Big Girl Bed!

**Random**

First, let me say that I am so heart-broken about this Caylee case. I have been following it closely (short of watching Nancy Grace) and I just feel so bad about what happened to her. Today they identified her remains, and I feel relieved that they found her finally, but I can't help wondering what her last moments were like. If it was indeed her mother who did this, then a life sentence does not do her justice. I don't see how anyone could hurt a young child, especially a parent - especially a MOTHER.

Ava is getting her big girl bed tonight! I am so excited. Brent got the room set up this morning while Ava and I were at school and work, so when we get home today we will get to see it. Ava doesn't know about it yet, though we have dropped many hints. Look for pictures coming soon.

Is all your Christmas shopping done? I only have a few small things to get. My budget went out the window a long time ago, but I am thankful for my job that gave me a very nice Christmas bonus today. That is always a good thing! It will be another warm Christmas this year - I think the high will be in the upper 70's. It's nice if you are here on vacation, but I would love a cold Christmas. Nothing like celebrating xmas in shorts and T-shirts with the AC on.

I am really excited for Ava's birthday in January - we are taking her to Disney World! We will be there for 2 days and will probably just hit the Magic Kingdom and Downtown Disney. Some of my favorite memories are at Magic Kingdom. I haven't been in years, and I know Ava will love it since she's into all the princess stuff now.

Ava and one of the nannies - Carol. They did a Thanksgiving thing and Carol dressed up like a pilgrim.


The other nanny - Leah - also as a pilgrim


Ava and Max doing some baking. Through the french doors there is my "office."

Coming Soon to a Christmas Card Near You

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving will be a pretty low key event this year. Just Brent's parents and my Mom over at the house, possibly a couple of friends. I am sad that Ava probably won't get to experience the kind of Thanksgivings that I grew up with. My stepdad's side of the family would all meet up at my Grandma's house in North Carolina. In the boonies really. She lives in a very small town, on top of a mountain in a modest but nice house that my Dad and Grandpa built. We would drive up, usually at night, and my Dad would make a bed for us in the back of his pick up, which had a top on it. I wouldn't really sleep though. I liked driving right past Atlanta and seeing all the lights of the buildings. We would arrive very early in the moring, an it would be cold. We would set up camp in her basement. The days would be spent doing nothing but playing cards or walking around outside in the leaves. Sometimes we would take a drive to Cherokee and go into all the cheesy Christmas shops. Thanksgiving day would be a mess of cooking, lots of loud talking, and laying around. There would be many pies, and eating left overs for days. Every few years it might snow flurry for a little bit. Never enough to really stick, but enough to build a very tiny snowman on the hood of a car.

The family has grown and spread out even more than before. I was always the oldest, but now even my youngest cousins are 20 years old. My parent's would still usually make the trip, but not this year. There was a bad drought and water is scarce up there. My mom is busy and my Dad left tonight to Arizona to go on a 22 day rafting trip down the Colorado River. I am pretty jealous of that, but come day 10 he'll probably be missing a warm bed and Florida weather.

So, it's just our little family, at our little house. And it will be fine, because Ava will still have a blast, and maybe when she's 30 she'll reminisce about it.

One thing I am really excited for is Ava's Christmas present from my Dad and stepmom in NJ. They got her a bedroom set. I have mixed feelings about moving her out of the crib, but it is time. I think it will be a smooth transition and I can't wait to decorate her room. My little girl without a crib! So weird. It's kind of a milestone.

I'll have lots of pictures up soon. We did a little photo shoot at a museum and I got some great pics of her. We were hoping for a nice family shot, but we are not so good at those. It seems that one of us is always looking in a different direction and Brent smiles like Chandler in pictures. If you're a "Friends" fan you'll know what I'm talkin bout.

$2.07

That's the price of gas here. How crazy is that?? I put $30 in my Explorer and nearly filled it up.

Ava is doing good. People who haven't seen her in a few months are telling me how tall she looks and how she is losing her baby face. I would agree, she is getting tall and thin - just like her Dad. She has a nice big scabby scrape on her chin right now, courtesy of Max. He pushed her off a slide and she fell into some recycling bins and got scraped up good. Of course, her school pictures were taken this week too, so it'll be interesting to see how those come out. She looks like a bruiser.

For Christmas, Ava wants "a pink soccer ball and Lightning stuff." Lightning stuff means "Cars" the movie stuff. She LOVES Cars. I have it on good authority that Santa will be bringing her a big girl bicycle and probably a new bedroom set too! I don't want to overload her on xmas, since her birthday is in January.

Happy Obama Halloween!

