VACATION!

Finally, it's Christmas break! Three weeks of only having one job: Mommy! Okay, two jobs: Mommy and wife. Well, Mommy, wife, housekeeper, cook. Nevermind, I still have eight hundred jobs, teaching just won't be one of them for the next few weeks. Except for my two workdays...you know what? Forget it. There's no such thing as a vacation.

Anyhow, I have been enjoying the last few days with the family: Craig and I have had a chance to catch up on TV shows together, and both of us have spent a lot of time snuggling with/chasing/reading to/building things with Ava. She's still randomly crying in her sleep but usually stops after a minute or so, and it's usually only once or occasionally twice a night: the fact that she's finally got two of her 2-year molars poking through (which means two more on their way soon) could be the reason...but she makes up for it by sleeping until 7-7:30 each morning...woohoo! We've also gone to lunch twice and she's been perfect...just to the Village Deli, but it gives me hope that we could try other places as well. We'll see...we should have a chance to test that theory sometime in the next few weeks. :) I'm LOVING Christmas as a parent right now...we're not getting Ava much right now since she doesn't know any better and has the attention span of a hummingbird on speed, but each of the gifts I've found for her have probably caused more excitement for me than they will for her. As much as I love the Christmas season and everything it entails (except for shopping), it's been hard to really get into some things: I have a wreath on the door and a rather sad looking tree, but that's the extent of our decorations...I just could not get out to do lights or anything else this year. Ava rips the ornaments off of the tree or runs in circles around out, tripping over the cord to the lights and knocking pine needles everywhere (Craig has promised me a nice, big, fake, pre-lit tree next year). I also would really like a sound system for our house, because I love me some classical Christmas music...I usually get my fix in the car thanks to Sirius radio but Ava is insistent on always listening Tom Petty. (She yells, "Tom-tom Petty! Free!" That means Tom Petty, Free Fallin' I guess, but she says the same thing for every song. Her latest favorite seems to be Don't Come Around Here No More...she especially likes yelling out, "STOP!" when Tom Petty says it in the song. HA!) But anyhow, we're looking forward to watching her open gifts, to see if she actually gets it this year.

Ava is still talking up a storm and every day we understand a little more. My favorites right now are when she laughs (or fake laughs) and then says, "That's funny!" Or when she hurts herself and we give her a kiss, she says, "All better!" And her most recent--when we sit down she climbs on our backs, hugs us around the neck, and says, "Hang tight!" Of course we then have to give her a piggy-back ride, but that's okay, it's too cute not to.... :) On a bad note though, she has been slapping me in the face when she's mad or wants me to pay attention to her, which usually just gets her a spanking, so hopefully that turns around soon.

Anyhow, to wrap things up, the last few weeks have been very stressful for a variety of reasons and very sad: a former student of mine who was diagnosed with ALS just about six months ago died on December 9th. Ben was one of my favorite students and one of the nicest people I've ever met. He had such a good heart and will be greatly missed...I'm glad I got to attend a beautiful memorial service in his honor last week. I'm including a couple of videos that were taken before his death because it's just amazing and inspiring that he was able to face his illness with such grace, courage, and faith in God.

Winding Down

This morning, I woke up feeling happy and well-rested. I didn't get any extra sleep or even a full eight hours (although the sleep I did get was uninterrupted so that had to help) and nothing in particular happened to make me happy, so I have no idea where it was coming from but I'll take it! It's been a crazy couple of weeks: Ava recovered pretty well from the pneumonia but still has a cough and a runny nose...last week I took her for her first H1N1 vaccination, which was a nightmare because the pediatricians decided to do it clinic-style at the Raleigh office, which is nearly an hour away. Ava had dinner at 4pm, we rushed and got there before the 5:30 start time and were #208 in line...what the heck???? Waited for 1 1/2 hours IN A LINE OUTSIDE IN THE DARK, and she had meltdowns the entire time....did I mention Craig was out of town and I was alone? I couldn't be mad at her, it was past her bedtime and she was screaming "Night-night!" because she just wanted to go to sleep. Looks like they're going to run it the same way for part two of the vaccination process....WONDERFUL!!! Because, you know, it worked so well the first time. I normally love our doctors but that really sucked on their part. Also, I had to cancel her seasonal flu shot for the third time since it just happened to be the same day as the clinic, and I didn't feel comfortable doing both at once (I've heard mixed opinions regarding doing them at the same time) and plus there was no way for me to do both appointments, the regular one was at the Wake Forest office. UGH!!!! I really hate inefficiency!

