Ava at 18 months

I'm a very, very bad poster. I know. I didn't even post once in June. I'd promise to post more but maybe I won't...most of my updates are on Facebook nowadays...it's just easier. ANYHOW...here's an update, if anyone still comes around! ;o)

• Ava has her 18 month checkup on Wednesday....just a guess, but I'm thinking she's still off of the height chart, in the 90+ percentile for weight, and if there was a foot size chart, she'd be off of that as well. Poor kid is destined to have giant duck feet like her mother. :-\
• She does not respond to spanking. Keep in mind, she doesn't get "real" spankings yet as I don't think she's old enough to really get it. Just swats on the butt or hand. And she doesn't care. She either screams in my face or laughs, so I rarely even bother. What does work? Being banished to her crib...she HATES being forcibly isolated and on a bad day, one or two trips to the crib will get her back in line! It's funny though...I was terrified of spankings as a child.
  
• She says the following words/phrases: Mommy, Dada, bye-bye, hi, doggie, duckie, where did it go ("woo doh?", complete with hand gestures), thank you ("nankoo!"), ball, popsicle (pop-po), kitty (keekee), water (wawa), and either poopy or potty (poppy), but we haven't figured out which one she means when she says "poppy." We're taking preliminary steps to potty training...when she has a dirty diaper, we empty it into the toilet and she helps us flush, and we tell her "poopy goes in the potty!" Sorry if that's TMI. We need to do something...I have a feeling we're going to be in way over our heads with the whole potty training thing. Okay, sorry for the tangent, she also says Thomas ("noh-nah") in reference to the utterly bizarre children's show, Thomas the Tank Engine. I think there are a few more but I don't remember at the moment....she does a LOT of babbling with words mixed in and seems to believe she's having full-on conversations with us. ;o)
  
• She has a scream that sounds remarkably similar to a dentist's drill and is about as painful
• She gives kisses...sometimes she actually puts her lips on us, sometimes they are just air kisses, but they're always accompanied by an exaggerated, "mmmmmmuh!" SO. CUTE.
• She loves babies and animals and both can expect to receive many hugs and kisses from her. Except poor Winston, the pug belonging to Craig's grandparents. She tried to touch his eyeball and pull out his tongue when we were up visiting in NJ last month.
• She is extremely inquisitive, unafraid, and stubborn. I wish she'd be a *little* afraid of things, like maybe strangers or water. When she sees a pool, she tries to jump right in, regardless of the fact that she cannot swim
• She is tough, more what I would expect from a little boy. Unless she's in a mood, she can take a pretty good spill and cries very little or not at all. She doesn't get that from me...I'm a wuss.

We are having so much fun with this little person of ours! Sometimes it makes me sad that she's not a baby anymore, but mostly it's so cool watching her grow and learn that I don't think about it too much...however, that has not gotten us any closer to a verdict on if/when we will have a second child. Sometimes when I think about it I feel really guilty, as if having another kid would somehow betray Ava. I know it's ridiculous, because she'd be thrilled with a sibling (she LOVES other kids) and we'd still love her as much as we do now, but I can't help it...I have no idea why I feel that way. I never felt betrayed or any less loved when my brothers were born....weird. Having said that, if we do have another one....I really, really want a girl! :o) I just think having same-gendered kids would be nice (and we're not having more than two kids, period)...if Ava had been a boy, I'd probably want another boy as well.

ANYHOW--in non-Ava-related news, we are settled into the new home, have just arrived back from our annual trip to Chicago, and I have one more week of trackout before beginning another school year, which I am just not ready for. Bleh. Also, I'm having some procedures done on Friday to see if the doctors can figure out my ongoing stomach problems...I'm not looking forward to it but am hoping for some answers!!

That's it for now....pictures eventually. I'm trying to find something better than Bubbleshare because it's annoying that I have to individually resize and then individually upload all of the pictures, and it can take HOURS. Any recommendations would be welcome!! I tried Picasa but could not figure out how to work it. Ugh.