Quotes and Favorites

I know I recently did a post but sometimes late at night I remember a few things I want to remember about Ava that I forgot to write down! At the park today it was really windy (I'm guessing 40 mph) Ava was walking along and all of the sudden she says "Hey MOM! I'm blowin' up!" Ha ha! I think she meant that it was really windy and the wind was blowing against her, but it was funny how it came out. Also we went to a birthday party for the little boy across the street today. The kids found the wagon (aka Dragon) and one of the times Jakob was trying to get in the wagon, Ava walks over to him and asks "Do you want uppie?" Ha ha! Also all the kids took turns in the wagon and all of the little little kids got in the wagon. All three of them. It was super cute! Ava also learned how to dress herself this week. I mean really dress herself. Take her clothes off, put them on. So now her favorite thing is to change clothes (oh god.....flash backs of my childhood are starting to surface). She color coordinates pretty well. Its interesting to watch her dance around the room trying to get her shirt off and over her head. LOL Its funny. I should tape it one of these days. She is very independent. She doesn't let anyone get the best of her but she doesn't bully or push other kids either. Dispite the few tantrums she has had over the past several days, she is truly amazing. Couldn't ask for a better daughter. She did great at school this week. She ate! She played with her friends. She talks about her friends. She mostly talks about Jakob, Addison and Avany. Interesting trying to follow her conversations at night. Funny stuff!

On the way to 3

I'm almost afraid to say this! Ava is pretty amazing. While she has some quirkiness, she is pretty good. This morning I went to get Ava out of her room (yes, she stays in her room ALL night long, and won't come out of her room unless her dad or I go to get her) and Ava had made her bed. Ava's bed was made. I've never, ever taught her or told her to make her bed. But maybe she was so excited with the new bedding I put on yesterday she wanted to make sure it looked pretty. Ava is actually pretty good. Most of the time, she will clean up after herself, throw (literally) her dishes in the sink (good thing they are plastic), she mostly picks up her toys in her play area. Ava loves to read. The only problem we have is that she likes to read so much she pulls more books off the shelf than she can put away! :) No problem, really. My mom and Grandfather were avid readers. I will not discourage this behavior in anyway. Actually, we use book reading as a reward. If Ava brushes her teeth she gets to read books at bed. This works really well because Ava loves to read so much that she will usually brush her teeth, unless she is already grumpy and unreasonable. Thinking back, I wonder if her behavior is changing because she is now eating. We've come up with a new routine in the morning. We bought a huge box of the mini cereals from Costco. She gets to pick her box of cereal for the morning. She gets to school, we open a container with milk in it, she pours in her cereal and usually will eat ALL of it! This week has been successful with lunch too! She has eaten lunch everyday this week. Dinner on the other hand has been a bit more difficult. But she still drinks pedi-sure in the mornings and if she doesn't eat dinner she drink 1/2 a bottle of pedi-sure. This week has been pretty good. We've had a good routine going. Cereal in the morning, drop off at school has been pretty good, pick up around 3:30 or 4pm. We usually do something or go somewhere for a little bit. Come home, eat dinner and then at 7pm go on a walk with the neighbors. By the time we get home Ava gets to spend a little time with daddy then off to take a bath, blow dry the hair, read stories and go to bed. Ava still sleeps anywhere from 9pm-6 or 7am. She takes about a 2 hour nap at school. Her naps have been going well. I think eating more has been helping her attitude. I also think a lot of it has to do with her hair. Mornings and nights are no longer a nightmare. While Ava and I still battle sometimes, we battle a lot less now that her hair is short and not tangled. Ava is a lot of fun. Her favorite thing this week is playing outside in the water. She learned how to spray the hose. We also learned that Ava likes to kill bugs. Poor bugs. I guess its really "poor" bugs now. We had the exterminator come out today. LOL The bugs were a little out of control. Moths, flies, carpenter ants, etc. Yuck. Still can't believe Ava will be 3 in a little more than a month. Hard to believe!

