Tuesday, March 16, 2010

aves

Josh gave Avery a nickname and it seems to have stuck! He started by calling her "Ave" out of the blue and now we just call her "Aves" (with a long A sound).

Anyway, the last post I did about her was in December. It's March now! So, I thought I would share some happenings on the eve of her 1st birthday. She is just over 11 months - I can't believe I'm going back to work in a month. My first day back is actually her birthday. How sad is that?!

I've been looking forward to going back to work this time around. It has been H-A-R-D staying at home taking care of 2 kids! It truly is twice the work. So, all I've been really thinking about is how nice it will be to have adult conversation and some "me" time.

Well, I think a couple of weeks ago, I started to realize what I was giving up. Ugh. I have bonded so well with the 2 kids this past year. It's been a struggle, but I look at the kids in the end and I feel so close to them. Whoever said that motherhood was a roller coaster ride, well, they must have been a mother, because it's the biggest roller coaster ride that I've ever been on. I've never felt so much love, happiness, guilt, anger and complete sadness about anything. So, I'm sure I'll be a bit of a basket case for the next few weeks - bear with me...

Now, onto Aves! Since December, she's gone from scooching to full fledged crawling. She's big into crawling and not really interested in walking yet. She will pull herself up to standing, but doesn't really have interest in cruising yet. This is all a new thing for me since Josh didn't really crawl for very long. Aves has mastered the art of crawling. I don't know if she learned this from Nikita, but she has discovered that if she wants to bring a toy with her, she can put it in her mouth and crawl around. And she does love to pull herself up on things. Namely me. Between her wanting to be held by me and Josh wanting to get in her way from getting held by me, I feel like a jungle gym most days!

She started to sign "milk" to us last month. We thought it was so cool. Then we realized when we signed "more" she would sign "milk" and when we signed "all done" she would sigh "milk". And when she was saying goodbye, she would sign "milk". Hahaha...oh well. I think when she figures out how to do something, she just wants to do it over and over again.

Talking is coming along too. If I say "all done", I swear she says something that sounds very much the same. When I say bye-bye, she'll say "ba ba". I'm just amazed at all the sounds she makes and how much she understands and can communicate already. She is definitely going to be talker! On second thought, I remember Josh barely ever talked through the baby and toddler years and I thought he was going to be the strong, silent type. At almost 3.5 years, I can't get him to shut up most times!

Yesterday, Aves started to shake her head "no". Too funny. We have a kid's CD called Dog Train and there is a song on it that has the lyrics "No, no, no, I don't wanna, I don't wanna...". When I sing the song to her, she shakes her head and when we laugh, she laughs back.

She has 5 teeth now and they are chompers! I think, unfortunately, that she is going to be blessed with her mom's 2 front horse teeth! But it doesn't seem to matter. She is just the cutest little thing ever and her smile is infectious.

Here are a couple of pics over the past 3 months. I'll be posting more on her birthday so I'm only posting a few really good ones right now...
My family

No words necessary

Gorgeous smile!

Mommy, what are you doing to my itty bitty hair?!

Go Canada Go!

3 comments:

Derek said...

Two kids are MORE than twice the work, for sure. Remember when you had one and you could rest or get something done during naptime?

I didn't remember that until years later, because having two pretty much killed much of my memory.

Carm said...

I love "Aves" :)

nana said...

Aves is Nana's sweetie-pie, and I love her soooo much. Joshie told me that you were also called "dolly-doll", and Nana thinks both names are cool!! Big hugs and smooches.....xox