Ava's day with Daddy

9 months & 4 weeks

Last weekend we attended a baby shower for a couple of friends of ours who are expecting in July. We took Ava with us and we had a great time. Ava was a doll but wouldn't let anyone hold her. She would flirt with everyone and be all smiley and cute from my arms, but wasn't going to let anyone else hold her, not even dad. At one point the hostess was taking pictures and Ava literally posed for pictures. This child knows a camera when she sees one and she is not shy either! Everyone was laughing at how she got up close and posed for her picture.

Now that it's summer and she's had so much fun with little Kate in the pool, we decided to get her a baby pool of her own. Yesterday we put it in the front yard so she and I could play while daddy worked on some of the plants. She splished and splashed and yelled for daddy to look at her for a good 45 minutes. Finally I took her out thinking she was probably bored and she squirmed to get down on the ground, so I put her down in the grass and she crawled across the yard and climbed back into her baby pool! We were both cracking up! I couldn't believe that A) she loves it that much and B) she was able to get in it on her own!

We spend a lot of time playing in her room during the day and I've started playing "Mama's gonna get you" where I crawl after her really slowly. She loves this game and squeals while she crawls away from me as fast as she can. Then she'll pull up on something and turn to see me still coming, squeal, giggle and get down and crawl away some more. Sometimes she'll crawl behind something and hide her face thinking I can't see her because she can't see me. Then when I get her I tickle her and shower her with kisses while she squeals and giggles. We have so much fun!

One thing I've never mentioned before is her love for books. Every day she goes to her bookshelf and pulls all of her books off. One by one she chunks them on the floor. Then she'll sit down and start turning all of the pages. Her two favorite books for us to read her are "I love you through and through" and "Biscuit has a picnic" She never gets tired of them. I am so tired of picking up those darn books off the floor every day though. Sometimes her room is just a disaster because I am too tired to do it.

Some new developments this week. She can stand with no hands! We also noticed that Ava is so good in the car now (knock on wood). She hardly ever fusses in her seat and when we look back she's always playing, talking, sleeping or drinking her bottle. We are so excited about this! What a good girl! I guess she's figured out that we are still there, we're going to get her out, and we haven't strapped her down and gone to Alaska. The other new thing she's started is that at night I put her in her crib and she watches her aquarium for a minute, crawls over to turn it off and then rolls over and goes to sleep. oooh they grow so fast but each development is so exciting and fun to watch.

Now that she's teething again, she loves her pacifier

9 months & 3 weeks- Ava's 1st pool party!

Ava had a pool party playdate on Thursday with her little friend Kate. What cutie patooties they were! They had so much fun splashing around and the dogs were super excited about the Huge new water bowl in the yard. Kate has two beagles at home so luckily she is used to dogs. When the dogs decided to assault her with licky loo's she sat there quietly and giggled. It was too cute! After the girls got bored in the pool we took them inside and let them play in Ava's room. They were exhausted and Kate fell right to sleep on the ride home and Ava went took a nice long nap!

I'm innocent mom I sware!

Doodlebug is standing by herself with no hands now. She is still fighting her naps but sleeping awesome at night. When I put her in her crib now I turn on her little aquarium and watch her. She walks up to her aquarium and watches it for a little bit and then she'll push the button to turn it off and lay down and go to sleep.

Steve and I have spent the last couple of weekends on the front flowerbeds. They look so much better than they did before. Will post pictures later.

Ava loved playing in the grass while we worked. We had to remove dirt and rocks from her pretty quickly before she shoved them in her mouth though!

bop bop bop...

Ava's new "word" for the week

"BOP"

She says this from the minute she wakes up to the minute she goes to sleep. All day long we hear bop bop bop bop bop bop BaaaaaawwPPP. She will be falling asleep and suddenly she'll pop up and start up again with bop bop bop bop. Silly girl...she's so proud of her new word she needs to practice it a LOT!

40 weeks- dada, gaga, ca, baba

Ava has added several new words to her vocabulary. In addition to dada she's also saying gaga, baba and ca. She takes turns as to which word is her favorite for the day. We love to hear her saying all of her new words. Every day I wake up and see her and it's like I can tell she is another day older. This morning I was playing with her and realized that she is almost like a toddler now. She's standing up and saying words to me and it's clear she understands most of what we're saying to her.She loves to roam free through the house and you have to keep an eye on her because she'll be out of your sight in a second! Of course she doesn't want to be too far away because if she notices you aren't paying attention she says "huh huh!" to get your attention and make you look at her. Grandmother plays this game with her where she'll pretend to be asleep and Ava will crawl up to her and slap her leg and say "huh!" until grandmother opens her eyes. Some of her new things this week that she enjoys is flushing the toilet, drinking water out of mommy's straw and hitting mommy in the face with a ball. We are still working on that no hitting thing. Last week I put a pair of keds on Ava while she was outside on the driveway in her walker. As soon as I put them on her she was fascinated with these strange things I put on her feet. She kept pulling her feet up to her face so she could check them out. Then I would stand her up and she would look down at her feet like "what are those things!" Now whenever she sees shoes she tries to put them on her feet! It's so cute! She even tried to put Grandmothers shoes on the other day. LOL.

