Big Babies

I love Friday nights. It's the only night of the week that Brent and I are home together and can just relax. Life has been hectic and stressful this past month, even more than usual. I began yet another job, on top of the 2 that I already had. It wasn't so much out of necessity, but I just kind of fell into it. I met this couple at the YMCA, they would bring their 14 month old son Max into the babysitting room. They had both been big shots at AT&T in Minneapolis, and then he got downsized and they moved back to Florida and started a business. I won't go into all the specifics, because it's kind of boring, but the company is in the insurance field, and they run it out of their home. They knew that I had worked in a corporate setting before I had Ava, and their company is really growing and they needed help, so they asked me to come work for them. I met with them one day and next thing you know I've been working there for the past month. Like any job there are pros and cons. One of the biggest pros is that I can bring Ava. They have a nanny who comes in everyday to watch their son, so she watches Ava too. She is a very nice girl and she gets along with Ava very well. So does Max. Darwin and Jenn, my bosses, are very nice too. It is kind of weird working in their home, but they live on a saltwater canal that feeds into the bay, and I sit facing the water and see manatees playing out there everyday. A con is that it is insurance. Insurance=boring. Darwin already signed me up for the course to become a licensed insurance agent for life, health and annuities. Bleh. And their company deals specifically with medicare programs, all that Part A and D and prescription plans stuff. Anyway, I've been doing that on top of the Y, and it has been killing me. Ava and I leave the house at 9am, and then don't get home until 8:30pm. I'm afraid it's been rough on her too, it isn't fair to her that she has to be dragged around with me to these jobs. So I've decided to stop working at the Y am just work with these other people. Ava then only has to deal with one other child, and she gets personal attention from the nanny. I get to eat lunch with her and hear her playing. My hours are flexible and we get to be home in the afternoons and evenings. Plus it pays more too.
Okay, now that I've rambled on about me (maybe I should start my own blog?)now on to Ava. As I mentioned before we missed her appointment with the doctor, so I have now idea how much she's grown, but it seems like we can see her growing everyday. Seriously, sometimes I look at her and think she looks bigger than she did that morning. She's wearing 12 month size clothing one her, it's a little roomy but she is growing into it. I think she has grown into her chubbiness, if that makes any sense. Her bottom teeth still haven't grown out all the way yet, but they are definitely there. I think her top ones are coming in too because she has had a runny nose for over a week now. She crawls so fast now, and she can walk holding onto the table pretty good too. She is starting to show a wider range of emotions too. The other day she was sitting on the floor in our room and she was pulling on the cord to the blinds. She started making these grunts, and I realized she was getting frustrated because she wanted to pull the blinds up so she could see out the window and she couldn't do it. She was really trying. She also gets so excited now. She waves her hands and makes this funny noise. I bought her this Fridge Farm thing that plays banjo music when she presses a button and she loves it. She'll press the button and as soon as she hears it she gets all excited and she looks at me, because I start doing a funny dance. She kind of bops along too. She's usually sitting on her knees and she'll start bouncing up and down. She loves it when I dance and clap for her. She also loves it when I sing Little Bunny Foo-Foo, she tries to copy the hand movements. When I sing to her, especially the ABC's, she will stare right at my mouth and it looks like she's concentrating on the sounds I am making, almost like she is fascinated by the different sounds. That makes me so happy because I know at that moment she is learning something. She loves to flip the light switch off. I turn it on again, and she will flip it off, and this can go on and on.
Since we have been working at the insurance biz, Ava has been exposed to lots of different foods, some I am not so happy about. The nanny has given her tater tots and french fries. Not in big amounts or anything, but I am kind of hesitant about introducing crap like that into her diet. She of course loves them. She has also eaten lots of good stuff too though, like peas and carrots, cheese, tomatoes, and even chicken. Ava doesn't really like to eat baby food. It's either that or she just would rather feed herself than have me feed her off a spoon. She loves eating people food. Last night I was eating pizza and she crawled right over to me and stood there holding on to my leg and demanded that I give her some. I would rip off little bits of dough and put it in her mouth. I would take a bite, then give her a piece, and this went on until the pizza was gone. I have to hide what I'm eating. I am pretty glad she is beginning to eat food like that because it's a lot more fun than baby food.
Well, it is late and I should get some pictures on here. We are excited because in less than 3 weeks we are going to North Carolina for Thanksgiving! I am not looking forward to the drive, but I am looking forward to getting the heck out of Florida for a few days and shopping for winter stuff for Ava. She needs everything!
Oops, I just realized I didn't mention Halloween. We took Ava trick or treating with Skylar, her 6 year old cousin. I wasn't going to dress her up but Brent bought a costume for her. It was a purple a black dress and witches hat. Of course Ava wouldn't tolerate the hat, but the dress looked really cute. It was so hot! We didn't really trick or treat, just walked up to the door with Skylar. Ava did score a Twix from one house though!

Ava trying on Daddy's Indiana Jones hat. She doesn't like hats.

Doesn't she look excited?




Ava and her Twix

Ava and her buddy Nathan. Yes, Ava is topless. She won't be naked in front of a boy again until she's married.

Mommy & Daddy at a Halloween party

Halloween

I will post on Saturday, it is too late and I am too tired to write a big post now. Ava was supposed to have her 9 month well baby visit today at 9:30am. I rushed to get us out of the house on time and when I went to start the car it wouldn't start. I rescheduled the appointment for 1:45pm and Brent brought home a new battery on his lunch hour and changed it out. The car then started right up. Ava had fallen asleep on our bed, and since we had some time before we had to leave I decided to crawl in bed with her and lay down for "just a minute." Well, she curled up next to me and we ended up sleeping too late and missing the appointment! Grrr. I once again rescheduled it for Monday.

