the Plaza Street Ettingers to the The Towers Ettingers! 

Abigail is excited for the move and asked, "who's going to move into our place?"  We were pretty impressed by the question.

Abigail is constantly talking, and talking very clearly mind you, which is wonderful, but we can't help but love hearing her say "becided" instead of "decided."  It's very adorable.  She's got some other speech quirks but that's our favorite.

We'll miss Brooklyn but we becided it's for the best to move on to a new borough.  Look out Queens, here we come!

Tell me story...

Abigail is very big on asking us to tell her stories.  Usually about anything but, there are times she specifically requests, "Tell me about my day."  Then you run through all the great things that have happened during the day and a very pleased expression crosses her face.

On January 13th we realized she was 2 and 3/4 years old and marveled at how time had flown.  She's such a big shot now, capable of so many things--like drawing circles and spelling her name!--but weren't we just bringing her home from the hospital?  Wasn't she just learning to crawl and now she's daring herself to walk with one leg raised in the air asking, "can you do this?"  Which she asks all the time, usually in some improbable contortionist position that no one but a 2 and 3/4 year old could do and so, our answer is "no, we can't," but you can Abigail.  You can.  It's no coincidence that her passion of the moment is Wonder Woman, because that is indeed what she is, our wonder child.