A World of Awesome

OMG, Ava has a playroom.  

Every little girl dreams of having her own wine fridge, right?  Yeah, whatever.  It's a perfect surface for her magnet spinning gear thingies.  The intended purpose of this room is, I believe, for it to be a "breakfast nook".  What?  What the hell kind of waste of space is that?  It's the PERFECT size for a little girl to be able to spread out everything she owns in this world.  Seriously, very happy about this space.  

This is our patio.  It runs the width of the house, and it is loverly.  It faces south, so there's plenty of sunshine.  And it's all fancy and arched, like a villa.  Awesome.

We moved from the northwest part of town to the southwest, so our main views now all face south.  This is the view from our bedroom windows.   Awesome.

This is facing northwest, toward Red Rock Canyon (google it, it's gorgeous).  If we ever get the guest bedroom finished, any guest in residence will see this:

Awesome.

So throughout all this, we've realized that our little tiny baby girl is not so little or tiny.  We put her crib together like so...

..but it's become pretty clear that she's old enough, and ready, to not be confined to a crib.  We think.  We could be wrong.

Hex wrenches are the devil's tools.

And here we are.  Awww.

The comforter was a gift from Auntie Kim and her family, and I'm so happy that we finally get to use it.  Her mom made it for Ava.  It's very warm and soft, and it has butterflies and a ladybug, which are Ava's favorite things in the world.

Just because she's not penned into her bed doesn't mean that we're insane.

She seemed pretty happy when she saw her new bed.

She knew just what to do.

Ava Be Two!

For the sake of posterity:

• Birthday breakfast was homemade blueberry pancakes.  Everyone was late to work and school, and it was totally worth it.
• When you take a box of funfetti cake mix and a tub of lard-based frosting to daycare, they will make and serve cupcakes to the birthday girl and everyone in the class.  WIN.
• Rob's in Portland as of this afternoon, so we went to dinner with Grams&Gramps at Macayo Vegas, where I have eaten my entire life (we actually went to the newest location, not the one at the corner of East Charleston and South Crackho Blvd. where we went when I was a kid...).  Macayo serves Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, so Ava has deemed it an acceptable alternative to dining at home.
• Some presents happened this morning, but the bulk will happen on Saturday, when we will officially observe Ava's birthday (much in the same way the Queen observes her own birthday months later when the weather's nicer).  Family, friends, and classmates will be gathering at the local children's museum, where they do every. single. bit. of party prep and clean-up, which means that everybody (esp. me) wins.

This is what Two looks like at our house:

Happy birthday, boopy.

A Very Important Day.

Today, Ava went peepee in the potty. In recognition of this auspicious occasion, we present a (completely unrelated) video, in which Ava wants to put on her Boogie Shoes.



Little girl likes her disco.

Wordplay

We are now, officially, very very very very very careful about what we say in Ava's presence. Our little parrot is quite possibly the Smartest Child Ever, and she is developing quite the vocabulary. She understands a lot of what we say, and if she hears a word she recognizes (like, oh, I don't know, BINKY...) then she will repeat it and demand that whatever that word represents be handed to her immediately.

Right.

So here's what she says, unprompted:

• Go go go
• Binky (actually this one is often BINKYBINKYBINKYBINKYYYYYYYYYYYYY)
• Snack
• Sink? (when she's done with her snack and it's time to put her cup and bowl on the counter)
• Shoooooooooooes
• Socks
• Jacket
• Jesus Christ! (evidently she has found religion; the fact that she says this has NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WHATSOEVER with the fact that she rides in the car with me for 90 minutes a day)
• Elmo (ugh)
• Abby (as in Cadabby, which is OK)
• Minnie (as in Mouse, which is starting to bug)
• Oh NOOOO! (complete with Munch-like hands-to-face gesture)
• What's this?
• Milk
• Cow/Moooooooooo (these are evidently interchangeable)
  

There's more, but you get the idea. Except for the Son of God (don't judge me...) most of it involves food, fashion and accessories, or what's on television.

That's my girl :)

...and a spare moment presents itself

Rob started traveling for his job last week. He'd gone out of town before, just for a day, I think, to Reno. But last week was the first Big Trip, which we'd all said we'd be OK about. And we were OK. But, damn, it's hard to split up like that. We take for granted the rhythm we develop when we know there's someone else helping keep it together every day. Sure, we have the fabled Routines, and the stuff that we know gets done at a certain time each day. But now we're dealing with a full-on hardcore toddler (srsly) and the routine sometimes falls prey to the whims of someone who cannot yet Use Her Words. Ack.

