Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

The other night on our way home from Grandma's house, I heard from the back seat, "Tinkle, Tinkle, star,(mumbling) high, diamond, (mumbling) sky." I realized Ava was singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. I haven't sung that to her for a while, but somebody must have more recently. It was precious. I love those little moments when they do something unexpected that you didn't know they were capable of!

And to keep thing interesting, here is a blurry phone pic of a big scratch Ava acquired on her face during a nap one afternoon last week. I saw it as soon as I went to get her and couldn't figure out how.... What I thought was a piece of skin at the bottom of the scratch turned out to be a large wooden splinter protruding from her face! I still can't figure out where it came from though, I see no missing slivers from the crib. Now I can say, without exaggeration, that this child gets injured even in her sleep! (She also gave herself a black eye and a scratch near her eye in two separate incidents in that same week. And no, I'm not a negligent parent).

Takes After Her Mom

Recently Ava discovered my Prismacolor pencils. She seems to like them much more than crayons, probably because there are so many of them. Today while I was doing my hair, she was quite focused on her coloring.

And after she saw the camera she just wanted more and more pictures. This one is her posing for me.

I can still remember coloring with my mom when I was a kid. I thought she was the world's most talented color-er. I specifically remember one time, in the study, sitting on the floor and coloring in the coloring book. She used a forest green crayon to darkly outline a sweater and then colored it in with a lighter touch, and then she put little dark green flecks all over the sweater to give it a wooly texture. That blew my mind. I thought, "I will never be able to color as incredibly well as she does."

Isn't it funny the things we remember?

Young Rider

For an early birthday present, Ryan got Ava her first bike. It has no pedals so she can just walk it around or scoot around on it. She hasn't quite gotten the hang of it, but she does still love bikes. And pictures of bikes. And bike videos. And bike races on TV.

Sleepy Girl

Ava has a cold and hasn't been sleeping well the last few days. Saturday night she woke up at least 12 times. And her naps aren't any better.
Today I thought I could fit in a quick trip to Target before nap time, but as you can see, nap time had to come extra early today. After this video I just left the store and took her home to bed.
This was taken on my phone and I'm sorry I don't know how to rotate a video, but it's short so you shouldn't have any resultant neck strain from watching it.

Dishpan Hands

The other day I was doing dishes, and once she saw the soap ("bubbles"), Ava wanted to help. So I let her. Now every time I do dishes she wants to push the stool over and get involved. It's messy and slow, but also fun and cute. Of course once she sees the camera it' all over, which is why the video is so short.

That Darn Finger

Today Ava had her appointment with the hand specialist at the U. I brought her previous 2 sets of x-rays, but they decided to take more, and were glad they did. Every x-ray looks different. This time it almost looked as if one of the pieces of bone had rotated. But after much examination and contemplation, the doctor decided that because she's so young, and it's already been a month, he'd like to leave it alone for now and check it again in a month. At this point waiting isn't going to do any more damage and may help us to know if surgery will be necessary or not. He said (as have all the other doctors) that in kids this young the bones heal so well, and the body can usually do more for the healing than a doctor can. He doesn't want to do surgery unless it's really needed, because it could just make things worse instead of better. It's possible that if it doesn't heal back together, she may lose some mobility in that end joint of her finger, which isn't the worse thing in the world. But if she shows signs of pain, we are to bring her back sooner. So he wants us to stop wrapping it and see how she does (if there is any pain, if she is using it normally, etc.) So hopefully it will just heal itself and she won't need any further treatment!

Happy Easter!

We enjoyed a wonderful Easter today, hope you did too! Ava got to wear a new dress to church, took a great nap after church (as did we), went a little early to Grandma (Mamoo*) and Grandpa's (Papa*) house to play with a new ball, ride in the wagon, swing with Daddy, and enjoy some more candy. She even ate a great dinner! (I told her the ham was hot dogs). Then we enjoyed an Easter egg hunt with cousins Jackson and Preston. Jackson was very helpful in leaving some eggs for her and showing her where to find them.

 

*Last weekend Ava started calling Grandma "Mamoo", and a few weeks ago started calling Grandpa "Papa". She calls Daddy "Dada" and Mommy "Mama" or occasionally "Mimi". As a side note, she knows most of her colors now (orange gives her some trouble though).

Broken Finger Update

On Monday, Ava went in for a follow-up x-ray of her broken finger. The cut is looking great, but to me the finger still looks wrong. Unfortunately the x-rays confirmed this. They look worse than the initial x-rays. She goes in Monday of next week to see a specialist at the U of U.
I tried to scan the x-rays to show you, but even with help from Photoshop you couldn't see it. So here's a simple illustration of what it looks like.

Even to an untrained eye like mine, you can see a visible gap where the bone should be fusing back together. I have no idea what they might do to fix this. Do they make pins that small? The pins that were in Ryan's elbow were surprisingly huge.
Ava is really good with the bandages though. When she's wrapped up, she just uses her hands like nothing's ever happened. But if I take off the bandages (for a bath, or to change the dressings) she holds that hand up and away like it's diseased, and doesn't use it at all.
We are praying for a miraculous healing, and that she won't have to have surgery.

