Mains Memories: Ava

What?! How is our precious little Ava already 18 months old?! It's hard to believe time has flown by so quickly!

The other day while Ava and I were at Costco, these two adorable older ladies were oooh'ing and ahhh'ing over Ava and how cute she is, and then came to me and said, "you know, you just gave birth to your best friend for life, right? You two will the bestest of friends!" It warmed my heart, and already that's true :)

To her father's, grandfather's and grandmommy's delight, Ava is leaning towards becoming an engineer. Her absolute favorite thing to do these days is put things, any thing, together. Her Dr. Brown's bottle is the latest fav, but she also wants to put all the pieces of the coffee maker back together over and over again, and the juicer that even I struggle to put the pieces together... just to name a few of her favorites. Any thing at all that I open, she immediately wants to take and open herself...and she will.

She still absolutely adores any and all animals. Whenever she sees an animal, she calls it by it's sound. Every walk we go on she points out every dog by saying, "woof! woof!" And she loves them too - getting to pet and be kissed by every puppy she sees is her favorite - the squeals she makes are just too cute for words. It's no surprise the zoo is her favorite place.

She is still so loving and nurturing. She has two baby dolls and a baby kitty that she loves to take care of - she feeds them, diapers them, and bathes them. It's so incredibly cute watching her kiss them and read them a story! She also is quite compassionate. Whenever anyone is hurt, she gets really upset and will go kiss their "owie" to make it better, complete with an enthusiastic "muah!"

Stats:

weight: 27.2 pounds (90th percentile)
height 37 inches (90th percentile)

Schedule:

6AM - wake and drink a cup of warm milk
6:30AM - breakfast (always oatmeal, chia seeds, blueberries, and peanut butter)
7-11AM - inside and outside play, independent & with mommy
11AM - lunch
11:30-1PM - nap
1PM-5PM - playdate or errands
5PM - dinner
6PM - Bath
7PM - Bed

Developments:

Words, words, words! Every day she develops at least 3 news words (usually more). Her favorites (meaning she says them about 1000000000 times a day): more!, uh-oh!, ice, seeds, teese (cheese), elmo, eye, nose, mouth, ear, air (hair), woof, bad dog!, mama, dada, milk
Tumbling - she loves practicing her gymnastics moves at home. It seems she's always in the downward-facing-dog position about to do a forward roll!
Negotiating - no longer is this just mama's ploy to get us to eat more veggies, she will now respond to me saying "no" to something by doing something sweet and nice (like kissing me on the cheek, or picking up her toys) and then looks at me with a smile to see if I'll change my mind :)
Memory explosion - she knows exactly where all the parks are, no matter which way I get there...which makes running really hard on me because she'll scream when I don't turn where I'm "supposed to" and doesn't appreciate me saying "mommy needs to run another loop and we'll come to the park, I promise!" haha. The other day at the park she hollered at me as I starting pushing the stroller home and pointed towards the play set - she noticed I was about to forget the towel we bring to dry the slides off and hang on the rail while we play!

Current Loves:

Animals (Still!)!!! A petting zoo or the zoo itself are her favorite places to be!
Playgrounds, and especially slides - fairy tale town is another favorite place of hers!
Gymnastics - she gets so excited when we walk in the building and starts pointing and whining to go out on the floor before class even begins!
Mother Goose on the Loose at the library - she waits all week for Thursday morning when we go to this singing/reading time at the library. She now can do all the hand gestures and sing herself at home (and is really good at ~~bossing~~ instructing mommy to do so too!)
Cooking/Baking with mommy
Vacuuming with mommy - this girl loves the vacuum even more than her OCD mama does!
Reading books - we spend about an hour each afternoon reading. Her favorites are Pat The Bunny, Press Here, My First Book of Things to See, Waddles, Because You Are My Baby, ABCs with Sophie, and anything with peek-a-boo flaps!
Singing and Dancing
Sign Language - she can do the whole Twinkle, Twinkle song and every time it comes on (or the ABCs which is set to the same melody) she'll immediately start signing it; she still does milk, food and more too even though she speaks the words along with the sign now!
Saying new words - we've reached mimicking master - every word out of mama's mouth is now a word out of Ava's mouth!
Coloring - I'm amazed at how well this girl can color, and I think it's because I've been encouraging her to color (among other crafts) since before she was even 1
Playdough - I have to hide it from her otherwise she will beg me to play with it from the moment she wakes
Being a helper - if I say we're going to go "bye-bye" soon, Ava will immediately run to find my shoes and bring them to me and pick up my foot to put in them...and then she'll get hers to do the same. She knows all the things we need to go bye-bye and will gather them - diaper bag, water, shoes, keys
Elmo! It's her new favorite word now too :)

Current Dislikes:

New food - we are not into deviating from our usual oatmeal, beets, avocados, beans, roast veggies with hummus, and veggie packed spaghetti...but, hey at least she's eating veggies!
Sharing, and I have a feeling we'll be working on that one for a while!
Meeting new people

We love you Ava Joy - these last 18 months have been the most fulfilling and happiest (despite most sleep-deprived ;)) of our lives!

Here's some pics since the last (15 month) update:

Blueberry face!