8 Months

Ava is so fun lately. It's an exciting time for her and for us because we can actually see her learning. She is crawling all over the place and pulling herself up on everything. She is now learning how to point at things. She is fascinated by a clock we have in the kitchen that has a swinging pendulum (s/p). When we say "where's the clock?" she will stare at it and her hand will go up and she will point in the general direction of the clock. Sometimes she is more fascinated by her finger than by the clock, but she gets the idea. Now she will sometimes randomly point at things, or even nothing at all. It's cute.
It is taking me days to write this because I keep getting distracted or Ava wakes up. We went for a walk this morning, something we haven't been able to do in a very long time. Summers in Florida are just miserable, you can hardly go outside. It is so hot, and it rains every afternoon in the summer and the bugs are out full force, TONS of misquitoes. Ava got a few bites this summer. We can't even open the front door without a couple getting in the house. Now, it is still warm, but we can notice a little change in the temperature. Instead of being in the high 80's in the morning, it's in the low 80's, and the rain has stopped. We took our walk around 9:30am and I was sweating by the time we made it around the block.
So lately I have been looking for a full-time job. A big part of me doesn't want to because I don't want to leave Ava during the day, but it's getting to the point where we need the money and I am getting antsy. I am very happy to say that on Saturday I passed the Elementary k-6 test, so I will be able to teach elementary school. It only took about 5 hours and had me stressed to the max! I'm very glad it is over with. I am eager to start a career, instead of just working at jobs. I did take Ava to go look at the daycares in the area, and I didn't like any of them. They just felt cold to me and they reminded me of an orphange, or at least what I picture an orphanage to look like. Plus they are expensive. My other option is a woman Brent's family knows who watches kids in her home. She only watches one infant at a time, and she's really nice. I am going to try to get Ava in with her if I do manage to find a job.

Looking for a DVD


Waking up

Ava & Mommy

I am posting all the pics since I love them all.

Touching what she's not supposed to touch. This is the look she gives me when I tell her "No."

Shout it out

A while back, a friend of mine who also has a baby once mentioned how she'd had to treat four different baby outfits for poop stains. I had never had to do that for Ava - until now. I don't know if it is her, or her diapers, but we've had two incidents in two days. Brent had to deal with the first one while I was at work. It was all over her, her cute brand new Old Navy shorts, and her carseat. Then yesterday, while I had her at work and Brent just happened to stop in and see us, it happened again. All over her, all over another pair of brand new Old Navy shorts, and all over the exersaucer she was sitting in. I used to read a blog a long time ago about a radio DJ who had just had a baby, and she told the funniest poop story. And it's pretty similar to what I went through yesterday at work, although, I didn't find it funny at all while it was happening. Luckily Brent was there to help. I didn't have a change of clothes for her with me, so Brent took her home, changed her, brought her back to me, and then went to work.

Good Times

It's been so long since I've written that I don't know where to begin. September was a big month for Ava. She got to meet her Grandpa from New Jersey and her Aunt Angie from Utah, and she also learned a bunch of new tricks. She sat up on her own for the first time on September 4th. I was thrilled to see it. She had been so close for so long that to finally see her do it was awesome. Then came the crawling on September 8th. She had been getting up on her hands and knees for a couple of weeks but never actually went anywhere. Last Friday while Brent was at work in the morning she actually crawled. When he came home on his lunch break he filmed her doing it. Since then she has gotten faster and more daring. At first she wouldn't leave the carpeted bedrooms, but now she ventures out onto the tile. I am so proud of her, but I am not exactly happy. Now I am worried about her getting into everything, which I know she will do. She already discovered the DVD's and has been taking those off the shelf, she has learned to open drawers, and she already pinched her fingers under a wheel on her high chair. We had the plastic thingy's to plug up the outlets, and today I went to Walmart and bought some drawer & cabinet locks, door stoppers, and rubber corners for the tables. It is so cute to watch her. You can't keep her still now. Now when I need to take a shower or do laundry, I have to strap her in the high chair or put her in the pack and play, which doesn't always make her happy.

The worst part about the crawling is bringing her to work with me. I used to be able to park her in one spot, but now she goes all over the place. That floor is not always clean, and her pretty clothes are going to get filthy. Also, whatever toy she might come across while she's crawling goes right into her mouth, so I can only imagine what kind of germs she's picking up along the way. The other day I flipped out at home because she had been crawling around the living room, I turn around for a second and when I look back at her she has my flip-flop in her mouth! Gross!!! Of course I snatched that away from her and will make sure that our shoes are in the closet from now on. Ugh.