I managed to avoid every bit of election news all day, until about 10 minutes ago. I did not want to hear all of the news network spewing their crap about who was going to win, before the votes were tallied. I spent this evening watching Rocky II for the first time, and then Brent turned on the news, just in time to see the results from California. I got to see Obama win the election on FOX News! That is ironic. Brent and I both had goose bumps. Of course, we both voted for Obama. It was a hard decision for me initially, but once I made it, I believed it to be the best one. I think we should all just work together and hope for the best! I hope that the crazies out there don't do anything stupid - for the nation's sake.
I talk to insurance agents from all over the south for my job, and today I talked to a (white) guy from Mississippi. I was telling him about a meeting being rescheduled from 7:30am to 9:30am, and his response was "Much better - white people hours." I laughed kind of nervously and he said "I probably shouldn't say that. You're not black are you?" I said no, and he said "well it doesn't matter; after today we're probably gonna be a black nation." I reminded him that Obama is bi-racial, and he said "well, he's bi-something." Ummmm....okay.

Okay, on to Halloween! We had a great time going trick or treating with my parents. Ava was Tinkerbell, and she looked beautiful. She was such a trooper - we must've gone to 20 - 25 houses. She walked the entire time. She loved wearing the costume, and has put it on every day since.

The Fall Must-Have Pumpkin Shots

Ipod

Does your boss buy you presents like a new Ipod? Mine does.

Cutie Pie

Tonight when we were putting Ava to bed, she put her arms around both me and Brent, pulled us close to her face and said, "I love you guys." I melted.

After a couple of bad days last week, she has been really good. I don't know what happened last Thursday and Friday, but she threw a couple of horrible tantrums at work. I was kind of freaked out about it, and even canceled some plans last weekend to stay home with her. It isn't like her to be that bad. But since then she has been good. She is such a little adult that sometimes I have to remind myself that she's 2 - tantrums are bound to happen sometimes.

This weekend we are going to Busch Gardens, and next weekend we are going to a pumpkin festival at a farm. Ava already picked out her Halloween costume - she's going to be Tinkerbell. Ever since we saw Disney on Ice, she has been talking about Tinkerbell.

Ava and Pookie, the class dog. Kids that are well behaved and do something nice are allowed to bring him home for a weekend. We had to write about how we spent our time with Pookie. Ava was SO excited to bring him home!


We took Pookie to the Press Box with Aunt Nicky.




We are squinting really bad.


She's wearing her Flounder hat from Disney on Ice. I had to pay $10 for an old bag of popcorn to get that hat. I ended up wearing it more than her during the show.

I Wanna be a Cowgirl...

The girls had an impromptu photo session with Ava and Max. This is one of the theme parties they had. So far we've had French, Mexican, Hawaiian, Italian, and of course, Western. They are great nannies, and I am lucky to have them watching Ava. The last picture is a perfect example of how Ava's relationship with Max can be.

No Pics

I haven't been using my desktop at home - because it is so slow! So I haven't been able to post any pictures. I don't want to clog up my work laptop with pics. Speaking of work, I am going nuts it is so busy. November - Feb is our busy season, and I am already missing how slow it was in the summer.

Ava is doing really good. She is loving pre-school. All of the morning anxiety I used to have dropping her off has pretty much disappeared. Now as soon as she hits the playground she runs from me, off to the swings. She is a swing addict. She still only goes 3 mornings a week, from 9am - 1pm. That is enough for me at this point.

Brent is excited to finally get his wii tommorrow (hopefully). After spending a couple of agonizing days on Ebay, and checking multiple stores in different cities, it will be nice for him to finally have one. Brent - happy early birthday? :-)

I am still absorbed in the Twilight series. I just finished the third book last night, and will start the fourth and final one tonight. I have been averaging 5 days to get through one, which is pretty good, considering how busy we've been. Although, I did stay up until 3:30am last night reading. That's not too good. I am looking forward to seeing the movie when it comes out in November - however, I know that it will probably be a lot of cheese. I feel a little cheesy just looking forward to it.

We just bought tickets to go see Disney on Ice in October. You know you are a parent when the only live shows you go to our kid shows. Last month, the Backyardigans, next month - Mickey. I think Ava will love it though. She enjoyed the Backyardigans, and Disney on Ice includes the Little Mermaid - what's not to love? Maybe one day Brent and I will be able to go to a grown up concert once again.

Observations

Here are some observations about my 2 year old:

She will sometimes do the exact opposite of what I want her to do.

She is the most loving kid I have ever seen. She gives me so many kisses, and randomly tells me how much she loves me throughout the day. She tells me that I'm her best friend, or that I'm "the best." She loves her family.

