Parenting

I find joy everyday in being a parent.
Ava has a new phrase I love hearing.
"You're welcome"!!!

Yesterday Phil and I asked ourselves an important question "Are we good parents". Then I tried to think, what made my parents so freaking awesome? What were the memories I had, what boundaries did I have growing up?

My fondest memories were family traditions, picking out our Halloween pumpkins at Bates Nut Farm, Christmas with the whole family and Easter egg hunts in my Grandmother's backyard and the wind up toys that were brought out each year.

I also enjoyed going to the mall with my parents after church or driving home and listening to the radio show on KPBS...Home Companion or something like that. And watching the three stooges.

Another favorite was the country drives (well, country for southern Cali) we would take through Julian, and out to Burr ego Desert or to the Dam by Temecula.

As I'm going through the memories, I notice how almost none of them are about TV.
We don't let Ava watch TV too often but it makes me realize that maybe I should start walking again in the evenings or take her to the park once a week or something.


I had some very poor planning this week, with also a bunch of things happening ( Phil was in the hospital again, I was super sick and landed in the doctors office twice) and Easter just didn't happen this year.

I want to be a good parent and a fun parent. I love Ava so much. Not that there shouldn't be bad times growing up I want Ava to have fun.

My baby

My baby is growing up so quickly! I love her so much.
She is so amazing everything she does just astounds me.
She picks up on all that we say and all that we do. Even little things that we don't think about.
She now says "E" "O" for "E, I, E, I, O" from "Old McDonald had a farm".
She thinks it one of the funnest things ever.
She also says "Oh wow" "Oh no" and "Oh my". She copies a lot of the things I say. If she can't repeat all the words she chooses the ones she thinks are important. She is putting together two and three word sentences.
Everynight we say "Ni-night" to Me-Ma's pictures. We blow kisses and say "Love you". She is huggy and snuggly. I love her so much.

Tonight we had so much fun. We went on a date. We went to Olive Garden. Their service is a little slow so I was freaking out. It was just me taking her. Usually there are several of us so at least one can man the table while I go out with Ava when she has a screaming fit. She did super awesome! Despite my worry, and stress. She colored, She tapped on the wall next to her and said "noc-knock" and colored on her paper and then the food came out. She had fun dipping her bread in the meat sauce. She also said "Thank you" every time they brought us something. Seriously, it was the best date we've ever been on.
I love my little girl. I'm so happy to spend time with her. She is starting to listen to me better. She knows when I count I mean business. She knows that time out is nothing to joke about and gets her feelings hurt when she is bad.

She is in the beginning stages of imagination. Before bed, she likes to grab her baby (who is as big as she is), lay baby on the floor, take the mat out of her play crib, lay that on the floor NEXT to the baby then lay down on it next to her baby. Then she gets up and starts talking to her baby. LOL She's funny.

Ms Ava

Well little miss Ava is now 20 months. Its amazing to me how quickly time flies.
This week certainly was a crazy one. On Thursday night Ava got a fever. We used Tylenol. We thought it was teething so we put her to bed. Around 9:45 we decided to check on her. Phil went up to take her temperature. She woke up, screaming bloody murder. So he brought her down stairs. We gave her more Tylenol, we took her temp again. It read 105. We thought, well thats weird, that has to be wrong. We took it again. We tried it on our selves. We tried it on her again. We weren't getting a lower reading. In fact sometimes it said 106.6. So we headed out the door. We had a back up plan to go to ER. Our first stop was the store to see if they had batteries. They did. We put the new batteries in the thermometer, but it still read 106.
We decided to go to ER.
We got there. We were taken in right away.
Her temp was 106.5. Poor baby girl. She was shaking, she was cold but warm. She didn't want either one of us to put her down.
I thought she was such a trooper. Yes, she cried. The doctors at Northern Nevada ER were awful. They acted like she was such an inconvenience. They brought in way more people than needed to hold her down. She was screaming because they were harsh and hostile with her.
After administering Motrin and Tylenol together her fever went down (after about two hours) to a cool 99 degrees. By the time we left she was at 97.6.
Ava got her lungs x-rayed.
She had a catheter since she wouldn't go to the bathroom on her own.
She was tested for strep.
After hours of waiting...the doctor came in and told us they wanted to a spinal tap.
We sort of freaked out. A spinal tap in my opinion should be used as a last resort. Ava didn't even get blood work done and they wanted to do a spinal tap. So we asked for our papers to leave. Once we told them no on the spinal tap, they made us wait for another hour and a half.
We promised to make a follow up appointment with her primary care physician and we left. It was 3am.
We were all so tired. More Tylenol to follow for Ava.
When she was awake she wanted to be held.
We got an appointment at 10:40am on Friday.
The doctor was awesome. Unfortunately by this time Ava was traumatized by the previous nights events and now hates doctors. She used to do so well. I'm saddened that her ER visit traumatized her so badly.
The doctor we saw was awesome. She looked in Ava's mouth but didn't want to do any more testing because of the previous nights events. She said there could be a small possibility of strep but it was most likely Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease.
Ava measured at 31.5 inches long and 18 lbs 14 oz.
And her temperature was lower than the other day.
She was given antibiotics.

Yesterday her fever finally broke. It went down to normal range. Last night, she all of the sudden just started acting like herself. It was awesome! We have our baby girl back! She played, she walked around, she talked to us. It was awesome! I love our baby girl. I would do anything for her. I'm sad that she got sick.

Grandmother

On February 23, 2011 I lost another loved one in my family.
My Grandmother.
She was so special. She was happy, energetic and full of life. She was a staple to our family and someone who will truly be missed. Our family is not the same with out her.


My Grandmother lived in LA while I grew up in San Diego. We would visit every other month or so. Every summer I would spend a few days with her. We had a great time visiting the Getty Museums where she enjoyed her time being a docent.
We would have lunch in her beautiful garden and sometimes my cousins would come and spend the night. It was awesome.



Grandmother also had such elegant things in her home. She had lavish paintings and lots of books. Her slippers were sparkly and her robes were beautiful.
When I got the chance to spend the night, I would either eat O Oats or Cherrios and she had a cow pitcher for the milk. I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
She also had this wonderful wonderful quilt from her years at college. All of us cousins would fight over it. It was like silk, it was soft and fluffy.

There are so many wonderful things I can think to say about my Grandmother.
Her car smelled like New car even years after she bought it.



When I went to Spain in high school, Grandmother educated me on some of the paintings I would see in the Madrid Art Museum. It was so awesome.

My Grandmother was such a wonderful, talented, elegant lady. She is truly missed.