Love little Ava

Have I ever just come out and said how much I love and adore Ava?! I'm pretty sure I have. But I love her so much! This week my favorite Ava quote is "I want to go see whatch you want" (meaning she wants to open the pantry, and she wants me to ask her what she wants to eat). This week our trouble has been food. The food she will eat: Strawberries, fruit roll ups, fruit snacks, popcorn, almonds, cheese its, string cheese. Her favorite lunch this past week was a pre-packaged meal I got from walmart. It had whole wheat chicken nuggets, apple slices and pretzles. Her teacher said she ate the whole thing. Ava still drinks pedisure/ensure 2x a day. She didn't eat lunch at school until Thursday. Her favorite movie is Strawberry Shortcake Fairy Tales Favorite book this week is a toss up between several, "The Belly Button Book" "Good Night Moon" "The Good Night Book" Ava has had several fun events this week. Thursday we went to the farmers market with her little friend Alison. Saturday morning we met her friend Ava at the park. Saturday we also had "Gingka" (aka Grandpa) over for dinner. It was the first time he came over since we had the house re-done. It was nice. Favorite activity this week: water. Ava learned how to squirt the hose outfront. She loved playing with the water. Except for a small incident of Ava getting sick on Monday and staying home on Tuesday the week went pretty well. Ava has been so great since we cut her hair. The tantrums don't happen quite as often as they used to.

Not sure where this entry should go....

Like the title says, I'm really not sure where this entry should go. All my emotions for the past year have finally caught up with me. Phil is doing so much better and is now up for the call of duty of "Dad". He has done amazing the past few weeks stepping up to help with Ava. He even stayed up with Ava most of the night when she got sick and he even tucked me into bed. This week I've faced reality. With all the roles I've taken on over the past year, Mom, "Dad", Wife, Caretaker, Daughter etc etc etc. I've done it all. Now I'm having trouble letting go. Phil is willing to take Ava more often, but now I have attachment issues. I'm a control freak. If I'm not driving, I freak out. Now that we are doing more things as a family instead of Mom and daughter, its hard for me to get past that point and get past all my control issues. I've even picked up food as my scape goat. I eat and eat and eat. Its been a rough week. I feel bad for Ava. I know she needs more time with her dad. I'm just used to doing everything without Phil so its been a hard adjustment for my brain to adjust to adding one more to our outtings or find stuff for us ALL to enjoy not just what I think Ava will want to do. What a week. Broken. Crumbled. I'm going to be re-born. A better person, who can take it on without feeling so overwhelmed.

Getting closer to 3

Getting closer to 3! A little over a month away, and our little girl won't be so little anymore. She is saying so much! Tonight on our walk (we try and walk nightly with our neighbors who have a little boy named "Jigga Jakob" aka Jakob) I heard the phrases: "Get out of my face" "I don't know" "Thanks for coming over. I had a good time". "I wanna kick the bird" Yup...those are the kinds of phrases we've delt with tonight. Normally she is a beautiful little girl with a fun imagination but tonight was a whole different story. We won't talk about tonight too much. Its one of those days that might not need to go in the record book. Ava has a great imagination. She covers the cat with a blanket and pretends the cat is a baby. She talks to her babies, plays mommy, and her favorite is still tea or coffee shop. Food that she will eat this week: Cantalope Popcorn Some multi-colored noodles with butter and salt Birthday cake pops (my bad....) We have a new "tradition" that will be broken tomorrow. Ava loves to get the birthday cake pops from starbucks. She gets it, we sing happy birthday, blow out the birthday cake pop and pretend its a candle. She really is excited for her birthday. And this year is the first time I haven't had anything planned 6 months ahead of time. How crazy. I still can't even come up with an idea for her birthday party. Over the weekend we had our first trip to Lake Tahoe- the beach area. Ava and Addison had fun playing in the sand and on the beach with their beach toys. Ava was not a fan of the water, Addison didn't seem to care for the water much either. It was a nice first trip. Both girls passed out in the car on the way home.