What's new this week....

Words:
--fan
--bite
--froggie (she can sort of make the associated sound, a bunch of gibberish that sounds vaguely like "ribbit")

She can also identify the letters A, B, C, O, and S. (Although she doesn't say "C", she makes a hard C noise that sounds like "kuh." And for the letter S she says "snake.") I think I have to stop keeping record of these things, because she's picking up so much these days I can hardly keep up with it!

New cutest thing--she now says "thank you" when you bless her after sneezing! Too cute! We were laying in bed the other night and this happened:

Ava: *sneezes*
Me: "Bless you!"
Ava: "Kank-yoo!"
Me: "You're welcome!"
Ava: *sneezes*
Me: "Bless you!"
Ava: "Kank-yoo!"
Me: "You're welcome!"

It almost made up for the fact that she was in my bed because she was REFUSING to sleep and screamed and cried so much I had to bring her in our room to avoid waking all of the house guests....

Anyhow, we've all very much enjoyed the grandparent visit: yesterday all four of them and Craig took Ava to the North Carolina state fair (I stayed home, as my stomach has been bothering me all week) and everyone had a great time...we never did make it to the pumpkin farm, so I'm thinking next week. Craig's parents left a couple of hours ago and mine leave Tuesday, so we'll miss everyone but it will be good to get back to a normal routine for awhile.

And so it begins!

Tomorrow begins two weeks of grandparents with the arrival of my mom....should be fun! I spent the last two days cleaning like crazy and am so sore....today I even crawled out on the roof so I could clean the windows from the outside. It wasn't steep and the fall from there couldn't have killed me, although it would not have felt very nice. I survived, and the windows look great! ;o)

Ava has finally started going to sleep without freaking out on me, she either gets annoyed as I'm leaving and tries to have a conversation with me, or she cries for about ten seconds, and that's it...then she stays asleep the entire night. Yesterday she didn't get up until 7:45am!! I heard her talking to herself on and off for about an hour before she finally called for someone to get her. ("Mommmmmmyyy! Daaaaadaaaaa! Tom-Tom!") If she wakes up crying or just sort of talking to herself I leave her alone: I read once that if babies wake up crying, it means they haven't gotten enough sleep and to leave them alone and for the most part this has been true for Ava. If she's just talking to herself, more often than not she'll end up dozing off again for awhile...it's when she's yelling and actually calling for us that I know she's up and wants to get out. Knock on wood, but she's not quite figured out how to climb out of the crib yet. I find this pretty amazing considering how much she likes to climb on things and considering how devious she can be: remember that part in Jurassic Park where the guy talks about raptors and how smart they are, and how they were constantly testing their enclosure for weaknesses? That's Ava. So needless to say, I'm extremely thankful she's not figured out the crib! There's no way she could do a "big girl" bed right now, she would never stay in it...I really think she needs at least another year in the crib...or maybe I'll just keep her in it until she's too long for it. Whatever works!

All right, I need to shower and go to bed. There's just no excuse for me being up this late....

Conversations with Ava

We have a routine at bedtime: bath, sometimes TV, and then reading/prayers/singing/cuddling in the rocking chair in Ava's room. If Craig is home he does the bath and usually TV time, I do the rest. After I've read and done prayers and sung (I am a horrific singer but she seems to like it, it's a combination of Sunday School-type songs, Tom Petty, and lullabies...lately she's been requesting "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"), we cuddle for awhile and I talk to her, I mostly just rock her and tell her how much I love her. Last night it went like this:

Me: "Ava, do you know how much I love you?"
Ava: "Mmph" (she kind of just grunts at me)
Me: "I love you so much, honey. I don't know what I'd ever do without you."
Ava: "Mmph"
Me: "You are the best thing that's ever happened to me and your Dada, you know that?"
Ava: Pulls away from me , points to her head, and says, "Da doggie! Da doggie!"

Well. Alrighty then. I know she doesn't really understand 100% what I'm saying, but it was the strangest response....haha!

To be fair, she's been OBSESSED with talking about our neighbor's dog for about a month now....we went over there to say hi one afternoon and she was petting their very good dog and saying, "Nice doggie!" But she couldn't help herself and got over-excited and pulled the dog's tail, the startled dog jerked away and Ava fell over and bumped her head. I picked her up of course but told her it was not nice to pull Doggie's tail and she scared him...I felt like a huge jerk for not comforting her more but she needs to know! If she thinks it's okay to pull dogs' tails, she could really get hurt sometime. Anyhow, at the most random times she'll try to tell people (usually me) about what happened, which is a lot of babbling, pointing to her head and saying, "Da doggie!" and once she even added some fake crying for effect. HA.