There are few things that keep Ava's attention for more than 30 seconds. The only 2 things we've found so far that will keep her entertained are looking through photos (mostly of herself) and watching biking videos, like this one. This also keeps Mom and Dad entertained. But seriously, she'll sit and watch bike video after bike video. Dad has trained her well.

Danny MacAskill is beyond amazing.

Corn Pop Nose

Ava has discovered Corn Pops cereal, unfortunately. I've been trying to keep her on Cheerios, but when Dad is eating Cocoa Krispies and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, it's hard to keep her away forever. The other day she decided she wanted to eat the Corn Pops with a spoon, which led to this.

Chocolate and Chicken

I'm trying to capture on video Ava saying "chocolate". The best written description I can give is, "kohckla" with kind of a guttural Russian accent. It sounds similar to the way she says "chicken" (actually she just says the cluck, cluck) which sounds kind of like,"kuckl". If I pull out the George Foreman grill, she points and makes her clucking sound. And then there's "pickle", which used to be "ckle" but has now regressed to a grunt and point at the door of the fridge every time it's opened. Maybe if I OD her on pickles she'll get sick of them...

Like Father Like Daughter

Be forewarned, this is probably more info than you want.
When Ryan was young (10, I think?) he had the tip of one of his toes chopped off when a hatch on the houseboat got slammed down on it.
Yesterday evening, Ava nearly repeated that feat with her left ring finger. She climbed up on a dining chair and while my back was turned to put pasta in the boiling pot, she must have climbed up the back of the chair and tipped it over. I ran over and grabbed her but it took a minute for the bleeding to start. Since I found her face down I was looking all over her head for bleeding but there was nothing there. Then I saw her finger, her poor little finger. I can only assume that she landed with her finger in her mouth and her teeth cut through it from the top side, at the tip. I'll spare you the gory details, but it was pretty bad. I'm surprised at how panicky I got, I thought I would handle an emergency better than this. I called Ryan and told him she almost bit her finger off. He thought I said she did bite her finger off, and instructed me to call 911. My biggest lack of reasoning was that I couldn't figure out how to get her to the hospital. I knew I had to restrain her because she just wanted to grab it where it hurt. But who could get to my house immediately and get me there? (Duh, my sister, Jen, lives like a mile and a half away). Shoulda just skipped the 911, but I was kind of freaking out.
Fortunately Ryan sent Tyler right over, and I should have just had him take us to the hospital but an ambulance was already on it's way, so we had to wait for that. I was hoping they could fix her up, but they just wrapped her in a bandaid and said she needed to go to the ER. So rather than pay them to take me I opted to have Tyler drive us over (THANK YOU TYLER!!) since it wasn't a life-and-death situation. Ryan beat us there and fortunately there was no wait at all. But there was the end of a BYU game on... that did seem to slow the doctors down just a little. Really.
They gave her 2 shots in the finger to numb it, which appeared to be excruciating. Apparently when Ryan had his toe incident he said the shots were worse than the actual toe-chopping. X-rays showed that she broke the finger too, above the knuckle. Where she sliced through was right at the nail bed so with the stitches they also reattached the nail and it may or may not grow back. Hopefully she's young enough that it will. I mean it's her wedding ring finger--she'll probably care how that looks one day.
She had to be strapped down in a mummy board for the stitches, and we did our best, along with Grandma and Grandpa Cook, to distract her and entertain her, but it was not a fun time. When your child is crying in pain, the minutes just draaaag on. All in all, from fall to finish, it was about a 3 hour ordeal. Felt like 8.
And of course she got wrapped up in a blue bandage because the doctor just never seemed to hear us when we told him she is a girl. But her dressings will be changed tomorrow and I plan to ask for a bright pink bandage! Stitches come out in 10 days. Today I think I'm more traumatized than she is. She's on rotations of Tylenol and Advil (she likes the taste too), and seems to be back to her normal self, with just an occasional show of the hand and an "Oww" to remind us that something happened yesterday (no actual show of pain though).
I was hoping our first emergency wouldn't happen until she was at least five. But I'm grateful it wasn't worse—it could have been so much worse. And at least I never had to rush her back to the hospital after she left the NICU as a baby. And at least she's never had to be hospitalized for RSV. And at least she didn't knock her teeth out (like I did as a kid) or crack her head open, or totally lose the finger. So I'm grateful.

Under Construction

Yesterday construction started on the lot right next door to us. (This could make nap times interesting). The only window out that side is the laundry room window. Ava is loving to watch the excavator (we call it a tractor for her sake) and has spent much time on top of the dryer staring out the window. I finally pulled up a bar stool* so she can just get up and down as she pleases. But mostly she just stays up there.

She has also learned how to pose for the camera. When she hears that click-click, she turns around and starts the smiles. Her main motivation of course, is to see the pictures afterward. She loves pictures of babies, herself included.