The best thing ever is when Ava is playing with Steve and I walk in the room and she gets a big smile on her face, stops what she's doing, and speed crawls over to me while squealing. I just love it! She does this to Steve when he gets home from work every day. We love watching her express her joy just to see her mommy or daddy.

So Irene and I figured out that Steve isn't very good at relaying messages. Every day she tells Steve a rundown of the day and all the cute things Ava did that day. Each day I come home and ask Steve "what did Irene say" and he always says "nothing" or "oh she napped and drank her bottles" Like I didn't know that already because Irene writes down all of her meals, naps and diapers for us. So she called me on Wednesday at work and gave me the rundown. We decided that she would tell Steve the exact same thing and see if he relays the message. So Irene told Steve that Ava tried putting her shoes on that day, and to watch her left eye because it had been watering a lot. So I get home and ask Steve the usual "what did Irene say today" and he said "nothing she took her naps and drank her bottles" I said "that's it?" and he said "yeah that's it" AGGH!! Can you believe that! Men!!!

She's a spirited girl

Today Steve and I took Ava for her 9 month check up. We weren't nervous since she had no shots this time. We knew she would get a blood test though to check her for anemia. Steve said he would like to punch them in the face when they prick her foot. A little overprotective??

Anyway we went to the lab first and she was so busy playing with the tongue depresser she didn't even notice they pricked her toe and were squeezing blood from it. She didn't make a peep, just stared at her new colorful bandaid and wanted to take it off her toe and eat it. Once we got into the exam room she did get it off her toe and ended up getting blood spots all over the the little book she was looking at. The book belonged to the doctors office so they had to toss it...oops!

Anyway Dr. Finnila said she was quite a "spirited" little girl because she was all over the place clapping her hands, talking and wouldn't sit still. She did sit still long enough to let the doc to listen to her heart. She still has the heart murmur but Dr. Finnila still doesn't think it's worrisome at this point. She had another doctor come in and take a listen too and they concurred. We also found out that her two top teeth are on their way in just under the gums. They should be making an appearance within the next couple of months.

Here are her stats:

Weight: 18lbs 9oz 40%

Height: 28 3/4 in. 75%

Head Circ: 17 1/4 in 30%

I was just thinking on the car ride that I was excited that Ava would be able to start facing forward in the car in several short months. Then she would be happy because she could see the world. Then we got in the dr's office and found out that they are now recommending toddlers stay rear facing until they are 2 years old. I'm thinking oh great another year of listening to Ava fuss in the backseat because she can't see anything. Whatever is safest for our doodlebug though!

39 weeks- Dada is a winner

Okay so this week we are certain that Ava said Dada and meant it. 3 times she has seen Steve, said "dada" and started crawling to him. Of course she says it when he's not around too, but I think she just likes practicing her new word. We aren't totally convinced yet that she associates it with her daddy, but we think she might! Steve said he read that babies say the name of whoever they love the most first, so she must love him best. He thinks he's so funny...

Doodle is also learning what the word "no" means. One of her favorite things to do is to slap other people in the face, especially mommy. She'll slap me and then pull back and wait on my reaction, so I've started saying "Ava No" and pulling her hands away. She gets upset when we say no and starts crying. Today she slapped me a few times and each time I said "no" and she pulled her hands together and started clapping them together really slow like "what about this, can I do this?" and I would praise her and say "yes clap your hands together, not on mommy's face". She got a kick out of that and laughed. I think she's starting to get it. It's so hard to resist that cute little face pucker, bottom lip out and bottom teeth showing thing that she does, but I can't have her slapping everyone she sees. As you know she's already roughed up a couple of other babies.

This week she is still removing anything she can find from any container she can find. She's removed all of the mail from the computer desk, sorted the laundry, removed every single book from her book case and thrown all of her old clothes and blankets (that were folded nicely before she got to them) on the floor.

She is also back to being a good eater. She's eating more finger foods and actually devouring her vegetables these days! I steamed up a bag of mixed veggies and put them on her tray and she ate them like candy. She absolutely loves yogurt and puffs, her two favorite foods in the whole world. Also a big fan of ritz crackers. She has moved her awake time in the mornings from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. almost on the nose. It's amazing the internal clock babies have isn't it?

Okay so I said I would try cloth diapers for a few weeks and post a "review". I've been putting them on her at night and almost anytime I'm home with her.

Pros

• better for baby's skin and NO diaper rash
• much better for the environment
• No stinky diaper pail
• CHEAPER!
• Nice to open the dryer and have a whole new set of diapers without having to run to the store and spend $20 on diapers that will last me a week.
• They come in cute colors.
• They are pretty easy to get on and off of her.
• Never run out of diapers.
• force you to change her more often, as they don't hold a days worth of pee like pampers do.

Cons

• Grandmother and Steve hate them
• They leak if you don't change her every couple of hours or double up the liners (she's a heavy wetter)
• When she has mushy poops the removal of the poop from the diaper is pretty disgusting
• assembly of the diaper and liner again once you get them out of the dryer
• They are pretty bulky and give her J. Lo booty.
• You can't wash them with your regular old liquid soap, gotta get tide powder and run them through a rinse cycle first, which can be a pain if you are short on time.

So my final decision is that I like them okay but don't think I can convert to them full-time.