Ava Turns 4!

Our sweet little girl is growing up!


I've heard before that kids grow the most during the Spring. It seems like Ava shot up in height, especially lately. She is no longer the pint-sized, Chipmunk-voiced toddler, but instead is now a smiley, dimple-cheeked, sweet, adorable little girl.

She had such an amazing birthday. We celebrated with her friends in the backyard, bubbles and balloons galore. She seemed to bask in the glow of her birthday that day. It was fun to watch!

I love to watch Ava play with other kids. She is very respectful of them, sometimes a ring-leader (in a good way..."Come on, guys! Let's go this way!") and takes care of the littlest ones so well. It's interesting... she will sometimes say "I'm going to be a little shy" when we go somewhere where she knows she will be playing with other kids (like McDonald's Playplace). I'm not sure where this came from. Of course as soon as she is "shy" and merges into a crowd of kids, she has an absolute blast; the shyness disappears.

Ava plays hard. She runs so fast! It amazes me how fast she is. I would consider her quite athletic. I really do need to get her enrolled in a gymnastics course of some sort. She is a gamer. She loves to play games like "Chutes and Ladders." She loves to dance to music, and likes hearing "Tonight's gonna be a good night!" ("I've Got a Feelin'") by the Black-Eyed Peas. She can sing in tune and LOVES to sing in the car.

Her world revolves around all things princessy and crafty. She loves to sit at the kitchen table for hours and do "crafts". Just give her some paper mache-like paper, tape, foam stickers and some crayons, and she's good to go. She always has a gift for someone in mind, and wants to make a craft to give to them. One day she asked for a few supplies. I looked over and she had put four princesses each on a separate page, taped one of her bracelets to each page to match the princess's dress, and added another girly item to each page. She color-coordinated all of these pages and wanted to give them to her friends. Quite thoughtful.

She likes to write her name. Up until a few months ago, she was writing "A's" as if they were circles with a horizontal line through them with two little legs sticking out. I didn't push the issue, her day care class started working on drawing letters and her "A's" now look like a standard "A". :-) At church a few Sundays back, our friend Melanie helped teach Little League. She mentioned that Ava wrote "Elise" on her paper, after the teacher had written Ava. Ava mentioned that her name was "Elise". Melanie knew her name was Ava, so she thought Ava was pretending to be "Elise" that day, until Ava mentioned that Elise was her last name. It was at that point that Melanie said "Oh! Elise is your middle name!" :-) There is another Ava in Ava's class at church (Ava Timberlake), so I'm sure Ava was probably trying to differentiate herself from Ava T....

She is learning to sound out words, and recognizes some of them when we read books. In the past she knew words by their shape. She is learning now to read words by putting the sound of the letters together. She knows how to spell Liam's name, as well, and is quick to write her name and Liam's on things.

Ava's favorite color: pink, purple and red
Ava's favorite food: wide egg noodles with parmesan cheese
Ava's favorite movie: Barbie Mermaid Tale (I'm guessing)
Ava's favorite thing to do: play outside / do crafts (actibalees, as she calls them)
Ava's favorite place to go: Monkey Joe's (an inflatable jump kids' place)
Ava's favorite word: Actually (we hear her say this a lot)

She likes to help around the house. She especially likes to clean the windows and dust. She has a little envelope with a few dollars in it that she has earned. She wants to save up for a pair of Sketcher shoes that she saw recently, so I told her she can do more chores, if she would like. She seems anxious at the thought of opportunity and doesn't seem to begrudge it.

The kids have been in day care since April 12. I think they're really enjoying it. Ava hasn't gone into the next classroom (Mrs. Barb's classroom) with the other kids her age, since she's been back. She talks about a boy named Owen and in talking with Ava, it sounded like she might be scared of him. When I talked with Ava's teachers about it, they just laughed. They said that Owen is a nice boy and that he really likes Ava. Go figure. Ava does seem intimidated by bigger kids. I told Ava that kids will probably learn to read sooner in Mrs. Barb's classroom. I mentioned that maybe we can make cupcakes or bring a treat into Ms. Ashley's classroom (her current classroom) on Friday and then bring them into Mrs. Barb's classroom (Owen's classroom) on Monday. She thought it was a great idea. I told her that she could just let us know when she wants to go into Mrs. Barb's classroom. I didn't want to push her, but do want her to be learning things with other kids her age. What happened the next day? She asked the teachers if she could go into Mrs. Barb's classroom. Go figure. So we will be making cupcakes tonight, to take to Ms. Ashley's classroom tomorrow. :-)

