oh, and also:

ava is afraid of the dark. suddenly. perhaps it has to do with the recent power outage, but she was FINE when that happened. i think it has more to do with the fact that it has been light out when she goes to bed for the longest time, and prior to that, it never occurred to her to think about the dark in any concrete way. now that the sun sets earlier and it is often dark when she is going to sleep, she is now pondering the darkness. and she is not too thrilled with it. but she will go up to the window and stare out at it, then retreat with a big shudder. last night i tried to entice her out onto nana's porch, and she made it a few feet then ran back inside. i wanted her to see that her eyes would adjust.

but the other issue is that she knows that a bear broke into the porch at upper saranac the other night. however, she has not said anything about bears per se.

( it made a remarkable mess. )

it is interesting how some facets of one's child are there at the start, and never go away, but other personality traits/predilections/issues/mannerisms etc emerge and then disappear entirely. it speaks to the importance of not assuming anything about your children, and definitely not labeling them. the minute you do, they might completely prove you wrong, or even more dangerously, you might permanently etch a way of being onto their person that could possibly have been entirely transient.