Annada Marie Vergo

On the boat to Epcot.

Dancing pirates, alligators, Figment or hippos!
You never know what is going to show up in our house.

In the last month or so Annada’s imagination has bloomed. She has gone from making endless “pizzas” in the pool to full fledged stories about pirates that dance, shop and wash in the rain.

The pirates one stumped me for a long time. About once a day, Annada comes running up to me or yells out from her car seat that she sees pirates. Sometimes she’s scared. Sometimes she is laughing.

The first time I didn’t catch that she was saying pirates (because, you know, I’ve never been attacked by pirates personally) and I thought there really was something scary outside. She is very convincing.

Curious, I started asking what the pirates are doing. Sometimes they are dancing. Sometimes they are “walking backward upside down.” Sometimes they are just standing in our backyard being scary and coming to get her. A couple of times they were going shopping for milk.

I asked Annada where the pirates live. She told me “outside.” So I asked what they do when it rains. She said, “Wash. Naked.” Then sadly, “No bubbles.” (Those poor pirates!)

Meme finally figured out where Annada learned about pirates. Annada has a book about a dolphin that gets captured by pirates. They decide hurting a dolphin is wrong, so they let it go. To check I asked Annada if the pirates were hunting dolphins.

“Yeah,” she replied in her super slow serious way.

The Figment of Imagination

Annada has a new imaginary friend: Figment.

Figment is a little purple dragon (or alligator if you are Annada) who hijacks a tour of the Imagination Institute in Epcot. There is something about Figment that completely captures Annada. I hear about Figment and what he is doing every hour. Annada goes to bed talking about Figment and wakes up asking to see him.

When I drove into Disney last Friday Annada started clapping her hands and yelling, “Figment! Figment!”

(I read online that Disney updated the Imagination ride and got rid of Figment a few years ago. Angry parents and even board members protested and Disney actually redesigned the ride again! In many ways, Figment really did “take over” the Imagination Institute.)

I think having Figment as an imaginary friend is particularly fitting for a girl who spends much of the day “cooking” for Marc, me and three babies, pretending to be a wild animal or walking backward upside down (outside if at all possible).

I read Annada a book about snow. She ran and got her coat, a blanket and matches (yikes!) and cuddled up in our bedroom pretending to be cold. It is in the high 90s here.

Annada got up from a nap and was so excited to go outside she ran downstairs before Marc even got her diaper off. This girl LOVES being outside!

Freedom!!!!

Annada would beg us to feed the birds at the beach. They even ate out of her hand a few times.

The funny part is that she would beg to feed the birds, then scarf down the food we gave her. So Marc fed the birds and Annada watched while eating stale bread.

We went to the beach during welcome week and a beautiful rainbow stretched across the sky. It was a great beginning.

Last week I took Annada to the pool. I was sitting on the steps talking with Belissa, Diego’s mom, when Annada came up behind me and began rubbing my back. “Mommy touches, mommy touches,” Annada started saying behind me.

It melted my heart! Annada is a touch bug and loves to have her back scratched and everything else rubbed. When she wants us to give her a back massage, she lays down on the ground and says, “Annada touches. Annada touches.”

Annada rubbed my shoulders for a while, then reached around, gave me a kiss and jumped back into the water.

Best Compliment Ever

This afternoon when Annada woke up I rescued her from her crib. I like to get her diaper off right away, so she had hardly said a word to me as I began taking it off.

“Mommy look pretty,” Annada said.

“What?” I asked, wondering if I was missing something.

She reached up and pointed at my face. “Mommy look pretty,” she repeated.

The YearOne Team 2010-2011

Last year our YearOne interns referred to Annada as their mascot. This year, with 7 women interning, Annada is more of a princess. She gets picked up, played with and generally steals the spotlight.

Annada knows she’s the princess too: At Marc’s birthday party we were all standing in a circle. Annada began going around the circle dancing on “her stage.” And at Disney last Friday, she picked a random college-aged girl and crawled up into her arms. As I came to rescue the startled girl, Annada gave me a big grin that said, “What’s wrong mom? All 20-somethings adore me.”

Learning to surf.

Annada is always listening. Somehow she picked up why we went to the beach a few weeks ago. As she exited the car she began singing, “Gospel at God’s pool, gospel at God’s pool.”

Princess Touch Hand

Part of YearOne is serving Disney by being a spiritual resource for their interns. We go each Friday and have a great time getting to know people from all over the world. It is amazing to see how God is moving among the 5,000 interns at WDW.

It always takes me a least a day to recover from each day out at Epcot. Even so, with Annada in tow I’m not able to keep up with the group. Last Friday my group set out to visit 3 countries before breaking for lunch around 2. I decided dragging a hot and hungry toddler to each place wasn’t going help anyone. So after Mexico I told the group I was going to feed Annada lunch and catch up with them in Morocco.