That's about it...we went to Fresh Market today (good thing it's far away, I like that store way too much) and when Ava gets up from her nap we'll do a run to Target...among other things, I seriously need a Pumpkin Spice latte (it's a Super Target with a Starbucks....Best. Idea. EVER.) Not very exciting but it's cool and rainy out (yay fall!) and this will get us out of the house for awhile. And I have two more words for the list: "Apple" and "yogurt." She asks for yogurt at breakfast and identifies apples wherever we see them: in her ABC book, at the grocery store, etc. Good stuff!

Just the girls!

Well, Craig headed up to...okay, I have no idea. Somewhere for a wedding and then a few days of work, so it will just be Ava and me. We miss him already but will still enjoy our time together! This morning I tried to take her for a walk but she was NOT having it with the stroller...don't know why, usually she's all about it but not the past few days. Hmmmmm. So we played outside and then she took (unfortunately) a short nap while I started cleaning. We are going to have a crazy two weeks coming up: my mom arrives Wednesday, Craig's mom on Saturday, my dad arrives the next Tuesday, and then Craig's stepdad arrives that Friday. His parents leave Sunday, and mine on Tuesday. Whew...it's going to be CRAZY having everyone here, but fun! In that time I also have a two day teaching conference (not overnight) in Chapel Hill, and we're going to try to squeeze in a date or two while we have an abundance of baby-sitters on the premises...we're also going to take everyone to the pumpkin farm, since Ava no longer seems to hate pumpkins we should have a good time. That's all for now! Something pooped (Ava? Jack? Toby?) so I have to go change a diaper or scoop a litter box. BLEH!

I can't keep up with her...

So, after I posted the last list I had to edit and add a few more words that I've heard Ava say....since then, I've also heard:

--key
--sky
--sock
--night-night
--"OH NO!"

The last one is my favorite....she busted it out during an episode of Thomas the Train (surprise, surprise). A river was flooding and a train was washing downstream and she was distraught. She's said it quite a few times since then and it cracks me up every time! I saw something on TV advertising a real-life Thomas at the NC transportation museum but it's this weekend and apparently about 2 1/2 hours away....so sorry Ava, not going to happen! ;o)

I'm going to try posting a few pictures although the majority will still show up on Facebook, so if you aren't on FB I'm sorry! It's just too much of a pain to get pictures on this page and there are more people on FB than on the blog so it's the most efficient way. :-) I'll try to do a few though....apparently Bubbleshare is going under so all of my past albums will be lost....oh well.

Here are a few shots of Ava in her Bears gear last week....love it!

Ava's Words

All right, I made a list of all of Ava's words/phrases/sounds...maybe nobody cares, but I wanted to know, so I did it. ;o) It came to fifty-something...

Mommy
Dada
Papa
Will
kitty (meow)
doggie (woof woof)
duckie (quack quack)
snake (ssssssss)
bunny
bug
butterfly
Tom-Tom (choo choo)
Uh-oh
Woo doh? (Where did it go?)
Hi
Bye bye
Please (also does the sign)
Thank you
More (also does the sign)
Water
Book
Read
Star
Rock
Shoe
Blue
One, two, three!
Snack
Milk
Free (she tries to sing along with Tom Petty's "Free Fallin")
Yummy
Light
Nice
Moon
Egg
Cheese
Ball
Bubble
Eye
Elbow
Nose
Mouth
Cheek
Chin
Ear
Boob
Potty
Popsicle
Nemo
Monster
Elmo
Yay
Yeah!
Baby
Shhhhhh!
Swing
Slide
No
Mine

Her phrases so far are "Nice kitty/doggie/Dada/Mommy" and "More rock!" The second one she started saying recently at bedtime, trying to insist that I rock her more in the rocking chair instead of putting her in the crib. Yes, it totally worked, I'm a huge sucker. :) Oh, she also says, "Shhhhhh! Dada!" when I get her up in the morning, apparently she's reminding me that Craig is sleeping and I should be quiet. Thanks kid.....

What is this "blog" of which you speak?

I know, I know, it's been two months! I wish I could say I'll be a better blogger but I make no promises.....I'll try to get on here a little more often though. Part of the problem is that I'm mostly on Facebook....it's easier to communicate and post pictures there but on the downside it's less private, so I can't say how I really feel sometimes. ;o) ANYHOW, I'll just do a bulleted update and hopefully be a little better about posting....maybe once a week? Maybe not? We'll see....