Anyhow, speaking of winding down, I think my body has finally stopped going insane from stopping the pill, which is nice. Had I known it was this easy to not get pregnant I'd have saved my money the past few years, jeez! At the same time, my stomach has been bad again thanks to the stress of the last few weeks, but hopefully that'll stop as well. At least now I have meds to help. The students have lost their everloving minds this year and are already acting like it's fourth quarter with their attitudes and slacking off but oddly enough, working is one of the things that keeps my stomach happy in spite of that: it's being on such a rigid schedule that helps. At any rate, I'm finally starting to feel like myself again, which hasn't happened in awhile, mostly I've just felt unhappy and stressed and generally insane.

All right, enough about me. In Ava news, her vocabulary and the things she's learning continue to amaze us every day. I don't even count the number of words she knows anymore! She's starting to put two and occasionally three words together, and sometimes she'll hold an entire conversation with me in gibberish, though I can pick out a few words here and there. :) Tonight she took my face in her hands, looked me in the eye, and let out a string of babble that ended with, "Shhhh! Dada fweep!" So I think I was getting lectured about being quiet so Craig could sleep. (No, Ava, Dada was killing zombies on his computer, not sleeping.... ;o) She sings along with me when I sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and it sounds like, "Bababababa star! Babababababa sky! Babababa star!" She counts to ten, tries to share her snacks with the cats and with her Duckie (she's not big on dolls yet, but is very motherly towards her Duckie, which isn't even a real stuffed animal, just a duck head attached to a little blankie. But she brushes his beak with her toothbrush, combs his head with her comb, and tries to get him to eat and drink out of her sippy cup.) and of course loves feeding us. Lately, she also pets our heads and says, "Nice Mommy! Nice Dada!" LOVE IT!!
In addition to learning good things, she also is learning some not-so-good things: for example, if I fuss at her about something, she will lay down on the ground and cover her eyes, because she thinks I can't see her that way. Today she did something she knew she wasn't supposed to do, and she looked at me and covered her butt with her hand--SHE KNEW IT WAS WRONG AND THAT SHE'D PROBABLY GET SPANKED!!! She'll also do things--like throw Duckie or her sippy cup--and exclaim "Oh no!" in a really exaggerated voice so we'll think it was an accident...nice try, kid. Naturally she also throws tantrums but if she does it at home (where most of them happen, thankfully, as long as we're not waiting in stupid lines past her bedtime) I just put her in the crib for a minute or two and she mellows out immediately...I have to keep it brief though, she's about big enough to start climbing out of the crib and I saw her testing it out one day after she was put in there for punishment....EEEEEK! I have no idea what we will do when that day comes, maybe buy a really big dog kennel for her? ;o) Luckily she seems content enough to stay in at bedtime, even though more often than not she screams and cries out for Mommy when I put her to bed...at least she just lays there and doesn't try to get out. I'm telling you, it was so much easier to let her cry when she couldn't call for me! :( It breaks my heart leaving her, but it does help that usually after a minute the cries sound so forced it's almost funny, and then she stops.

All right, it's bedtime for me now...and I am NOT going to cry or attept to escape! Bring it on! :)


Ava, reorganizing the cabinets: she lined up all of the lids, counted them, and then put them away.


Eating a snack and looking cute....I love this dress on her!



Watching Dada hang something on the wall.



Dressed up as a Chicago Bear for Halloween 2oo9



DA BEARS!



A shot of the leaves changing in our backyard--I love autumn!

Pneumonia

Last Saturday night, I was hanging out at the house with a neighbor and watching movies when Ava woke up, sobbing, and saying, "Uh-oh, Mommy! Uh-oh, Mommy!" This is not normal waking-up-and-fussing behavior so I ran up to her room to find her, and her crib, covered in throw-up. Disgusting, but surprisingly I wasn't as grossed out as I think I should've been...we were too concerned about Ava to think about it I guess. Craig stuck her in the bathtub and I cleaned up the mess (isn't it amazing what parenthood can do? There is NO WAY I could've handled puke clean-up duty a few years ago....actually it's probably just because it's my kid that it isn't so bad, but still.) Anyhow she only threw up that once (well, she did spit up some water on Craig but I don't think it really counts) but was fevery, so we figure that's what caused the upset stomach. Called the doctor the next morning when her fever was about 102, and they said she probably had the flu. Ugh. However, she was in a good mood, ate well, and the fever went down all day and the only other issue was a wet-sounding cough so we ruled out the flu. I kept her home with me Monday and she went back to Christina's Tuesday after having no fever (but a not-so-good night due to the cough)....however, I got a call shortly after I got to work that the fever had returned so I called the doctor and took her in after work. The verdict? Pneumonia in her left lung. I have no clue where she got it, but luckily we caught it early and have antibiotics. Last night was ROUGH....she fussed so much I brought her to bed with me, that resulted in her thinking it was play time, and then finally I gave her some Benadryl--it helped--and got about 2.5 hours of sleep. Ugh. On the upside she does seem to be improving a little so I'm hoping for a better night tonight! That's it for now....I'll do a better update some other time. Nite!

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!