Much like my cat, she knows exactly where I am going to walk and manages to walk right in front of me and trip me up.

She is very shy around most strangers, but warms up quickly.

Her favorite thing to do is read or be read to. Her second favorite thing to do is dance and sing.

She is extremely verbal, and picks up on new words very quickly. She suprises me every day with something new she has learned.

Her idol is Lightning McQueen.

At 2 years old, she has a very good hold on right and wrong. She understands fairness. She apologizes easily when she does something wrong.

She is emotional, but not at all aggressive. If she gets hit or pushed by another kid, it hurts her feelings, but she rarely pushes back.

She loves Dum Dums and Hershey Kisses, and she responds very well to bribery.

Ava & her friend Leah at the Mexican Fiesta:


Scootering:

I feel bad

I think this is the longest I've ever gone without posting. To my very few loyal readers, I will be posting soon. Everything is pretty good, just busy and I'm trying not to be on the computer so much. Brent hooked up wireless so now I can bring my laptop home and sit in the living room in front of the TV - not exactly the best time for writing. I have been hooked on a new book too - Twilight by Stephanie Myers. I know it's not new, but I finally gave in and decided to see what it was about. I didn't want to like it, but I am kind of loving it. It's very high school and a little cheesy, but I have to make myself stop reading. That has been taking up a lot of my time.

Ava has been saying some of the funniest things - I wish I could remember them all. Today I had told her we could go to a kid's amusement park that they have in town here, but it got too late and I kind of hoped she would forget about it and we would go tomorrow. Well, she woke up from her nap and said, "I'm ready to go to the ferris wheel store now." She even went to the closet to get her shoes. I felt so bad when I told her that it was too late and we would go tomorrow. She tried to argue, and negotiate about why we should go today. She even knew that tommorrow was Sunday! When I kept telling her it was too late and we couldn't go, she said "I'm frustrated, mommy!" It was hilarious.
The other night we were all sitting on the couch, and she said something about America Online. We have no idea where she picked that up.

I'll post some pictures soon.

Drained

It has been an emotional time in the Morris household this past month. There is a commercial that says "Life comes at you fast" - and it feels like life has thrown a cannon ball at me.

All I can say is that I hope the rest of this year is much calmer. I had a sure-ness about life that isn't there right now, but I hope I feel it again soon.

New Lense

Too much detail?

My water broke this morning. Continue reading if you want.


Last Tuesday was devastating but we were handling it well. I took the rest of the week off of work, and just spent time with Ava. We did a little shopping and it was nice. I had made an appointment with my OBGYN for tomorrow to discuss the D&C procedure, since I was sure that's what I wanted to do. I took a pregnancy test on Friday and it was still positive.

Last night I noticed a little discharge, something like I would get right before a period. It wasn't very noticeable, but it made me tense up. I had no cramping or anything, and it quickly went away. Then this morning I was woken up at 7:30 thinking I just wet the bed. There was a lot of fluid. It was completely surreal. I jumped up and ran to the bathroom, still thinking I had peed, but then I saw the blood. I realized then that my water broke while I was sleeping. After calling the midwife on call, it was decided that I should go to the emergency room just to get checked out. We spent hours there. Obviously, I was in the process of expelling everything, and it was going smoothly. They did an ultrasound to make sure, and also took a tissue sample to run some routine tests.

Apparently what I had was a missed miscarriage. Now that this occurred, it is a complete miscarriage. I am actually relieved that this happened, because now we can move on. I have not had any pain, and the bleeding has subsided quite a bit. We can start trying again in a couple of months.

I have a few friends & family members who have personally experienced this, and it has been a huge comfort to me that they have shared their stories and advice with me. I have felt such a wide range of emotions in the past few days, but I never felt alone. I have read the blogs of strangers - friends of friends - who have experienced such heartbreak in this area recently, and I am thankful that they shared what they went through. Which is why I wanted to share mine - you never know who might stumble across it.

Today I woke up, and it took a few minutes to process what had happened. It was one of those "did I have a nightmare?" moments. I have a bad cold right now, so I was coughing a lot this morning. Ava asked me if I was alright, and I said that I was okay, just sick. And she asked, "is the baby sick too?" I told her no, the baby wasn't sick. I brought her to school, and then spent the morning cleaning and watching TV.

When I picked her up from school, I took her to Walgreens, and as we were getting out of the car she said, "do you have a baby in your belly?" She asks me that all the time. I told her that I didn't have a baby in there anymore, and she said, "so now you can hold me?" I said yes, and told her that I hoped we would have a baby in my belly again really soon. And she said, "for me?" So, that ends the issue of what we should tell Ava. I'm glad she didn't ask anymore questions.