Ava has been spooked by the movie "Wizard of Oz" recently. Please note that I am not tormenting her with this movie. I bought it, considering it a classic, thinking we would pull it out a few years from now. Ava was RELENTLESS in asking if she could watch it. Seriously. I told her I thought it would be pretty scary. She said she would just snuggle with me if she got scared. SEVEN requests-to-watch-the-movie later, I gave in. The witch scared her. She seemed fine when we watched it, but now we have a witch in our house somewhere. Ugh. This has caused sleepless nights for Doug and myself, as Ava comes downstairs and wants to sleep in our bed. Our queen-sized not-big-enough-for-three bed. We've since decided we get better sleep (all of us) if Ava sleeps on a blanket on the floor next to our bed (if she wakes up, that is). Hopefully she grows out of this phase soon. (I remember being spooked by some Saturday Shocker movie when I was younger, too). I brought Ava's scare up to the doc at her four-year appointment. The doctor mentioned that we can get some magical spray that gets rid of anything bad in the room. :-) So, last night, for the first time, we used some spray. Somehow I think it called more attention to what Ava shouldn't have been thinking about (she ended up in our room), so we'll see how we move forward in using the spray.

Last night when I tucked Ava in, it was one of those nights I wish I could've caught on tape. Every second. She was so sweet. Every night, when I lay with her (lately because of the "scare" factor), I wait until she is asleep and quietly fall (you moms know what I'm talking about) one appendage at a time (while my head remains on the pillow), out of her bed. Before doing so, I tell her that I hope she can do and be whatever she wants when she grows up, because she is so smart, beautiful, sweet and loved. Last night, I told her this when she was still awake. She said that when she grows up, she wants to be a mommy like me and cook things like me when she grows up. (My heart melted when she said this!) She also mentioned that she wants to be tall. I told her that she is just the right size for her age, and that the doctor told us that at her appointment, too. I said that she will grow. She said that it's taking a long time. I told her that she will grow until she is around 18 and then won't grow much after that (like Mommy and Daddy). She asked if I am still growing. I told her I wasn't and that Daddy was done growing, too. She then mentioned something about being scared in bed. I told her that Liam was there right near her and that I used to share a room with Aunt Sherry when we were little. She asked if Aunt Sherry was done growing. I told her yes. Ava said "But Daymian and Jordan aren't done growing, are they?" I told her that they were still growing. We went on to talk about fields of pink flowers with ponies that had rainbow hair. We said we were going to run through the fields of flowers together giggling, in dreams.

She is very opinionated about her wardrobe. She doesn't really like long-sleeved outfits or sweaters. She chooses dresses over pants / shorts and doesn't seem to like jeans as much. She does dress according to the weather. We watch the news / weather forecast and let her know if it is going to be hot or cold. If it's warm, she will decide on shorts or a dress. She does dress herself every day. She wears size 4T, for the most part and size 10 shoes. She is a princess. She likes wearing her hair in a pony-tail most days, I think because my hair always ends up in a pony-tail. (She's mentioned before that she wants a pony-tail just like Mommy's). When she comes out of the bathroom, after her hair is done, Doug always tells her "You look like a million bucks!" and she will smile.

She hasn't had an accident (potty-wise) this year, as far as I can remember. We no longer wake her up at night for her to go to the bathroom before we go to bed. She sleeps from 9 p.m.ish to 7 a.m.ish. She's normally our early riser.

Lately the things she eats have been somewhat limited. Since Spring started, though, she is eating more of a variety as I think she's more hungry from playing so hard outside. She will eat her veggies if we tell her she should, but sometimes she will fight our food choices (meats, in particular). In the past I really was adamant that she had to eat what we gave her. Now, I realize sometimes it isn't worth the fight, and that she will eventually eat it if she is hungry enough. I realize it is harder for both kids to eat their "good food" if a treat follows after dinner, if one blows through dinner and the other one is slower in eating dinner. Par for the course, I guess.

She and Liam do play very well together. I love to hear them giggling together (my favorite sound). The other night Liam would run to her and say "huck, huck!" and give Ava a big hug while she sat in a chair. Adorable. They giggled. They will often fight over the same toy (amongst the million toys in our house). She likes to ride her scooter outside with Matthew and play in the creek with him, which surprised me. She likes to draw on the sidewalk with chalk outside with her buddies, making pathways on which she walks. She did hit every wall in the living room with a pencil in January, I think. She kept asking me for paper but I think I was attending to Liam's needs. Thank goodness for Mr. Clean magic erasers.

She is very social, but not around strangers. She likes to help me plant things in the garden and cook or bake. When she helps me bake, she can turn on the hand-mixer and mix something in a bowl all by herself. She seems to do this very naturally. She is a thinker. She will come up with a question about something out of the blue, about how something works. When I ask her what she thinks about it, she will eventually come up with the answer on her own. She goes between being Daddy's girl and Mommy's girl. Which is quite alright with me. :-)

Peace, love and sweet dreams,
Shelly, Doug, Ava (still growing) and Liam (still growing)