Ava learned a new game today: Keep Away.  Not really sure where she learned it, I think I may have played it with her ball a couple of times, but now she thinks it is just the funniest thing.  She will hold the ball out to you and then when you reach for it pull it back and crack up laughing.  We are loving it.

It is amazing how much she changes every day now!  She has learned just in the last week to hand us a package of something if she wants one: crackers, yogurt melts, etc.  She will even try to pick up my boppy and hand it to me if she wants to nurse.  It is just great to see her telling us what she wants, instead of us always having to guess.

The last thing I want to note today is that she really started taking one or two steps on her own consistently.  She would randomly take a step here or there, but this evening she started taking one or two steps in between us.  It is really fun to watch her gain confidence in herself.  Watching a baby grow and learn and change is one of the most amazing things!!!

My little swimmer

Two things to make note of today.  First, Ava has learned to throw her paci in order to get my attention :(  I put her in her crib for nap today because she was fighting being rocked and when I tried to walk away she started to cry.  I said I would be right back and made to walk out the door at which time she pulled her paci out and threw it on the floor.  Smart girl!  She knew I would come and give it back (either that or she was trying to throw it at my head for leaving).

Second, first day to the pool!  Ava LOVES to play in the bath and so I thought she would enjoy the pool.  The water was a little cold so it took her a few minutes to get used to it, but eventually she was laughing and kicking her legs and putting  her face in the water.  She is my little fish :)  Hopefully I will have her comfortable in the water by this summer so I can teach her to swim.  She didn't stay in too long (about 45+ min), because eventually she started to get cold again, and her little friend Sullivan was shivering.  All in all I would say it was a success.

BALLS!!!

Ava proved she recognizes certain objects, I am so proud!!  Balls are Ava's favorite toys.  She is pretty good at throwing the ball back and forth with anyone who will play with her.  Big balls, little balls, balls bigger than she is...she isn't picky.  Today in the bath she brought two balls with her since she was holding them when I picked her up to go into the bath.  I dropped them in the tub so she could play with them along with her dozen other bath toys.  I asked her to "find the ball, bring mommy the ball."  The blue ball was right in front of her so she picked it up and I praised her.  Yay, she knew what the ball is.  Just to make sure she didn't just pick up the first thing she saw, I later hid the blue ball in her cup and asked her again to find the ball for mommy.  She looked around at all her bath toys for a minute then she reached over and grabbed the yellow ball and handed it to me.  Not only does she know what a ball is, she recognizes a ball no matter what it looks like.  I was very proud of my little bath fishy tonight.

Jason later reminded me that she already recognized the word for kiss since if we ask her for a kiss she will kiss our cheek.  But, I was still happy that it was one more new thing she did.  She is also now blowing kisses, although she doesn't consistently do that on demand yet.

Just keeping you up-to-date with the Ava developments :)

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!!

Walking?! Not quite...

So we are getting closer to walking!  Ava took two steps unaided last night.  She was holding a pretzel in each hand and wanted daddy's ps3 controller so she walked toward him.  Unfortunately we haven't been able to entice such a feat again.  It just blows my mind that she isn't running all over the place by now.  She can stand very well by herself and does so often, she bounces up on her toes and back to her flat feet, she will even crouch to pick something up and then stand again (although that she has only done a couple of times).  HOW IS SHE NOT WALKING??!!

I thought for sure she would have been walking in January.  I think to shock me she will wait until after her 1st birthday to really start walking.

Did my child just talk?

I don't know if you have ever seen the movie "A Few Good Men," but there is a scene in that movie where a father is pushing his child in a stroller and the father says to his friend, "she just said "Pa!"  The friend points out that the child was pointing at a mailbox, at which point the father says "as if to say "Pa, a mailbox!"  I have become this parent.  I say to Ava "say ball" and when she very purposely says, "Ba!" I tell her she did a great job saying "ball."  Also, when our cat walks by and I say, "say Cat" and she says "Ca" I tell her she did a great job saying "Cat."  We want so badly for our children to be accomplishing something new everyday. 

Ava is SO CLOSE to walking.  We want her to walk so badly and so we try to encourage her by standing just out of her reach and saying, "come to mama."  I know she will walk when she is ready, and I also know that once she is running all over the place I will wish she would go back to slow crawling so I can keep up.  But, right now we really want her to walk, because we know that she will enjoy walking and it will open up her world to so many different things.  Just in the last few days she has started standing on her own without touching anything and she does it more and more often everyday, but so far we haven't gotten more than one step.

I have to say one of the best things about having a child is listening to their laughter.  I feel like recently Ava has more and more often done this belly laugh when she gets happy about something.  Whether we are rolling a ball back and forth on the floor, playing "peek-a-boo," or if I am pretending that she is chasing me with her push cart as she walks around.  I just LOVE to make her laugh.  She can make me smile until my cheeks hurt.  I know one day all too soon she won't laugh with such abandon as she does now, but for now I will just enjoy it.

I just wanted to write down a few of the things Ava is doing right now, and keep you all up to date.