Today was a Good Day

Ava is an Aquarius, but she acts more like a Gemini - I never know what kind of baby I'm going to wake up with. Since we've been back from NC she has been going through a phase, and it is wearing me out. One day she is the happiest baby, like today. She was so good. Then other days she is cranky, whiney, won't nap, and just hard to deal with. The past couple of days she has not been wanting to nap. She will fall asleep in our arms but as soon as we try to get up to put her in the crib she wakes up and starts crying. We've been having to let her cry it out, and it is so hard. We know she's tired, but she just will not sleep. On Saturday Brent was working and I tried to put Ava down for her nap. I knew she was tired, she fell asleep while I was rocking her but woke up when I put her in the crib. She started freaking and cried so hard for an hour! I would go in every so often and try to calm her without taking her out of the crib and make sure she had her binky. After 30 minutes I called Brent at work asking what I should do. I had to go in my bedroom and close the door and turn the TV on loud to drown out the crying because it is so hard for me to listen to, it breaks my heart. But I know it is for the best. She needs to nap, and she needs to know that crying isn't going to make us take her out of bed. It's becoming a power struggle and she has to know who wears the pants. She has never cried that long before, not even close. Ava, when you read this when you are older, please know that your crying is harder on us than it is on you, but it is for your own good! You're a much happier baby and we are much happier parents when you've had some sleep.
I know I say this everytime but Ava is learning so much and she's so smart. She is saying "uh-oh" and the other day Brent swears she said "duck." She was playing with her rubber ducky at the time and Brent kept saying duck, and he said she copied him. She learned how to operate light switches and she loves turning them off and on. When we go for walks she points at everything and we tell her what it is, and she looks like she's really listening to us and wants to know. She likes it when we read to her. Her favorite is a Dora the Explorer book. She will sit next to me and play with the pages and point to things.
She hardly eats baby food at all anymore, she doesn't like it when we feed her. She wants to do it herself. At Thanksgiving she had cranberries, mashed potatoes and stuffing and she liked them. She loves cheese and crackers. She likes everything we give her for the most part. I buy little cans of mixed vegetables and she loves those. She likes noodles, really likes spaghetti. I like it because it's so much easier to let her feed herself. Even though she makes a little mess, it gives me a chance to do other stuff while she's eating, and we can all eat together. She still doesn't have top teeth though, and it's starting to bug me. She's going to be 11 months old this month, and it seems like most babies her age have more teeth than her. I keep checking for some top ones and nothing. All she has are the 2 bottom ones. I don't want to have to have her fitted for baby dentures so she can eat real food.
We are starting to Christmas shop for her and soon it will be time to go see Santa! I can't wait to see her reaction with that whole thing.

These are old-ish pictures from the Y.


Ava trying to wear Daddy's hat. In the background is the red car from hell that has run over her fingers a few times.

We're Back!

Well we made it back in one piece! We got home at 6am Saturday morning. The original plan was to leave NC Saturday around noon, but Ava was being so cranky our entire trip that we decided it would be better to drive during the night Friday night than to sit in a car with a crying baby for 11 hours. The drive up there went as good as it could go. We left FL around 8:30pm, Ava fell asleep almost immediately and she only woke up once, around 2am when we had to stop for gas. We made it to Nanny's at 7am and Ava was able to stay pretty much on her normal schedule. Tuesday at home she was so cranky, and she was cranky pretty much our whole time up there. I don't know what her deal was but she was so clingy and bad tempered. It was probably just the change of routine and the drive, and being in a new place. She has such a little temper, and it's really starting to show. She did sleep well up there though. That was the main thing I was worried about. She napped with me in bed most of the time, and she slept in her pack n play all night. We mostly just hung around Nanny's, but on Friday we took a drive to the gorge to get some pictures. Of course, our camera ran out of batteries as soon as we got there so I only took 2 pictures. We were expecting pretty cold weather since that's how it usually is, but this year was the warmest year I can remember. She looked so darn cute in her winter clothes though! I know I say this all the time but she is getting so big, she looks different everyday to me.
It was so nice to have this whole weekend off and just be able to hang out together. We never get a full weekend.Today we cleaned and put up our Christmas lights and a tree. Normally we would go buy a real tree, but last year I was pregnant and didn't feel like dragging all the Christmas stuff out. My Dad insisted that we have a tree, so we bought a fake one. This year I didn't want to put a big tree up because Ava would be all over it. She'd be pulling at the branches, pulling off ornaments, it would be a mess, so we bought a small 4' fake tree and put it on a table. It doesn't look that bad, and it's better than no tree at all. We also bought Ava the cutest Christmas dress. It is red velvet, and she's going to wear tights and little black patent leather mary janes. It is so cute!
I almost forgot to mention that Ava said her first real word while we were up in NC! She said "uh oh!" It sounds funny when she says it, but that is definitely what she's saying, and she would copy us when we said it. Of course, she said it a bunch of times that day and hasn't said it since. She also said "mamamamamama" up there a lot. It is so exciting.
I have a ton of pictures from up there and I would love to post so many of them but it takes a long time and a lot of space, so I'm just posting a few. I think I'm going to set up a flickr account so that people can view them all if they want. You might see one of these on a Christmas card soon!
Playing in the leaves!