She started pulling herself up on her feet on September 12th, I think the first time she did it was in her crib. Often when she wakes up I find her standing up. This was a problem when it came time to go to sleep. I would put her in the crib and before I could get out of the room she would be sitting up watching me go and as soon as I closed the door she would wail. I would peek in on her and she would be standing in the crib crying her eyes out. I think she stood up and then couldn't figure out how to lie back down without falling. One thing we tried that has worked for the past 2 days is giving her an extra binky when she goes to bed. One is in her mouth and the other is in the crib. I don't know why it works but it does, I guess it distracts her enough that she doesn't sit up to see us leave.

We had a lot of fun with Angie while she stayed with us. She babysat Ava while I went to work, so they had some quality bonding time. It really helped me too. Taking Ava to work has been so hard lately since now she has to be there with me the whole 4 hours. She refuses to sleep in there so she misses her afternoon nap, it throws her whole routine off and she gets SO cranky. It sucks for her and it sucks for me too, so it was nice that she could be with Angie at home and keep her routine. We took Ava to Angie's church on Sunday, and she was great. I had been a little worried. When it was time for Angie to leave, I got really sad because the next time she sees Ava, she'll probably be walking and talking! I really want Ava to have a relationship with Angie and know her as family, but she lives so far away. That sounded really lame but I do wish we lived closer so that Angie could be in Ava's life more.

Anyway, it's late and bed sounds good so I'll post pictures tomorrow.

Overdue

I am long overdue for a post, but I have my best friend Angie visiting from Utah and we are having lots of fun, no time to write. But I will say that Ava started sitting up on her own, crawling, and pulling herself up into a standing position all in this past week! It's been crazy.

Be back soon.

Sick

I'm so mad - earlier today I wrote a whole long post and was about to start adding pictures when blogger went down and the whole thing was lost. Bleh.

Anyway, Ava has her first official cold right now. She has a stuffy nose so she has to breath out of her mouth, and she has a cough. It isn't real bad but when she does cough I can hear a rattle. I called the doctor on Thursday and there isn't really anything I can do except to try to make her more comfortable. He wants her to cough during the day, since that helps get the yucky stuff out, but at night I give her a little children's cough medicine. I also rub some Vicks on her chest and nose. She of course hates this, and for a little baby she is suprisingly strong. Everytime I try to wipe her nose she turns her head and pushes my hands away. Don't mess with baby. I feel bad because I know she caught it from being at my work, but I guess it had to happen sometime. I think 7 months without getting sick is pretty decent.
Ava got to spend some more time with her New Jersey Grandparents on Friday. My Dad and stepmom came back down to our house and hung out for a while and then we went out to dinner. They were saying goodbye since they left yesterday to finish up their road trip adventure. Ava was a bit cranky in the restaurant since she hadn't taken a good nap due to the illness and all, but she didn't cry. Just squirmed around a lot, and knocked all her toys & binky off the table numerous times. It's so funny; all the toys she could want and she wanted to play with a pack of crackers. Whatever, it kept her entertained for 10 minutes. It was sad to see them go, my Dad couldn't get enough of Ava, but hopefully we will see them again soon. This was the first time my Dad had met her, and the first time he's seen our house and the town we live in. Brent and I are hoping to make a trip up to the lovely state that is New Jersey sometime next year.
Ava is thisclose to crawling. She really tries but hasn't yet done it. She gets right to the point where it looks like she's going to take off but then she just freezes or lays down. I think it will happen before she is 8 months old. She has learned how to tell us she wants to be picked up, and it's so cute. I'll sit on the floor near her and she'll scoot herself over to me and reach her arms up and dig her face into me while making that sound she makes when she's frustrated. It's kind of a whine, kind of a grunt, and it gets louder and louder until she either gets what she wants, starts crying, or gets distracted.
She has also discovered mirrors. She loves it when I stand her up on our bed and she is facing our dresser mirror. She starts smiling and waving her hands, and sometimes she makes noises at herself. Anytime I stand in front of a mirror with her she smiles. In her room she has a full length mirror on the back of her bedroom door, and I'll stand her up in front of that and she touches it and "talks" to it. She will also lean her head forward until it's right up against the mirror and gives herself "kisses." That just means she leaves a lot of drool on the mirror. I don't know if she knows it's her she's looking at or if she thinks it's another baby. When I put her in front of other babies at my work she isn't shy. She wants to grab them and play with their toys.
Today we went over to Brent's brother's house for a cook out, and then tomorrow we are going over to my parent's house. Gotta love long weekends. Ooh, one more thing Ava has discovered is peek-a-boo. She just did this the other day. She always liked it when I would hide on the side of her crib and go "Where's mommy?" and then I'd pop my head up and say "There she is!" But the other day Ava was playing with a towel and I swear she was doing it. She would put it in front of her face and I said "Where's Ava?" and she would move the towel away. Then when we were at dinner she was doing it with Brent's hat, and we all saw it. It's so cute! I love to see her learn things.
Ava "wrestling" with her Seaworld bear:

Happy baby:

Ava & Grandpappy Cappy:

Waiting to EAT:

Chillin in her stroller:

Where's Ava?

There she is!