Ava Thursday: Alexander was inbarist

Thought I'd do a special Ava Thursday this week with a follow up to Ava's now-famous Love Is Embarrassing book posted last month. In the post I wondered out loud if Alexander would appreciate just how special this gift was that Ava gave him. Would he take the book home and show it to his parents? Would he put it under his bed for safe keeping? Or would he simply toss it into the trash? Well, I found out! Alexander's mother came up to Andrea the other day at school and asked if she was Ava's mother. She just had to tell Andrea that her daughter is an amazing storyteller and that both she and Alexander's father were quite taken by the book. They both know that it was a very special book and that they definitely plan on keeping it. They've already written the date and details on the back, which is proof to me that they truly respect this gift that Ava gave their son.

So, what about Alexander's response? Well, it was quite interesting. His mom told Andrea that they could tell that he was flattered by the gift, but was -- get this -- embarrassed. He was embarrassd because Ava read the entire book in front of class (I found out that her teacher had her read it out loud -- knowing Ava I knew that she wouldn't have volunteered to do this on her own). Not sure if Ava gave the book to Alexander afterwards in front of everyone, or after school.

He did have questions for his mother: Why did Ava give this to me? Well, she told him, she probably likes you or appreciates you. He was really sweet about it and his mother said that he was really flattered by the book and slept with it that night.

I can't tell you how much that means to me. When Ava was creating these books I knew that she was planning on giving them away and I cringed more and more with each creation of a page. The amount of detail given to each book made my heart swell and break because I knew that these precious little paper gems were not going to be here under our roof soon. I was deeply envious of the recipients to these books -- I don't care how that sounds, it's the truth. I admit, I'm selfish when it comes to my daughter's creations. I'd rather all three books be in my possession, no one else's. I even went so far as to seriously think about hiding the books while Ava slept later on that night, but stopped short -- I realized that I can't possibly horde away every single piece of Ava artwork. Part of Ava's enjoyment of creating these books is to give them away to her friends. In fact, she's quite emphatic about giving them out to her buddies, and I applaud her for being that way. Good for her.

It's extra icing on the top for me to know that the new owners of these wonderful little books love them just as much as I do -- so much that they are willing to go to bed with the books by their sides. A way of keeping Ava close to their hearts, I guess.

I wouldn't want it any other way.