My Pumpkin

I always find myself on the computer late at night when I am tired so I slack off on posting, but stuff is starting to pile up so I'd better get to it. As I mentioned before, Ava is going through a tooth explosion. The 2 bottom ones are poking through, and I'm pretty sure the top teeth are ready to say hello too. I was feeding her a little bit of banana with my finger and she bit me so hard she almost broke the skin! I can't wait to see her with teeth, she will look like such a big girl. There are days when I don't see her for hours and it seems like she grew in that short amount of time. I can't believe she is going to be 9 months in 2 days. The 9 months that I was pregnant went by SO slow compared to these past 9 months.
She is crawling everywhere and pulling herself up on everything. She is getting braver and is starting to let go a little and try to stand up on her own. Of course she falls every time, but I think within a month she'll be standing up without holding on. She loves to pull all of our DVD's out of the entertainment center. I don't even bother putting them back anymore, so our living room looks like it's been ransacked most of the time. She also discovered the tupperware in our kitchen cabinets and will add some of that into the mix too.
I have been a little more daring with her food. I've begun giving her little bits of fruit and I gave her bread the other night. She won't put them in her mouth herself, I have to fee her with my fingers. If I put stuff on her high chair and try to let her do it herself she just moves it around and plays with it. Drops it on the floor, smushes it, etc. She liked the bread, she loves bananas, doesn't really care for cantaloupe. She eats yogurt too. When Brent and I eat she wants our food so bad. She goes to the doctor soon so I am going to ask them what else I can give her.
She started waving "hi" and "bye" this month, but now she has kind of stopped that. She has been very smiley lately and has started to laugh more, which we love. The other day when I took her grocery shopping she was sitting in the front of the cart and I bent down to give her a hug and I really felt like she hugged me back. She still loves the ABC song, and she also likes "Little Bunny Foo-Foo" and she will wave her hand around when I start singing it, almost like she's trying to copy the hand movements. She points at everything. She recognizes the words clock, hi, bye, mommy, daddy, fan, outside, and light. And there you have it, Ava in a paragraph.

Today we took her to a pumpkin festival at a big farm. It's a big thing this farm does every year but I had never been. Seeing as how it's nearly the end of October and technically it is "fall," I had hoped that we might have some cooler weather. I wanted to dress Ava in a cute fall outfit and take some pictures with the pumpkins. Unfortunately, it was miserably hot! Geez I hate Florida! After a short time there we were sweating like crazy, wouldn't venture out of the shade, and kept putting water on Ava to keep her cool. The farm even had a "misting station" where people could walk through and get sprayed with water mist. I am dying for some cool weather. It is hard to get into the fall spirit when you are wearing shorts and a tank top and still sweating your ass off. Of course, the weather says a cold front is due this week so next weekend will probably have the weather I'd hoped for. Oh well.

It is now 11:45pm and I am wiped out. Here's some pics:
Ava with her first pair of shoes. She doesn't keep them on very long.

Ava & Daddy. I love those overalls.

Sleeping beauty. I went in her room to check on her before I went to bed and she had her head on that little pillow and she looked so cute I had to get a picture. Unfortunately, the flash made her scrunch up her face. Still cute, and she looks pissed.

Ava and the baby pumpkins. She didn't want to let them go. This was when we first got there, before we were miserable.





Ava eating some yummies.

Busy

I will be posting again really soon. We are in the process of changing our internet, so right now I am using old school dial-up AOL. Very, very slow. We should have it up and going by tomorrow so I will try to post then. We got rid of the cable internet and are going to try DSL because cable is so expensive, but I have a feeling I might regret that decision and go back to cable in the very near future.

All is well, Ava is teething like crazy. More soon...

Teeth!

Yes, Ava is finally getting her first tooth! I was beginning to think she'd be toothless forever! It is one of her bottom teeth, but I think she will soon have a tooth-explosion and will get them all at once. She hasn't been acting that cranky or seemed at all uncomfortable, so that is a good thing. She won't really let us see it but we can feel something sharp on her gums. I can't wait to see her with teeth, and it will be good because then I can start feeding her different things. She eats her baby food and sometimes I give her these wagon-wheel things for babies, but when she sees Brent and me eating anything, she makes a grab for it. She wants whatever we have. The other night we were making pasta so I gave her some noodles. They were the corkscrew kind and I tore them in pieces and put them on her high chair tray. She didn't know what to do with them, and they got sticky and were sticking to her fingers and face, it was so funny. She hasn't quite figured out the whole "self-feeding" thing yet.
She is understanding so many words now. Of course, she knows clock and will point to the kitchen clock. Even if we're somewhere else and we say clock she will just point in the air. She now knows "mommy" and will look at me when we say "where's mommy?" Sometimes she gets me and Brent confused and will look at him. When we say "hi" she will wave. It isn't perfect, but it is definitely a wave. Everyday it seems she is making progress in the learning department, it is very exciting to see. She is doing different baby-talk too, making different sounds.
The weather has been really nice this past week - perfect summer weather in October. We might even turn the A/C off in a few days. We have been taking Ava for walks, me in the morning and Brent in the afternoon. I can't wait until we can actually do things together again. That requires me to get a different job, which I am working on. I am either going to try to get a full-time teaching job or try to work as a substitute, if we can work out the baby-sitting situation. A standard day-care center is my absolute LAST resort.
I get the feeling she is going to wake up from her nap any minute so it's random picture time.

She loves to take all of the DVD's off the shelf, but she never puts them back. That Huggies box is there to block the stereo!

Pointing

Doing the wave

Just being darn cute

Ava and the F*$#%@! cat!

Fuzzy, but again, cute.