Crazy Hair!

Finally got the camera out and took a few pictures this morning. Poor Ava has inherited my insane hair. I had hoped it would settle down as she got older, but it just seems to be getting crazier by the day!

1...2...3... CHEESE!

Last week I took Ava to Wizzy's World, which is a big play barn with a giant padded climbing frame where you can let the kids loose for a while. Anyway, they had a yellow bus ride (like the helicopter from the other place) and Ava was obsessed with it so I decided to let her have some money to make it move, and suddenly a little girl jumped inside the bus and was standing next to Ava (who was in the driver seat) and Ava turned around and shouted 'Sit down!' and the little girl sat down right away! Then Ava smiled and said 'Good girl.' and went back to driving the bus. It was so funny, I wish I'd had the video camera going.


One of Ava's tv shows teaches children sign language and Ava has started to pick it up recently. She can sign the following:

- Strawberries
- Scales (weight scales)
- Red
- Hello
- Thank you
- Look
- Parrot
- You sign

That's all I can remember at the moment... I think there might be another one or two in there though.

She's such a clever little bean, always learning and surprising us with the things she has learned.

Play Time

Today I took Ava to her weekly Busy Little Bodies class at the village centre behind our house. The hour is spent singing songs and clapping, playing with puppets and then having tea and a cookie afterward. Ava occasionally pays attention to what's happening during the singing and clapping time but more often than not, she's running around the gym trying to play with fire extinguishers and electrical sockets. I was starting to wonder if I was wasting my time taking her to these classes, when a few hours later at home, she began singing some of the songs from the class! I suppose she is paying attention after all, even if it doesn't show.

I found out from some of the other mothers that I should have already registered Ava with a preschool in the area if I wanted her to attend one when she's two and a half. I hadn't really thought about it but I suppose it's probably good preparation for when she has to go to real school.

Earlier this evening I took Ava over to Isabelle and Cody's house, and while Isabelle and I were chatting on the sofa, Ava tried to climb up to sit with us. Suddenly she let out a shriek and started to cry. I looked down and noticed that Cody had ahold of her shirt with his teeth. I thought he was just holding her back and that it was upsetting her, so I took the t-shirt out of his mouth and noticed a very painful looking bite mark on Ava's tummy! She was very upset and kept clinging to my neck and trying to hide from Cody. Isabelle was really concerned and kept scolding Cody, but he ended up biting me a little while later and then Isabelle as well. Ava has bitten me a few times but I always squeeze her mouth and say 'No biting! No biting!' every time she does it. She doesn't really do it anymore, so hopefully my scolding is working.

Graham and I took her to one of these indoor play world places a couple of days ago and we let her run around on her own, but still keeping an eye on her. When I went to get us some tea I saw her trying to get into a little helecopter ride. There were three little boys inside (older than Ava) and one of them suddenly shoved Ava really hard and she fell backwards out the door and landed on the ground on her back! She burst into tears and came running over to me. I felt so bad for her, I wanted to go shout at the little boy for being mean but I figured it would start something with his mother - if she was even paying attention - and it's probably best that Ava learns other kids can be mean, and that's not the right way to behave. It's just so sad to see someone hurt my little girl :(

So it's been a rough couple of days for her when it comes to playing with other children, and we're going to a Tumble Tots class tomorrow afternoon, so hopefully no one will try and beat her up and maybe she'll make a friend or two.

Update

Ava had another teething spell recently and as a result now has 4 new teeth! Her cheeks were very pink for a few days and she was pretty grumpy some days so we knew some teeth must be coming in.

Her vocabulary is expanding daily and she understands almost everything we say to her. She has a bit of a rebellious streak in her though and decides for herself if she's going to do what we ask her to.

She can be very sweet and loves to give us kisses. She loves her toys and spends hours playing with her new farm yard that Uncle Robin made for her. It was a Christmas gift from Grandma Sue, Roger (Ava calls him Dodgy) and Robin. She has several farm animals to play with, and she has started to find hiding places for them around the house. Yesterday I went to put on the oven mitts and found two pigs inside one of them.

She has started singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and even tries some of the alphabet. Yesterday she said 'TUVWXYandZ' She also likes to sing 'And munch, and munch, munch, two three four, hurray!' which is meant to be the Teddington's Marching Band song from Show Me, Show Me. I think some of the lyrics are:

And march, and march,
And march, 2 3 4!
Hurray! Hurray!
For Teddington’s Marching Band.

I haven't got any new photos to put up, so I'll try and make sure I take some more this week, and maybe some video too. I'm so behind with all of this stuff, her youtube page hasn't been update in ages!

18 months

I can hardly believe it; Ava turned 18 months old 4 days ago! She's growing up so fast.


We had a very busy Christmas and New Years this year, even though we stayed in England and celebrated with Graham's side of the family. On Christmas Eve we travelled to Stratford-Upon-Avon and stayed at a very cute country cottage in the village of Quinton, with Graham's mum, Roger, Steve and Jenni until the 3oth. Because the cottage was so tiny, Steve and Jenni ended up sleeping in the living room, and Ava's travel cot was set up in the ensuite bathroom in the master bedroom. We thought this would help everyone get a little bit more sleep, but unfortunately the walls were quite thin and Ava had us up several times a night for one reason or another.

She seems to have sunk back into the habit of waking up screaming every couple of hours for ages and will only settle down once one of us goes in and sits with her. We've tried letting her just cry it out but she goes on for hours. Stubborn little monkey.

Last night she was perfect though - she slept from 7pm to 8am without waking us up once! When I woke up at 8:15am I had to go check on her to make sure she was okay, and I found her in her bed reading a book. If only she would do that every day!