In other random fact news, if Ava was allowed to, she would eat only pickles, olives, canned pears and milk with Carnation instant breakfast (this is by recommendation of her Pediatrician—for extra calories and vitamins). She begs for these things several times a day, while refusing many other foods. (Pickles she says "ckles"). After eating a good meal last night I decided to let her have some sliced olives. She ate almost the entire can.
When we go to the indoor pool at the Rec center, she loves the slides and the water fountains. She runs back and forth sticking her hands in the streams of water, wagging her tongue back and forth the whole time. It's pretty cute.

*Note: the bar stool is stable and does not tip over when she climbs. Despite our discouragement, she insists on being a climber.

Little Helper

Ava loves to sort laundry. Or at least move it around. She takes all the laundry from one basket and moves it over, piece by piece, to another empty basket. This occurs every laundry day.

Ava at 18 Months

These are a few of her favorite things:
peas
olives
milk

hats & headbands

balls

cars

Baby Signing Times videos
shoes*
goldfish crackers**
animals, animal books, animal sounds, animal games
books, books, books
anything pint-sized that she can sit on (laundry basket, stairs, kid chair, cat)
climbing (chairs, couches, me)
hide-and-seek or peek-a-boo
wagging her finger and saying "nune, nune, nune" [no, no, no]--a little trick she learned from Grandma after just one incident
baths
bubbles (possibly her favorite word too)
slides
babies
my sister Jen. She just loves Jen. And Grandma and Grandpa, of course.
unloading the dishwasher, whether clean or dirty
her new stroller--she had to eat dinner in it the first night Ryan brought it home. And to ever take her out of it results in a fit.

*especially her baby Uggs and any new pair of shoes
**she only gets them at nursery now, because if I give them to her at home she refuses any other food. First day at nursery the teachers told me she was a hungry little girl. I said, "Was it the goldfish?" They said yes. That explains it.

She's so fun and delightful and strong willed. We love her so much.

(this is wear she situated herself to watch baby signing times)

Little Red Hat

Ava loves her little red felt hat. She loves to put it on any chance she gets. That's a red satin bow on the side, what's not to love?

Green 'stache and other tidbits

Ava loves her green juice (Odwalla Superfood).

 This one's blurry but I had to include it because she's just so happy!

Do you like our 80's high chair? It's a hook-on-the-counter one that we've borrowed from Mama Cook, and it's awesome. Too bad they don't make 'em like this anymore (I'm not talking about the pattern, I'm talking about the structure).

She also has a new squeal/screech that sounds like you just ran over a puppy.

And whenever I walk in her room to fetch her out of her crib, she is standing up against the railing and immediately throws her little 8x8" blanky on the floor. She then walks over to her big soft pink blanket which is often draped over the end of the crib (the one auntie Allie made) and rubs it with her hands and face (something I showed her a few days ago, and apparently she loved).  That's the routine. Every time.

She also throws away her diapers now. After a change, I wrap it up tight and tell her to throw it away. She walks it over to the diaper pail and drops it in and flips the top over (thus depositing the stink in the sealed chamber below). And then she flips it again and again and again and again.

Speaking of again, she tries to say that word after I play "pat-a-cake" or "motor-boat" with her. Those are my games to distract her during diaper changes (so she doesn't scream and try to roll away). Before I can even finish she starts yelling, "adai, adai" which is Ava for, "again, again!"

I love being a mom. Especially her mom.

Walking and (not) Eating

The latest on Ava is that she always wants to walk, all day long, holding onto my fingers (not solo yet). She also wants to go up the stairs making grown-up sized steps up them. I try to teach her to go up on her knees, but she's having none of it. Going down isn't much better. And she doesn't eat--naughty girl. Today I tried cutting back on the bottles to see if that would help, but it didn't seem to make much difference. She usually {usually=not always} eats one good meal a day, and the rest she'll barely touch the food. She likes cantaloupe and raspberries and strawberries, but that doesn't do much for weight gain. And if I put cream over them she doesn't eat them. And I put olive oil over fresh tomatoes, she's okay with that. Any suggestions for how to encourage eating? I'm already adding Carnation instant breakfast to her bottles, at the doctor's suggestion, to add calories.She likes hummus and green olives, which are nice and fatty, but not exactly a substantial meal. I try to feed her pasta, but she often spits it out.


She's doing very well though. She sleeps great and doesn't even get cranky from eating so little. Man, if I ate so little, I'd be cranky all day long. She likes bike rides, rolling her the ball back and forth with Ryan or me, balloons (especially with helium),kids,  and cats and dogs of any size. When she sees other kids or babies, she says "hi". I love being a mom.

P.S. I made that skirt for her.

Ava's First Crawl

Ryan texted me this morning and told me that she finally crawled! She has gone in reverse a few times, but not forward until today. He said she looks like a spider.

Summer Sitting

Here's Ava showing off how well she sits.And chews.