Ava catch-up Part 2

Warning,
The following is more stuff about Ava. Read at your own risk.

The day before, I pushed Ava around Walmart and told her she could pick anything she wanted to give Dan for For Valentine's Day. She picked a chocolate apple with a gummy worm inside. She kept that secret right up until she saw him that night.

So the next night, as we exchanged our Valentine's, Ava presented Dan with the apple...

She was so excited because she picked it out herself. And she was so excited because she didn't realize that when she picked it, there was a worm inside.


Dan was generous enough to let her have the "snake". And then she was ecstatic! Immediatley he needed a home (the original box) and a bed (the plastic container from inside the box), a blanket (a paper towel), and jammas (a wipe wrapped tightly around him).

She spent a half an hour "putting him to bed" in her room, tucking and re-tucking him in, saying "sweet dreams", and lights out. Over and over and over.





The next night the snake had to accompany us out to Cici's Pizza for dinner. In his jammas, of course.

And the miracle of miracles is that with Ava's sweet tooth, that "snake" is still sleeping in her room.


A local mom's group I belong to often hosts playdates at a local gymnastic gym. The kids have a blast running around and playing on the equipment.





The gym also offers a mom and tot kind of class that we tried out a few weeks ago. Ava had a pretty fun time and I was pretty sure I was going to enroll her in the class. But I have been having second thoughts. Mostly because I am starting to think that swimming lessons might be a better investment. There is a really cool method that teaches even the tiniest of babies to survive in the water. Watch this video to see what I mean. A local swim club hear offers these kinds of classes. I'm still not sure how the prices compare but I also like the fact that Ava would get in the water by herself as opposed to me having to help her a lot with the gymnastics, which will only get harder for me as Luke gets bigger. And also, in the back of my mind I think that Ava's chances of staying small enough to keep up in gymnastics are slim to none. We'll see, I still need to do some research.

We've been working ( or maybe just thinking about working) on getting Ava to go to the potty by herself. She comes and tells me and then she's pretty good about going in and turning on the light, etc. In fact, she is actually fine until it comes the wiping, where she still requires help. Anyways, she has been going by herself and then running out where I am and telling me to "come see!". So I usually, follow her back in, and she runs ahead, right over to the the toilet and says, "TA-DA!" as she gestures towards her surprise. It cracks me up every time.

And it's no secret that Ava likes to be comfortable. But lately she has been getting so excited when we pull in the driveway, "We're here! We're here! I can wear my jammas now!" then as soon as she walks in the door she tosses everything she's holding (usually a baby and a sippy cup) straight up into the air and says "Yea! I can take off these clothes!". I have all but given up completely on making her wear her trendy jeans and shirts. I have resigned to letting her wear stretchy, cotton pants. I just pray that someday soon she'll outgrow this because elastic waste pants are not too cool.

Ava's prolific use of the word "actually" is usually right on target. "I need some more food, actually" or after she falls down, "I'm okay, actually"

She came to me a little while back asking me to teach her the "magic words". I have repeated the same words to her as I put her to sleep since she was 2 months old and one of her favorite pastimes is putting her babies to bed. So I taught her the "magic words" and she went on her way tucking in her babies and saying sweet little things in a hushed voice as she laid them in their beds.

A few days ago after she had been yelling while I was on the phone, I told her "When Mommy is on the phone, you need to be quiet." She got huffy and said, "I'm not quiet, I'm Ava!"

The end