But we (all of us) survived last week. Rob was gone Sunday night through Friday night. God bless Southwest Airlines, which allows for the easy switching of flights, from, say, one from Portland with a layover in Sacramento that ultimately gets delayed to the point where the connection would be a moo point (anyone watch Friends? you know what I'm saying there...) to a nonstop PDX-LAS that leaves in 45 minutes that you can justbarelymake but it's OK because you bought Business Select (best spent twenty bucks in the travel industry).

He's on his way back to Portland tonight (delayed, actually, but it says it's boarding rightthisminute so that's good) and will be back Tuesday. We'll survive.

So to catch up....

Easter looked like this:


...and it was perfect.

Ava had her FIFTEEN MONTH OMG SHE'S FIFTEEN MONTHS checkup on Friday. She's 30-1/4 inches tall, 23.1 pounds. If childhood physical development had a bell curve (which it totally does...) she would be right smackdab in the middle, at the highest point, where Average resides. Awesome.

She knows so many words. Tonight, she helped me pick up her toys before bedtime. She smiles and giggles and waves and dances and oh, oh how she glares at you when she is displeased. Yikes. The condemnation she can conjure up is quite alarming (no idea where she gets that...).

Things are good. We're scrambling to maintain some semblance of sanity, and I think we succeed most of the time.

Go Go Bye

This is one of those times where my failure to adequately maintain a baby book past February 2009 is blatantly obvious, because where else would I possibly document such a milestone? Right.

This morning, Ava made a sentence. And she was very definitive about it. She meant what she said. I knew she meant it, because she was pointing at the time, and pointing means that she is totally serious.

So, we're gathering up to leave this morning. She has had her first breakfast (she's our little Hobbit: First Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Elevensies (snack, for the rest of us), Lunch, Second Snack, First Dinner, and Second Dinner) and she's out of her booster chair. We're both kind roaming around, picking stuff up that we're taking with us. I grab my purse and my go-cup of coffee. She grabs her jacket and her go-cup of water. She looks at me, points (so I know she is serious) and she says, "Go go bye" and then her pointing finger becomes a waving hand.

"Why yes," I say, "We are indeed leaving now. I'm glad you are ready." and we walk together to the car.

Such a big girl.

Our cups runneth over.

We're blessed. We know we are. We have jobs (although the terms of mine are currently the subject of discussion at a special session of the legislature), our bills are paid, our house is warm (insulated, I imagine, by the stuff on all of the counters and tables...) and we are healthy (unless you count colds). At the end of each crazy day, Rob and I look at each other and say it out loud, how lucky we are.

Ava is a little girl. Not a baby, not even a little bit, anymore. She knows more words than she says and her personality is really coming through. This morning I went in to wake her up, and she looked at me like "WHA?", handed me her monkey, and pulled the blanket over her head. That's my kid all right ;). We're working with Daycare to transition her to the Toddler Room. She is down to one bottle a day (right before bed) and she's losing interest in that pretty quickly. She can walk all the way from the car to her classroom. In the Toddler Room she will eat her meals at a table, instead of in a high chair. She'll nap on a cot instead of a crib. They have two hours a day of outside play (weather permitting...) which she is going to LOVE.

She's so big. I look at her on the rare occasions that she falls asleep in my arms, and I can only see glimpses of the baby she used to be. She's stretching out, so the rolls of little chub on her legs are going away (booooooo...). She is going to be a handful, I think. Already, she makes it clear when her world isn't what she wishes it to be. She doesn't like too many people, so we're watching her carefully as she moves from the familiar team of Daycare Ladies to a new group. She'll be OK, I know. But we will need to help her learn how to be OK and stay OK.

Right now, I have 3 close friends (you know who you are, ladies) in various stages of pregnancy. It's so cool to be on this side of it, like I'm in on a secret. It's such a big deal. One will have her baby next week (!!!! so excited!!!) and we can't wait to meet him. Seeing my friends go through this after having done it myself makes me realize that no, we're not ready to do it again. I'll say that again in case you missed it: no, we're not ready to do it again. Not yet. It's too big. We're good with where we are right now.

"So, is Ava walking yet?"

Watch volume--there's a bit of squealing and "Oh my God!"-ing on this one.



