Doodle-doodle-doodle

Well we're still waiting on little Miss Madelyn to make her appearance. But while we wait I've been trying to really enjoy these last few days with just Ava, especially since I know for the next couple of months I won't be able to focus as much on her. But she and her daddy have some fun dates planned so I don't think she'll miss me much.

Lately her vocabulary and imagination have really been growing. She's started using pronouns more and surprises me every day with words I had no idea she knew. Slightly scary. . .

What I've really loved seeing come out is her imagination. She's been pretending to be different animals, mostly a dog or a monkey. I felt a little bad the other day though when she was crawling around on her hands and knees and saying "woof, woof" and I said, "Oh look at the cute doggie!" and she jumped up and turned around with a big smile on her face, expecting there to be a cute doggie behind her. Sorry Ava.

She also turns any long or square object into a train or a car or an airplane. Like her corn cob at dinner the other night. (Side note: Ava LOVES corn on the cob and digs right in like a pro. Very cute.)

She also likes to pretend to be her Dada and uses a block from her wooden train set that has a hole in the side as a camera, telling me to "smile".

But tonight at dinner she surprised us by coming up with her own version of Eye Spy. The game goes like this, Ava says "Doodle-doodle-doodle" and then whatever in the room that catches her eye. Such as, "Doodle-doodle-doodle-Light" then Tony and I repeat it and we all laugh. It was amazing to see her scanning the room for new things to say and they got sillier and sillier ending with things like "Doodle-doodle-doodle-Lambie's pits" and "Doodle-doodle-doodle-Pink Milk". We all laughed together over this game for a good 20 min. It was a fun family dinner. :o)

Oh, Ava is really into hiding and she's scarily good at it. She'll hold perfectly still and be absolutely silent for 5 minutes easy, waiting for one of us to find her. Luckily, at this time, we know all of her usual spots and can find her quickly. Her current first choice is in our closet behind Tony's hanging shirts, sitting down with her feet tucked in and two shirts pulled over her face. You literally would never find her if you didn't already know this is her favorite hiding spot. She also likes to hide behind the shower curtain (all you can see is her toes peeking out) and under the covers of her toddler bed (a little more obvious). Sometimes she'll just face a corner and freeze and if you're lucky you can find her by hearing her whisper over and over to herself "Shhh. Hiding. Shhhh. Hiding". But when she knows you're getting close she gets silent.

What else can I jot down about Ava . . .she's just about got somersaults nailed down, and loves to hop around like a bunny rabbit, run circles around the kitchen island and yell (some of you may find this hard to imagine) and be tickled and tickle back.

She also has some pretty strong opinions about where things in the house belong. For example, two particular chairs from her doll house belong on the ledge of my kitchen hutch. I've moved them off countless times but they always return, often just minutes later. The tubs of diaper wipes belong in the cubby shelf underneath her little desk chair in the living room, a bed, a table and another chair from her doll house belong, on coasters, on the coffee table, etc. We've pretty much given up keeping these things where we think they should go and just come to terms with moving the chairs on the kitchen hutch over a few inches to the side when we need to open up the cupboard door.

She's still a great helper as always. She likes to help me dust, put laundry in the washer and dryer (and she will say who each item belongs to as she puts them in and has yet to make a mistake, even on items like plain black t-shirts, she knows which are mine and which are Tony's) she is great at putting her toys away, putting her dirty clothes in the hamper and her diapers in the diaper pail. She picks up trash and throws it away and has yet to throw something away that isn't actually trash. . .I don't know how she knows . . .But what I love most is that if I'm sitting on the ground to change her diaper or her clothes, after she gets up, she turns around and gives me her hand and "helps" me up too. So sweet.

She is still as clean as ever too. Asking for a tissue if her nose needs one, blowing it and wiping it on her own and throwing the tissue away, she likes to have her own napkin at meal times and uses it like an adult and she freaks out if there is a piece of lint or grass in the bathtub with her.

She likes having her hair brushed and made "pretty" (She likes brushing my hair too and gets very intense about it too, brushing it over and over and trying to pile it up and get it to stay up on top of my head) she loves the color pink and prefers to wear dresses. And she likes it when I share my make-up with her and when I comply and wear my red flats that she's always bringing to me and forcing my poor puffy pregnant feet into.

Lastly, she is very much into coloring and putting puzzles together. These last couple of weeks I think she would color all day if I let her. I'm very grateful that the Dollar Store has coloring books! But all the coloring has helped her finally nail down her colors and she'll now ask for the color or crayon she wants by name.

Well that's all I can think of right now. I just love everything about Ava and her personality and I'm so looking forward to getting to know her more and more as she grows. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading my rant on Ava, I just wanted to give Ava one last blog post for the record before Madelyn comes and steals the show for a bit. Maybe she'll even come tonight . . .