Suck It Up, Buttercup

Matt and I are so blessed to belong to such a wonderful church. I could write a list a mile long of all of the thing we love about Lawndale! Included in the list of things we love would be the nursery. We are very thankful that the men and women who volunteer their time in the nursery love not only Ava, but all of the other children as their own. Case and point... Cindy Casten. This past Sunday at church, I got paged out of class only to find Ava pitching a fit in Cindy's arms. As soon as I took hold of Ava, she immediately stopped crying, put on a big grin and looked at Cindy as if to say, "Na-na-na-na, Boo-Boo." Ugh! Hello separation anxiety, nice to meet you. I knew Ava was fine. I'm sure Cindy knew Ava was fine too but she was nice enough though to ask what I wanted to do. I told her I would prefer that Ava go back in the nursery so she will get used to being in there. I also said that I would hold Ava out in the foyer if they had one to many screaming babies to deal with in the nursery. Without hesitation, Cindy grabbed Ava out of my arms, looked her in the eye and said, "Suck it up, Buttercup!" I love it!

(I imagine Ava's face looked something like the above picture when she returned to the nursery Sunday morning... As if to say, "Aw, man!" Have no fear, I was told after the service that after returning to the nursery, she never shed another tear and she was happy as could be the rest of the time!)

In the four years that I taught kindergarten, I saw plenty of separation anxiety come through my classroom doorway. I can say from experience that the best thing a parent can do is quickly say goodbye and leave the room! Dragging the goodbye process out just makes it worse for everyone. Matt and I hope to nip this whole separation anxiety thing in the bud before Ava can run, hit, kick, punch, pinch and bite. And for any of you wondering... yes, all of those things have happened to me on the first day of kindergarten.

Speaking of sucking it up... Fergie is going to have to learn how to do that, and fast! She was living in the lap of luxury the week we were at the beach. She was at a house without a baby. She was surrounded by 2 other dogs. She had people who actually had time to pay attention to her. Earlier this morning, I heard Fergie go out the dog door into our garage. I stepped into the garage a few minutes later and found her under the car, like this...

Is she so depressed that she is willingly waiting under the car for one of us to run her over? Suck it up, crazy pup!

Ava and I were enjoying some snuggle time together this afternoon. I guess Ava got a little too comfortable so she enjoyed a little nap time also!

After Ava's nap, we headed over to Matt's grandmother's house for dinner. Ava enjoyed spending some time with her Gammy and likewise, Gammy enjoyed spending time with her great-granddaughter.