All About Ava

Ava is nothing short of AMAZING. I'm sure I'm bias but she lights up our life. Literally. We love her more than words. She is smart. I hope, that in the long run she doesn't have trouble learning. Sometimes she gets things confused, but she is only 2 years and some change. She can count to 20. She can count backwards from 5. 5,4,3,2,1. She can sing several songs: Bringing home a baby bumble bee Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Wheels on the Bus Itsy Bitsy Spider A,B,C's The Good morning song- a song they sing when they get to their classroom She knows several others but I can't think of them at the top of my head. She loves to dance. She learned how to "skip" last week. Her skipping is more like galloping. She LOVES books. She rather sit down with a book than play with toys. Although she has a weird obesession with her toys. She packs them all up in purses and bags and tries to see how many bags she can carry. Her favorite books this week are: Goodnight Moon Curious George goes to the zoo Because of her skin "condition" she takes a bath daily. We've learned to curly her hair. Its the only way we don't end up fighting at the top of our lungs at each other. Ava likes to wear dresses. Ava is mostly potty trained. I say mostly because for some reason she has reverted back to NOT telling us when she has to go to the bathroom. She had an accident on the floor at home this week. Last week she had an accident in her pants in public. We ended up throwing away her pants and underwear. It was horrible. Usually its only the BM we have an issue with. The accident this week involved pee. Then last night she took the liberty of taking off her dirty diaper, put it on the floor, tried to clean herself went back to bed and had two more accidents in bed. I kind of wanted to rip my hair out only because I thought the TWO mattress protectant covers were water proof, but they weren't. Disappointed in myself for not knowing that earlier. She is truly a blessing. This weekend we've had fun, mostly hanging out at home. Today we had fun, we took a drive, then went to the store, then we hung out at home for a bit, took a long long walk, and off to bed for a nap. This afternoon was a lot of fun. Phil painted her toe nails, we went on anotehr walk. She tried on her dress up shoes and walked all over the house. She played tea party, she colored and played with legos. The only thing we are really having a problem with is her eating. She won't eat meals. She relies on pedisure/ensure and then thinks we will give her fruit snacks, cakes, cupcakes for the rest of the day. Not happening. We gave in with the fruit snacks. She only thinks she can have cake now because she has been deemed egg free (or able to have eggs) and we've been to birthday parties every weekend for the last several weekends. We are pretty good about not getting her candy. She is doing pretty good.

Progress

This week I finally learned what we pay so much for at Ava's pre-preschool. We had a parent teacher confrence. Oh my gosh! While Ava is doing fantastic (uh, maybe we are slightly bias) they give her grades. Like they would in Elementry school. Language, correct usage of pronouns, nouns, verbs, etc. - Ava sometimes get these right. Words- she is up with everyone in her age group. She knows over 2,000 words. Social- She does well Music/singing/dancing and rythm- Great, she gets a lot of that from Phil since they play music together. She just needs to work on her hand motions with the songs. Math- Is a subject they really haven't gotten to just yet. Colors, shapes, pre writing skills- need work. :( So Phil and I have been working on her colors with her this weekend. To work on her pre-writing skills they have suggested we take fruit loops and have her string them on a string to make a necklace which she then can eat. They were concerned that Ava gallops instead of skips. Also they encourage the kids at this age to know what kind of learner they are. Ava apparently doesn't know what kind of learner she is so they are still working with her to help her recognize that she learns a certain way and needs to ask for things that help her learn a certain way. (HELLO!!! Why on earth didn't they do this with me in school?!) So now I know why its so dang freaking expensive. I'm glad she is learning all that she is learning. I'm glad she is doing well. No real behavior issues. She is 2, well almost 3. No development issues. She was shy but is learning to stand her ground and express her emotions with words. At home she is a hoot but I'll save that for another time.

Better late than never

I guess I never got around to part two from our San Diego venture. I will still have to get to that. April was a crazy month. Absolutely crazy. April 1st we started remodeling our home. The first week the furniture was moved, everything went to the center of the rooms. The moulding was removed. Then the moulding upstairs was put up. We were slightly uncomfortable. Second week: Painting. We moved into a hotel. Our house, well, all I can say is that with a almost 3 year old running around, it was panic stricken for us parents. Third week: Floors. We continued our stay in hotels, we hotel hopped a bit. Fourth week: Floors. Took longer than projected. Which was a little irritating to me, but the final outcome was totally worth it! Our house looks amazing. We didn't have to do the hard stuff. And we get to enjoy our amazing house.