• My stomach issues: I do NOT have Celiac Disease, woohoo! The doctor has placed me in the vague category of having IBS, which I think means, "We have no clue what is wrong." Ugh. But he did give me some meds to help calm my stomach when it goes crazy, and I quit taking birth control pills which has helped a lot as well. (Needless to say, natural family planning is working just fine...I should have done this years ago considering it took me awhile to become successfully pregnant while actually trying...avoiding it has been pretty easy. But it's only been 3 months.)
  
• Work: Yes, I have learned all of the kids' names and it wasn't that bad.... ;o) This group is okay but I miss the kids from last year. Not sure why but I really felt like I bonded with them, they were definitely one of the sweetest groups of kids I ever taught! Anyhow I'm on fall break right now and am enjoying the down time.
  
• The house: After next week we will be pretty much done with the inside! We just ordered more bedroom furniture for the downstairs guest room: we moved the guest furniture (full sized bed, dresser, night stand) to the empty bedroom upstairs, and that furniture will become Ava's when she's ready for a "big girl" room. Right now it's a second guest room. Anyhow the new furniture for downstairs will include a queen sized bed. We also got a "chair and a half" and an ottoman for the sitting room in our bedroom, and a loveseat for the family room. I'll have to pick up a few more lamps this week, we want to have some more of Craig's Nana's paintings framed, and we're good to go! Henceforth we will concentrate on landscaping, and probably expanding the deck.
• Craig: He now has an Associate's degree! He finally decided it would be a good idea to go to college a few years ago and in between working and being a husband and father, he's been taking classes. I think he has something like all As and one B...WOW! I'm so proud of him! He's now working towards a four year degree...we're hoping that sometime in the not so distant future, this will enable him to get a good job that does not require traveling, or at least this much of it.

And last but not least...the whole reason for the blog...AVA! ;o)

• I tried to count the other day and I think I figured out she's saying around 40-50 words, and has recently started to come up with 2-word phrases. I will have to list all of her vocabulary skills in a later post (which could be tomorrow or three years from now.... ;o) Considering she lost 4-5 months due to ear infections, I think that's pretty good. But, I don't know....to paraphrase my mom, everybody thinks their kids are brilliant but in reality, everyone else's kids are doing the same things... ;o) There IS something about watching the helpless infant you gave birth to develop into a little person though.
  
• She has a very strong personality: she's tempermental and impatient (yes, I know where she gets that from) and can be very serious and focused, but she's also a wild woman. Yesterday she invented a new game, which was standing on the ottoman and hurling herself at me.....OWWWW! She thought this was hilarious and I just did my best to catch her so I wasn't getting the full force of a 30 lb toddler in my gut! She is also very affectionate and gives kisses and hugs to me, Craig, her stuffed animals, the cats, other kids, etc. She's also friendly; we've spent a lot of time running errands (oh okay, and going to the mall) and she always says, "Bye-bye! Thank you!" to the cashier when we leave. LOVE IT!!!!
  
• She's going to be a reader like her parents: she's taken to handing us books lately and saying, "Read! Read!" Occasionally after making this request, she'll take the book back and attempt to "read" it to us instead.
  
• She's obsessed beyond reason with Thomas the Tank Engine and is constantly asking for "Tom-Tom" and saying, "Choo choo! Choo choo!" I swear I will never have that stupid music out of my head...yet, it's better than Barney. Craig downloaded a few episodes from that awful show for her and we can take about five minutes of it before turning it off. Barney is one bizarro dinosaur.
  
• I'm going to have to post a pic or two of Ava in her Chicago Bears Urlacher jersey...it's awesome and fits perfectly this season! (Thanks again Christie! :o)
• She no longer fears grass or pumpkins. So that's good.
• For almost two weeks she's been sleeping TERRIBLY at night and naptime....screams bloody murder when I leave (that's new, she rarely did that before) and wakes up multiple times at night, and it takes her about an hour to fall asleep at nap time. Not sure what's going on--I was blaming teeth but I'm not so sure although I haven't ruled it out--but I definitely think that being spoiled with lots of Mommy time while I'm on trackout is playing into it. Not much I can do about that so whatever, I hope it passes soon.

Speaking of the devil, she appears to be awake so that's all for now! Hopefully more catching up in the next few days.