Why yes, yes she is walking.

364 Days

Tomorrow is Ava's first birthday.

Later this week, I'll post pictures from her party this weekend and talk about how much fun we had and how wonderful it was to celebrate with our friends and family.

Right now, it's about where this last year has taken us. At 11:00PM on January 11, 2009, Ava decided that it was time for things to happen and things have been happening every moment since that moment. I recently came across the little outfit that she wore home from the hospital, the one with the strawberry pattern and the little hat, the one that was so big on her. It's so small; I remember thinking as we put it on her, how will she ever grow to fit into this great big suit?

I remember wrapping her in a blanket that was doubled up because otherwise there was too much blanket and not enough baby, and then laying her down in the crib, and there was so much crib around her. And she was this little soft pink burrito in this great big crib.

I remember how long a 2-ounce bottle used to take at 4 in the morning, and how we wrote down every feeding for three months in the pink journal that I will keep for my entire life.

I remember how long 3 months of maternity seemed to be as it loomed ahead of me as I left work on that last day, and wondering how I would pass the time and thinking that maybe I'd get really good at Guitar Hero before I had to go back to work.

I remember watching Ava sleep, and knowing that I should try to sleep too, but how can I put her down when she's making all these cute little faces and she's so snuggly and I can sleep later.

I write this down because I won't remember all of it forever, and I want to make sure it doesn't disappear, because it's so precious.

We have spent 364 days getting to know this amazing little girl, and watching her figure out the world around her. We laugh because she laughs, we cry because she cries, we wake up because she wakes up, we love because she loves. It's amazing. It's exhausting, sure, but it's amazing. We're better people because we have someone watching us and learning from us.

Happy birthday, Ava. It's been the best year ever, and it's only the beginning. Let's go look at the world and see what we can see.

Whoever invents these toys is my hero.

Watch, as Ava amuses herself for six entire minutes.




Awesome.

Earlier tonight, we watched Cinderella together. She danced to the Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo song and clapped when it was over.

Oh hey look, on Christmas Eve at my dad's house? She climbed the steps.




Such a big girl!

We have words!

There is much rejoicing, as Ava's first words were not related in any way to the 90 minutes a day we spend in the car together and the morons with whom we share the roads!

Ball.  She said ball.  Actually, she said "baw", but she was pointing at a ball when she said it, so it counts.  Because it's close enough, and she meant what she said.  She was talking about that ball, right there.  So, as you can plainly and unmistakeably see (because you just said "baw" out loud to test weather it qualifies as "ball"), a word was spoken.

We also hear Mama and Dada a lot.  And they're not just random sounds anymore.  When she says them, she looks for us.  When she hears Rob talk from the other room, she says "Dada" and squeals. And it's adorable.

Smartest. baby. ever.

Halloween 2009

The Force is strong in this one.


Halloween turned out to be pretty uneventful, which turned out to be OK with us. Our trick-or-treating plans fell through so we went over to Dad&Florence's for pizza and then came home and went to bed. It seems that two of us are too old and one of us is too young to really get into Halloween right now. We'll try again next year.

Ava had her 9 month check up a couple of weeks ago. She's 21 pounds, 27 inches, and is growing just like she should. She's all over the place, so when she's awake, we are generally involved in some sort of surveillance and pursuit. She did get a flu shot, but the H1N1 shot is elusive. I don't know that we'll have the opportunity to get that for her, and I'm not too thrilled about that. I'm a big believer in vaccines, and while I'd be unhappy if I got H1N1 myself, I'd be devastated if she came down with it. We're being super careful about handwashing and basic hygiene--that's generally a good way to avoid getting sick. Daycare sanitizes everything every day in her classroom, and they keep the little kids away from the bigger kids, so we're hoping that helps her stay safe. Ugh. I'll be glad when this flu season is behind us.

She eats what we eat, and I love that. This morning, we all sat down to breakfast and we all had pancakes and sausage. She can feed herself--I think she prefers to, actually. So whatever we're eating, we break it up into little bits and put it on her tray. She takes it from there

The holiday season is officially upon us, I suppose. This year, she's mostly indifferent to anything that doesn't directly happen to her, so anything we do, we do for our benefit and for the purposes of pictures. So we weren't too upset when we ended up being home early last night. We'll be in San Diego for Thanksgiving and home for Christmas. And I think we're going to keep it all as low-key as we can for as long as we can. Next year, all bets are off.

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 :).