New words and Epiphanies!

Ava is getting bigger everyday!  She is learning new words all the time.  She says, "up," "down," "roar," "meow," "done," "shoes," "sigh (for outside)," "kide (for slide)," "Mah-ee (for her friend Molly)," "cup," "wawa (water)," "tickle-tickle-tickle," and these are just a few of the new things she is saying all the time.  She definitely is like her daddy.  She will try to figure something out for awhile before getting frustrated.  She finds lots of different ways to try and complete her objective (i.e. bring my cell phone up the ladder for the slide with her or buckle her own seat belt).    She also figured out how to turn on the washer and dryer.  It is AMAZING to me how much she learns just by watching!  I love my little girl!!

I also realized in the last couple days that I expect more from my daughter than I do from myself.  As you all know, sleep has been the bane of our existence throughout Ava's entire life.  It has been much better in the last several weeks.  She typically wakes once a night sometime between 2 and 4 am.  Last night she woke 3 times and I found myself very frustrated, but I realized something.  I sometimes wake several times in one night, whether with indigestion, having the use the restroom, weird dreams, or just a mind that doesn't want to shut down.  I don't always fall back to sleep immediately either.  Why then do I expect my daughter, who is just learning to sleep through the night, to do better than I do?  It is easy to get frustrated with her and annoyed that she is not doing exactly what I would like, but I need to remember that she is also probably annoyed that she is tired and not sleeping.  Now if I can just keep this in mind at 3 in the morning :)

That is all for now.  We are finally home after being gone visiting family for 3 weeks.  Thankfully it was pretty pain free to get back into our routine.  Lots of fun things coming up with the Soybean festival :)