On the way to Morocco we saw Snow White. Last year Annada had an unfortunate early experience with Stitch trying to sneak up and kiss her eat her head and Annada decided all the characters were evil, toddler gobbling monsters to scream at.

I thought Snow White might be a good warm up character, so I paused about 20 feet away and let Annada look at her. I told her she was a princess and she was nice (meaning: won’t eat you so there is no need to scream). When I started to walk away Annada surprised me by begging, “More princess please! More princess please!”

I decided this seemed like a good time to retry the character thing (because having a child that screams every time they see Mickey Mouse is a downer to conversation at WDW). We waited in line and Annada seemed so happy to get closer and closer to the princess.

Until it was our turn. At which point her old Stitch memories must have resurfaced, because Annada began digging her nails deeper and deeper into my skin as she moved her body as far away from Snow White as possible without letting go of me. Snow White, a consummate professional, pretended not to notice that Annada was acting like she had ebola. She walked to the side away from Annada and spoke softly while posing for the picture.

Then, as if approaching a scared bird, she reached out her hand and held it steadily toward Annada. “Would you like to hold my hand?” she asked.

Annada didn’t let go of her death grip on my arm, but she didn’t cry either. So Snow White gently pressed her fingers on Annada’s, blew her a kiss and was off to take more pictures.

I suspected that as soon as Snow White was far enough away for Annada be able to breathe again, Annada would begin reproaching me, “no princess! no princess!”

But instead she reached out her hand in awe. “Princess touch hand!” she gasped.

She held her hand out, staring at it, for a good 5 minutes (which is like 10 years in toddlertime) whispering, “Princess touch hand. Mommy, princess touch hand!”

Annada walking backward upside down.

Annada has a new favorite book, “Silly Sally Annada.” In the book Sally Annada walks to town backward upside down. It has now become hard to get Annada to walk forward right side up!

She has also begun giving “leopard kisses” (licks) from the book I read her before naps, crawling like an ant from Babybug, running around with her mouth wide open like a hippo from a book about a colorful chameleon and flapping her arms like the butterflies Meme showed her.

Tonight I was giving Annada a bath when she overheard Marc mention praying. “Annada pray,” she said.

“What do you pray for?” I asked, hoping she would say Mommy or Daddy.

“Boats,” Annada replied.

“Boats?” I asked. She’s never even been in one. “Yeah, boats,” Annada replied seriously.

“Is there anything else you pray for?” I asked.

“Doggies. Annada pray for doggies.” She replied.

(And she is still talking about Aunt Rona’s dogs!)

3 years ago when we first bought our home we knew we loved everything about the neighborhood… except the cranes (and later the armadillos, but that is a story you need to ask Marc about). They are loud at 6 a.m., peck cars, stop traffic (because they are protected there are huge fines for running one over), run at you if you get too close and are constantly trying to break into our house by running through our sliding glass door (they have left huge scratches).

We grumbled about neighbors who fed the birds and swore we never EVER would.

Until Annada fell in love with the birds.

At first she would run to the sliding glass door to watch them. Then she starting crying when it rained because “Birds wet! Birds wet!” Finally she would watch with fascination as our neighbor girls would feed them.

Yeah, now we feed the birds. And if they would quit trying to break-in, we’d even like them.

(Thank you for the shirt, Aunt Lucy!! And a shout out to Jess for amazing pictures. This neighborhood has talent!)

Annada is talking more and more. Which means she says something cute and funny just about every day. Here are some recent highlights:

Introductions

Annada and I were at the pool when a new family in the neighborhood joined us. We were making introductions when Annada interrupted to intoduce herself.

“Annada. Outside. Run outside. Playdough. Eats nuts. Annada.”

(LOL- who knew that was how she defines herself!)

That Sucks

I was putting a diaper on Annada for the night (she still wears one to sleep in) when she started kicking me. It was a game we played when she was little, but now it hurts. So I warned Annada that if she kicked me again she would “get a full 100 second time-out.”

Annada paused, looked at me very seriously, then with all sincerity said, “That sucks.”

Mama Sick

Between strep, the flu and sinus infections, this has been a hard month on our family. Last week I was particularly sick.

So Annada followed me around the house with a blanket. Whenever I sat down she would put the blanket on my lap and then run to Meme asking for hot tea to give me!

Annada is now too tall to be backward facing. She loves getting to see as we drive.

Annada loved going to Pepe’s house while Marc and I were busy getting ready for the interns’ arrival. She even made up a song to sing in the car, “Pepe’s house, pepe’s house…”

Now when she sees a plane fly by she points at it and says, “Fly to Pepe’s house!”

Wearing Pepe's jacket.