She loved riding in this wagon



Ava & Lexi

On the Road

We hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving and eats a lot. We are heading out on what will probably end up the drive from hell. Ava has not been in a good mood today and I still have so much to do before we go. I will post when we return.

Worries

I haven't been good about keeping up with the blog lately, and I feel really bad. We've just been crazy busy. I am transitioning from working at the Y to working at that other job. I am really looking forward to having afternoons and evenings off, and getting Ava out of that baby sitting room. It wasn't that bad, but some of the kids were so bad an I could hardly give Ava attention, and a couple of times she got hurt in there. They have this little car that kids sit on and zoom around the room (they push it with their feet) and a couple of times Ava's fingers got run over because the kids weren't watching where they were going. I wanted to take that car out to the parking lot and run it over with my truck. I hate that car.

Anyway, one thing is worrying me - on Wednesday I noticed that Ava had a bite of some kind on her back. It is right above her butt and just inside the back of her diaper.It is really red, kind of hard, almost like a callous, and about the size of a nickel. I was afraid it was a spider bite. It doesn't seem to bother her at all, even when we touch it, so I wasn't going to do anything and just keep an eye on it. Well today Brent and I both noticed that she was acting a little weird. She wasn't talking as much as she usually does, and she just seemed quiet and less active. I'm afraid she isn't feeling well and I'm afraid it's because of the bite. While we thought it was getting better, Brent said it looked worse tonight than it did last night. I am definitely taking her to the doctor on Monday. We are leaving to go out of town on Tuesday and I am not going to take any chances. She could just be getting a cold, since Brent and I have both had cold this month. I really hope she is acting more like herself tomorrow. She sleeps with her butt up in the air most of the time, and the idea that a spider could have been in her crib, and crawled into her diaper disgusts me! I have never seen a biting spider in here, at least that I know of. Brent and I have never gotten bit. I am going to take a picture of the bite.

I have SO many pictures of her that I haven't gotten around to posting. I haven't even loaded them on my computer yet. I will try to do that before we leave for North Carolina. We are very excited to get out of here. I washed all of Ava's new winter clothes and she has some super cute stuff. We just have so much to do before we go. I have to pack for myself and for her, clean out my car, Brent has to find some time to load up the car, clean the house, and I need to go shopping for some stuff we need for the trip. Oh well, we'll get it done somehow.

Doctor

Ava went to her 9 month well baby check up on Monday. She weighed in at 20.6 lbs (85th %), 29 3/4" tall (95th %), and I forget what the head size is but I think it was in the 25th %. She did great, I was all happy that she didn't have to get any shots until I found out that they recommend babies get a flu shot. Since they recommend it, I said okay. Ava screamed. I hate her shots. It was kind of funny though because when they gave her to me she was crying and looking at them and babbling away, like she was telling them how pissed off she was at them. Unfortunately, she has to go back in a month to get another one, I guess they do 2 for some reason. Other than that, she was doing great and they said I can start giving her whole milk and weaning her off of formula. I was happy to hear that because it will save us a lot of money on formula. My biggest regret so far with Ava is that I couldn't nurse her, I really tried. It just didn't work for us. I am going to try again with the next baby. Anyway, we are starting slowly. She like whole milk, and we only give it to her in a cup. Our goal is to have her off formula and maybe even off the bottle by 1 year old. The hard part is going to be bedtime. I always rock her with a bottle before bed and she falls asleep. It will be a hard transition.

I am already thinking about Ava's first birthday party. I wrote out a guest list and it is close to 50 people! So I'm thinking that we are going to do something outside because that many people will not fit in our house. I don't care that it will be January and might be cold. Actually, if I remember correctly it wasn't very cold when Ava was born. I don't know if I want to have it at our house or a park or something.

It is late and I can't think straight so I am going to bed. I will write more and post pictures tomorrow. I have something I want to rant about too but that will have to be later.