The Ava Workout

Quick tempo, maybe 160 beats per minute. GO!

And 1 and 2 and don't forget to breathe and pick her up and move her over and move the toys and check to see if she has a fist full of dog hair and check the dog to make sure she's not pissed or sporting a new bald spot and bend and lift and twist and release and move the cup and get the phone and call them back later and pick her up and move her over and find the remote to turn down the damn TV and change a diaper and make a bottle and set up the high chair (because lord knows we can't leave it set up all the time anymore) and heat some apples and feed and wipe and feed and wipe and put her in her crib with a binky and rest for 90 minutes.

Repeat 3 times, for 2 hours at a time.

We will pay you ONE MEEEEEEEELLION DOLLARS...

...to come over and effectively childproof our house.

Thank you and good day.

Battlestations! Red Alert!

It begins.



Busy, isn't she? She's spent the last 8 1/2 months looking at everything in the world and soaking it all in, and now she's going to go check it out.

She's pretty cute, too, huh?

The past couple of weeks have been kind of crazy. The whole work/home balance thing is bigger than we thought it would be. Some days, I wish we could narrow it down to just the Rock and the Hard Place. But, this is the business we have chosen. Not all of it is going to be perfect, but we're managing.

Last week was Parents Night at Daycare. They said it was going to be an opportunity for the parents and teachers to get together to discuss curriculum and transitions. Since we didn't know what any of that meant, we eagerly attended :). And we learned a lot. Evidently, curriculum exists even at the infant level. Every day, Ava learns stuff and not much of it is accidental. She learns how to interact socially because she spends her day playing with other babies who are all at different stages. She's about in the middle, as far as development goes. So she's been watching babies hit their own milestones (this is Daycare's language, but it makes sense) and that apparently inspires her to reach her own. Hence the crawling and clapping.

"Transitions" means "when do we move Ava to the next room". It's not based on age; rather it's determined by development. Some one-year-olds are running around like monkeys while others aren't quite there. They told us what she needs to be doing before putting her in the Toddler Room. Long story short, she needs to be walking steadily and be drinking from a sippy cup instead of a bottle. In the Toddler Room (it sounds important so I'll capitalize it) they all nap at the same time. They eat together, family style, and they learn how to use utensils and serve themselves and share blah blah blah.

Honestly, it sounds like a prime opportunity for food fights and chaos, but they know what they're doing so we're not going to argue too much until we see it for ourselves. If it works, everybody wins.

That's about it. It's cooling off (yay for the end of oppressive heat!) so there will be more evening walks and meals on the patio. We're looking forward to the holidays--I already have her Halloween costume. She's going to be Princess Leia. The Force is strong in this one, you know.

She has interesting musical tastes.

Yeah, given the fact that her father is a dyed-in-the-wool easy listener and I'm the queen of 80s top 40 pop radio, it shouldn't be such a shocker. The song that makes her the happiest? Rosie the Stripper.

The Stripper - Joe Loss

Awesome.

But now, thanks to Rosie the Stripper, we have proof of her teeth, because when I sing the song to her, she laughs.



We're all very proud.

Teeth Are A Pain In The Patootie.

Well, you know what I mean.

Ava has 2 teeth. We're working on getting pictures, but she's sneaky and not very forthcoming with Big Smiles when we have camera in hand. They're on the bottom, in front. She plays with them with her tongue quite a bit, which is super cute. Her sleep has been off for a while, so I asked some experts (i.e. Moms Who Have Been Here Before) what could be causing that. Everyone said teeth were coming and boy, were they right. I'm sure it's not news to most of the universe, but jeez, teething sucks.

She hurts, poor little boopy, and we don't want to get her hooked on painkillers yet (how many droppers of Baby Tylenol does it take to make a junkie? Let me know...) but we don't want her to hurt more than is absolutely necessary (or at all). So we have a freezer full of frozen teethers, which she loves, and Daycare Lady told us about these marvelous little things called Teething Tablets that seem to help. I don't know what's in them. They're homeopathic, which means they probably contain ground-up rhinoceros horn and moose dust and God only knows what else, but she sees us coming with the bottle in our hands and she opens her mouth like a good little princess and she takes them with not a lot of drama.

That's really all that's going on. Her sleep is all jacked up and therefore ours is too. Night before last, she woke up and I slept through it and Rob evidently sleepwalked to her room, got her out of the crib, gave her a binky, and then he woke up in the rocker holding her. So that's not good. We're a little tired. But she's still amazing and wonderful. She's starting to babble more, and her favorite word (I'll call it a word because I'm mom and what I say goes...) is Mamamamamama and I love hearing that :).