Miscarriages are very common - I know or 5 people personally who have had them and they all have children. It's just something you think only happens to other people, but never expect it will happen to you - until it does.

I am a "rip the band-aid off fast" kind of person, so I sent an email to some friends and family last night. I received some very comforting emails and texts back. I don't want this to drag on for weeks, so I wanted everyone to know at once. The hardest part is that my body doesn't seem to want to let it go. I have not had a single miscarriage symptom - no spotting, bleeding, or cramping. Today I took a pregnancy test - and it came back positive. I want it to let it go, and have it be done and over with. Sitting here and waiting for it to happen is going to drive me crazy. Not to mention, the longer this goes one, the longer it will be before we can try again. According to the ultrasound doctor, the baby was around 8 weeks gestation. Today would have been the 15th week of my pregnancy. So for almost 8 weeks I have been walking around with a miscarriage and not knowing it. How much longer will it be??

The one thing that comforts me is knowing that my womb is so healthy that it is still trying to take care of this baby. It doesn't want to let it go. It still thinks I'm pregnant. Being around Ava makes me feel better and lets me concentrate on other things. I feel so lucky to have her.

Sad Day

Brent & I found out today that I suffered a miscarriage. I went to the mid-wife last week and today, and they couldn't find a heartbeat, so they sent me for an ultrasound. The baby only lived until about 8 weeks. I was 15 weeks tomorrow and have had no symptoms of miscarriage.

We are very sad, but will grieve our loss and try again when the time is right. I am not a religious person, but I know that many of you are, and it is comforting to me to know that prayers might be said on our behalf.

We love you,

Alissa, Brent & Ava

Boooo

We couldn't hear the baby's heartbeat today - she just couldn't find it. I go back in next week to try again. My ultrasound to find out the gender won't be until late August, so I guess I need to try to be patient.

Recent quote from Ava while walking to the bathroom:

"Poop comes from your butt, and pee comes from your bagina."

In the Closet

We've been busy around here doing some stuff around the house. A couple of weeks ago I was putting something away in our closet and Brent's shelf fell down on me. It has fallen a few times in the past, but this time I decided it was time for a closet overhaul. That is the one space in this house that has not been touched since we moved in. This is what it looked like after the fall:


This is what it looks like now:


We got rid of an unbelievable amount of stuff! I have 2 bags of trash and 4 big boxes to Goodwill. It feels so much better to have it done.

Last night Brent and I had a "date night." We went to a trendy Japanese/Thai restaurant in a different city for dinner, and it was kind of funny. I felt like I was on an episode of "Sex in the City" because we were sitting in the outdoor area, and they had this blue rope lighting everywhere and techno music was blaring from the speakers. The parking lot was full of Mercedes & BMW's and a Ferrarri. That really isn't our "scene," but the food was pretty good and we tried a new place, which I love to do. I would go back.
After the dinner, we went and saw "The Dark Knight." I was pretty happy that we got to see it opening weekend, considering we don't get to the movies much. The last movie we saw in the theatre was Juno, I think. It was a great movie, although I didn't like Maggie Gyllenhal in it. I'm sure some people would probably disagree with me, but as much as I don't care for Katie Holmes, I think they should have kept her in the role. I love Christian Bale as Batman, and I think Heath Ledger was awesome as the Joker. I am the biggest Gore-a-phobe ever, so there were some parts where I had to cover my eyes, but Brent said they didn't really show anything. Anytime a knife is in the scene, my eyes are closed. I thought it went a little too long, but overall I really liked it.

Ava is doing great. She is our little dancing queen - she hears music and she starts moving, even if it's just a commercial. When she gets closer to 3 I want to put her in dance or gymnastics. She is doing great with the potty training, having no accidents for a long time now. I still put a pull-up on her at night, but she does a good job keeping it dry. I really think the "cold turkey" approach to potty training is the way to go. If you get them used to seeing the potty seat, and let them pick out their own underwear, and then no more diapers at all - it worked for us. My boss did it very gradually with her 3 year old son, sometimes putting him in underwear but then also keeping him in diapers, and he is still having a hard time. I have also heard that girls are easier than boys when it comes to potty training, so who knows.

I go to the midwife on Tuesday, and I am really excited. I can't wait to hear the heartbeat of this little one. I am feeling good, just getting fat. I am that in-between stage where my normal clothes are too tight but I'm not ready for maternity clothes yet. If I could wear my draw-string waist pajama pants all day I would be so happy.

Here are some recent pictures: