Wordless Wednesday
We're in trouble already ...
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Tags: Ava, Wordless Wednesday
Wordless Wednesday
Ouch! Ava's first ice cream brain freeze ... captured via iPhone by Aunt Jennifer!
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Tags: Ava, kid stuff, Wordless Wednesday
They grow up so fast …
Our super nice bug man came to spray this morning and was remarking how big Ava had gotten, which led into a conversation about his own daughter. He said they’d just had their first run-in with teenage behavior when they caught a boy sneaking in her window on the SECOND STORY of their house!!!
Can you imagine?
He was calmly telling me he was going to sit down with the boy and his father this week to talk it over — which I think is a lot more rational than I would be over something like that. Besides the fact that a kid was sneaking in the window is likely up to no good, you could get killed trying to pull off a stunt like that!
I never would have imagined worrying about boys sneaking into Ava’s second-story window someday, but now this will stick in my brain forever. Just one more thing to add to the worry list …
Tags: Ava, drama, kid stuff, motherhood
mixed results
We braved the world of the toddler bed for the first time this weekend and survived!
As I suspected, we had quite a bit of trouble with naptime. There were no naps either day this weekend — except for mine yesterday. Somehow I was so tired that I slept right through Ava’s protesting while she completely trashed both her room and her playroom, then started in on our guest bedroom. Fortunately we were smart enough to reinstall the baby gate to the stairs, so she was pinned in to one level.
But bedtime both nights was so easy, I almost felt like we were dealing with someone else’s child. The first night she tossed and turned, then asked me to rock her until she fell asleep. But last night, I guess she was so tired from not taking naps all weekend that she conked right out without getting up once. Sheerly amazing.
Hopefully naptime isn’t dead for good, though. I don’t think I’m ready for that just yet.
Tags: Ava, kid stuff, motherhood
Dawn of a new era
The time has finally come for Ava to ditch the crib and learn to sleep in a toddler bed. This both horrifies and excites me.
I can’t wait until the day where I don’t have to dump her like a sack of potatoes into that crib — after it was lowered, I couldn’t reach down there anymore. (I’m only 5′2″.) But unfortunately, I saw an episode of SuperNanny this week where they were trying to get a 2-year-old to stay in his own bed, and it took something like 78 tries in one night. I KNOW my kid, and that WILL be her.
The rail to convert her crib into a toddler bed came in this week, and she’s all jazzed up about it. She knows what’s in that box will give her a “big girl bed.” So I’ve been trying to talk to her each night this week about how we need to “practice” being a big girl for the “big girl bed.” I’m not sure it’s making much of a difference.
But come Saturday, I’m ready to hang onto my hat and give it a shot … wish me luck!
Tags: Ava, kid stuff, motherhood
Family Way: Wordless Wednesday
How time flies! ... This was Ava about this time last year.
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Tags: Ava, kid stuff, Wordless Wednesday
Family Way: sick day
Ava has been sick as a dog for the past 2 days. Daddy took his turn yesterday, and I took mine today.
His day on sick duty was filled mainly with feverish crying, lethargy and a lot of book reading.
Mine started out with a bang — projectile apple juice coming back up all over her, all over me and all over my bed. So I’ve had a sick day of washing sheets, washing us, disinfecting everything in sight … and a lot of book reading.
I’m 99 percent sure she’s mostly recovered now and can go back to daycare in the morning, tho. Fingers crossed!!
Family Way: Wordless Wednesday
Panda hat thanks to Aunt Yavonda!
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Tags: Ava, kid stuff, Wordless Wednesday
Family Way: for Beth Hunt
This morning Arkie Mama and Mom on a Wire were on Channel 7 talking about our momblogs (yay!). I couldn’t hear most of it since Ava was screaming, “I wanna watch a dog show!” over and over. So I’ll have to watch the DVR’d version again later tonight.
But in the intro to the segment, one of the TV anchors, Beth Hunt, asked if anyone had potty training advice. So Beth, this is for you! And everyone else out there, please feel free to add your comments and tips. I’m still in the middle of this myself, so I know there’s more qualified moms out there.
Here’s my tips:
Try out different equipment. We first got Ava a little potty that sings and spits out stickers. She was OK with it sometimes and not others. So we tried getting seats that sit on top of the big potty. She was TERRIFIED of those, but it wasn’t a total bust. We just gave it a month or two and then tried them again. Now she’s all about sitting on the little potty in the bathroom downstairs and sitting on the big potty upstairs. Who knew?
Rewards! At first we tried those charts where you put a sticker on for each time the kid successfully goes. That didn’t really work. Turns out, she wanted the tiny sticker on her hand. So voila! Ava’s all about some stickers.
Big kid underwear. We’re not quite to the stage yet where she’s afraid to mess it up, but I think it has helped her get the idea some that going to the potty is what big people do. Brave people say it can help the potty training go faster since kids don’t like the feeling of peeing on themselves, but I’ve yet to be brave enough to drive Ava to daycare without a pull-up underneath the big kid underwear. Maybe soon … they take it off once she gets there.
Patience, patience, patience. And more patience. Ava has peed on our couch twice, our carpet several times and even our bed once — just this weekend. Just tell yourself, this too shall pass.
And along with that, persistence. I can ask Ava if she has to go potty every 10 minutes, and she’ll still have accidents. But hey, it happens.
Good luck out there! Anyone else have advice?
Tags: Ava, kid stuff, motherhood, potty training
Family Way: stove, part 2
Thanks for the suggestions on the stove everyone!
Fortunately, the repairman across the street worked us in last night and took care of it in barely a few minutes. Whew.
Unfortunately, when he finished he put the thing on its 4-HOUR! cleaning cycle, and it filled the house with horrid fumes of some kind. So we got the heck out of dodge and went to a Chinese buffet for dinner. It still stank like a chemical plant when we got back, so we opened up all the windows and headed upstairs to barricade in our bedroom for a few more hours.
But today we can get back to normal. Yay!
Tags: drama
Heidi White, assistant state editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, lives in Little Rock with husband Chris and daughter Ava. The couple hope to expand their family in the near future.