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Wonderful trip
Our visit to Mexico this last time was wonderful. Darn close to ideal. Ideal would be if we had a playmate along for the ride. There's a chance that Henry may be Avery's playmate during our trip in Feb/March. That would be awesome.

It's nice to be able to give Avery more freedom when we're down there.  She can play by herself in the courtyard near us (outside our casa) where we can see and hear her through the windows. She tends to check in with us every minute (literally).

In the pool, she can swim anywhere with the noodle.  She has never slipped or gone under, so I feel confident letting her have some distance from me when she's motoring around on her own. I do, however, look forward to her being able to swim on her own so I can let my guard down enough to read a book from the patio chair.

The pool that will be built near us in the next year or so will be a lap pool, though it has two small wings off to the side of it. Apparently, the shape and type of pool, as well as the type of shade available at the pool, has been a battle down there for the homeowners who get involved. We just pay our HOA fees and hope for the best.

Avery continually asked to go to the hotel pool, which was drained after our first few days there for maintenance. I'm not sure why she liked that pool the best.  Maybe because the shallow "end" of that pool is actually in the middle of the pool.  It must feel more grown up to her or something.

Headsprout
Avery's starting to show signs that she's ready to start to learn how to read. Stacey told me about Headsprout a while ago when we were talking about teaching kids to read. I decided to give it a whirl while we were in Mexico. Avery whizzed through the first two episodes getting every answer correct. Truth be told though, I was actually more impressed with her mousing coordination than with her reading comprehension. In any case, the trial episodes convinced me that this was a good thing for her, so I sucked it up and paid the money for a membership.

As a result of all this, I've now set up Avery with her own profile on my computer. I eliminated most applications from the dock, set the mouse to not have the right-click option on (that one sometimes snags her, particularly because she's left-handed).

Avery can spell a few words (other than her name), but I suspect those are more memorized words than knowing how to sound things out to spell them. If I sound out the word for her, then she can almost always spell it, but this isn't a new skill. It's been there for a year or so. I find it interesting that the connection between knowing the the "ssss" sound is made by the s doesn't immediately translate to seeing "sun" and knowing it starts with the "ssss" sound.  My adult brain doesn't understand why that leap is not immediately intuitive for kids. Maybe it is immediate for some kids, but my point is that, from what I've observed, they are two very separate and distinct skills.

Healthier
Inspired by my high school best friend's fabulously lean body, I seem to be making positive changes in habits over the last couple of weeks. I'm aiming for small, but consistent changes. I'm also concentrating on baby steps and not biting off more than I can chew. So far so good.  Why are good habits so hard and bad habits so easy?

Hair
So I chopped off all of my hair before Mexico.  I didn't like the cut initially and had it highlighted blond immediately. It needed to be highlighted or dyed in someway since this type of cut really needs to have textures created by the various colors.  However, I hate the color I got. It's horrible. Again however, I also hate getting my hair done, so I guess I am just going to live with the color until I need another cut and get it changed then.  The true color of my hair isn't reflected in the pictures below.  The color looks decent in these pictures.

I don't hate the cut as much as I did at first, but I don't think hair this short is my ideal look.  My conundrum is that I love, love, love the way it feels. I'm not always pushing it out of my face or off my neck.  It's like the only time I'm fussing with it is when I look at myself. That I don't particularly like what I see when I look at myself seems to be losing out to the fact that I just like the feel of it so much better.  I think I may end up with slightly longer hair than this and a much, much better color.  I don't know. It's just hair, right?