It has been so fun to watch Ava's personality develop, especially over the past few months. She "talks" non-stop now, and seems to understand quite a bit of what we say. We gave up on the sign-language thing, as Ava seemed to understand the word / say the word before we could teach the sign to her.
Her vocabulary now includes the following words and phrases. This may look like quite a few words, but she doesn't say them phoenitically correct or anything, we just know what she's trying to say (so truck might be "trruh").
Mama (and Mommy, occasionally)
Dad-da (and Daddy, occasionally)
Hi
Bye (and Bye-bye)
Wow
No
Yay!
Uh-oh
Bath (bah)
Ba-ba (drink)
Baby
Shoe (shoe)
Mmmm (yum)
Cow
Car
Truck
Bus (bah - she points to school buses when they drive by)
Vroom Vroom (when she sees a car)
Dog
woof-woof (when we ask what a doggie says)
Duck
Quack-quack
Ooh-ooh-ooh (when we ask what a monkey says, or when she sees a banana)
Ball
Balloon (bah)
Yuck (kuh)
Fish (she has only said this a handful of times)
Love you (she said this ONCE...)
Please (she said this only ONCE, too)
She likes to spin in circles when dancing and listening to music. She also has this crazy hand-motion thing she does when listening to music, now. (I will try to get it on video if possible). She is often overcome with pure joy and squeals / grins with "twinkling" eyes. If she is in her car seat, she will (almost) violently shake her head from side to side, to dance with the music. While sitting in her car seat, she almost always finds a way to remove her sandals from her feet, or a bow from her hair.
She is currently cutting a mouthful of teeth! All four of her one-year molars are coming in simultaneously. She seems to be handling it pretty well. While in MI, she was cutting the first two on the first two days we were there. After a fever of 101.5 and some crankiness, she made it through.
We stopped giving the pacifier to Ava last week. She has done well without it. On a few car rides since, we've noticed she will suck on her fingers or thumb. She's never done this, so we're thinking it's because she's missing her pacifier. Yesterday I gave her a pacifier before her afternoon nap, as I could tell she was in some teething pain. She was CHEWING on it like there was no tomorrow, so I think it will be okay to give it to her only when teething in extreme.
We take Ava to a neighboring sub-division pool, which she now seems to enjoy. She enjoys being held by Mommy or Daddy or floating around in her baby raft. She likes to watch people jump off the diving boards, too.
Sunday night before bed, while shopping at the grocery store, five people must've come up to us while we were on a shopping trip, to say hello to Ava. This was BEFORE we even made it to the check-out line. She (loudly) babbled her way through the entire grocery store last night. She is ever-so-social in public, waving "hi" and "bye", saying hello / bye-bye to complete strangers. When they get close, she might get a bit shy, but enjoys waving and greeting them from a distance.
Doug and I had a scare last weekend. We had the doors to the bathroom and our bedroom closed, as Ava likes to run literal "circles" around our house (and because we have yet to officially baby-proof our bathroom cabinets), the stairway gates were locked, and all doors leading to the outside were closed and locked. Doug and I were in the kitchen, and didn't see Ava anywhere. We then freaked-out because we yelled her name and she didn't come to us. We went around the house for a good minute, saying her name, trying to find her. At first I didn't think anything of it, but when she didn't answer, I started to get concerned. Doug found her hiding on the floor, between a chair and the fireplace hearth, playing with my cell phone. She knew that if we knew where she was, we would take the phone away from her. When she saw us, she started crying. I'm not sure if it was because she was caught red-handed, or because we scared her with the tone of our voices. :-)
This week, Doug was in the driveway putting his lunch / coffee, etc in his truck before work. Ava stood on her little tip-toes, leaned on the lever handle and opened the door to the stairway. Fortunately, at the time, I was close, watching and curious to see if she knew how to open the door. She does!?! So, I guess we will need to now lock the door when either Doug or I walk down the stairs for anything little thing!
When at the beach condo over Memorial Day weekend, Doug and I were getting ready in the bathroom, when we asked each other where Ava was. Both of our responses were: "I thought you had her". :( Keep in mind it wasn't 20 seconds since I last saw her. Walking (okay, running) out of the bathroom, I noticed the front door of our SIXTH FLOOR condo was open. Oy-yoy-yoy. I looked outside the door and saw Ava running, about 30 feet down the hallway. Unbelievable. I'm not sure if it was Ava or Will Flanigan who opened the door, but either way, you can see we can't take our eyes off her for one second... Please don't report us to Children's Protective Services yet... :-) I'm sure every parent has a story like this one, if not many stories...
She likes to color with crayons, although her attention span coloring on one page is somewhat short right now. I'm not sure if she is constantly on the go / moving around because of her teeth / gums, right now, or if it is just this age. Probably both. The last few nights, she will NOT sit still. I'm sure this restlessness is due to her sore gums. She holds the crayon with her RIGHT hand, making Mommy proud, leaving Daddy (the "lefty") shaking his head in disbelief. She now likes to feed herself with a fork and spoon. Regardless of what is on the fork or spoon, she eats it because she feels like a "big girl".
She now runs everywhere. When it's time to brush her teeth / hair / change, etc, we have to chase her around the house. She's getting pretty fast! She loves to slide at the park, and can climb up some things with practice. Fortunately she's not yet much of a climber at our house (she doesn't realize she can climb up on the couch, chairs, etc). I'm sure those days are ahead of us, though.
Her little giggle is entirely infectious. It melts your heart to hear her cackling away.
When walking through Target's toy area yesterday, you would've thought Ava struck gold. She was squealing / smiling / grabbing for every toy on the shelf. Ironically, we ended-up buying a plastic formula dispenser that Doug or I didn't put in the cart... We didn't realize this until we got home. SOMEONE must've thought we needed it, though! :-)
Ava seems to thrive on schedules and all things predictable. She wakes up at 7 a.m. every day and goes to sleep at 8 p.m. at night, and stays down for the night. While on vacation or out later, she goes right down for the night when we place her in her own pack-and-play or crib. She loves to brush her teeth in the morning while standing on the counter. She hates to have her nails / toenails trimmed. She hates to have her mouth wiped after meals.
She still loves her baby pancakes, bananas, yogurt, frozen "go-gurt", strawberries, graham crackers, pasta, sandwiches, cheese quesadillas, peanut butter on toast. I'm constantly mindful of what she is eating, as I am trying to be conscious about keeping her food horizons as broad as possible. I am adamant that our kid won't be the "chicken nugget" kid, eating only chicken nuggets. So far, she seems to eat whatever we put in front of her, although she might not like one thing on a particular day (although she will eat that same item the next day). I'm just trying to keep it fresh every day, which is hard to do!
Ava loves Jesus. :-) She likes to give him a big kiss when she sees "Baby's First Bible". Ava also loves her "Tickle Me Elmo", but she would rather pick him up and hug him. This makes it awkward when Elmo is trying to throw himself down on the floor, while Ava is trying to carry him somewhere. It's pretty funny to watch.
She is learning exponentially now. It's so fun to watch!
With love,
Shelly
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