Ava's New Room

This week we've been busy redecorating the house. We decided to switch Ava's room with the spare room because we needed to create an office space to keep our files and items relating to the new business.

I hated the idea of moving Ava into the small blue spare room with the horrible navy blue carpet that we can't change, but it actually hasn't been too bad. It looks bigger now that we've moved the massive wardrobe out, but it's missing some curtains around the window. I've been trying to find the curtains that match her Jungle Chums bedroom set but unfortunately they've discontinued the line at Babie's R Us. Someone was selling them on eBay yesterday but I didn't want to spend more than £10 on a pair of used curtains so they went to someone else. Oh well.


It still makes me sad when I think of how her room used to be, it was always my favourite room in the house. The only thing that cheered me up a little was the fact that I was allowed to redecorate the office/spare room.

Unfortunately the redecorating of the spare room has been disasterous. We moved the giant impossible-to-decorate-around map up to the office/spare room and I wanted to paint the walls a light brown colour to match it. I tried so many samples and none of them looked right. In the end Graham and I went to B&Q and just grabbed a bucket off the shelf thinking that it would be a little bit darker than the magnolia in the rest of the house.

WRONG!

Oh my goodness were we wrong. It's absolutely horrible! As soon as we started painting I wanted to stop and go back to the store but Graham wouldn't let me. We kept hoping that it would look okay once the whole room was finished... It's awful. My favourite room has very quickly turned into my least favourite room. The colour is this strange pale pinky brown shade that doesn't go with the map at all and doesn't look anything like the colour on the bucket. Such a disappointment. It looks like someone painted the room with a milkshake.

As soon as Graham is away for a few days I'm definitely repainting.

Fee Fi Fo Fum

The other morning Graham approached Ava, pretending to be a giant and he said 'Fee, fi, fo, fum!'

Ava replied: 'No daddy, it's fee, four, five six.'

Only a child could come up with something like that!

Britain's Got Talent?

While I was feeding Ava her lunch the other day, she started singing some of her songs and I was lucky enough to be able to catch them on video. She doesn't normally sing if you ask her too - especially if you have the camera in her face!

To watch the videos click on the title and you'll be redirected to youtube.com

"Two Little Dickie Birds"

and

"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"

Ava has a cousin!

Yesterday evening at 9:11pm, Graham's sister Laura had a baby girl! She weighs 8lbs 1oz and hasn't been named yet. Laura was amazing, she did it all with just gas and air (entonox) and had the baby in a birthing pool.

We're so happy and excited for them, and pleased that there's another little girl in the family. Ava has lots of toys and pretty dresses to share with her!

Looking forward to meeting her sometime this week hopefully :)

Mummy & Baby

Can't wait to find out her name!

** Update **

They named her Eleanor Grace Turner :)

Barge Trip & Hospital Visit

This past weekend we went on a barge trip, which was a birthday present for Graham from his brother and sisters. If you're not familiar with what a barge (or narrowboat) is, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrowboat

Inside there was 2 bedrooms, 2 toilets, 1 shower & sink, a kitchen and a living room. We had enough space to sleep 6 adults and Ava, so it was a pretty big boat. It was a lovely trip up and down a canal for three days, however on Saturday while we were stopped in the village of Newbury, we ended up having to take Ava to the local emergency room.

We were sitting outside at one of the pubs, just having a drink while deciding what to do about dinner. Ava was running around on the patio, and after a few minutes Robin got up and they were dancing around on the deck together. Suddenly Ava fell forward and landed on her forehead. We didn't realise anything was wrong until Robin picked her up and we saw she had blood pouring all down her face.

It turned out she had landed on a piece of broken glass and had quite a deep cut on her head. Graham and I took her to the hospital to have it cleaned up and repaired. Luckily she didn't need a stitch, they just put some sort of healing glue on it and told us to keep it dry for 5 days. It forms a scab and heals without a stitch that way. It's pretty gross to look at but hopefully it'll heal soon.

I think there will probably be a scar left behind, but at least it's right at the hair line and shouldn't be too noticeable.

At the hospital they gave Ava a cute little teddy bear dressed in yellow to keep her happy. We were back on the boat maybe 15 minutes when it was dropped overboard. Luckily one of the guys was able to fish it out and it survived the rest of the boat trip.

Aside from the detour to the hospital, it was a really relaxing weekend. I'd love to do it again sometime, it's a shame it's so expensive to hire these boats.

Inside Joke

Ava seems to have this inside joke with herself that no one can understand. She will sometimes just suddenly say "Mister Publish!" and burst into giggles. Every time she says it she giggles her little head off and we just can't figure out what she means. There isn't anyone on her Cbeebies channel by that name, and I've tried to find out if it ryhmes with one of the characters but so far I haven't figured it out. She doesn't point to the tv and say 'Mister Publish!' so I'm pretty sure it isn't from there.

I wonder if we'll ever understand?

The Highly Sensitive Child

Yesterday was a difficult day. Graham was at work and we had company coming around in the evening so I had a lot of cleaning and laundry to do around the house. Ava decided that it would be a good day to drive me crazy.

She spent almost the entire day following me around the house, clinging to my leg and shouting and crying. Nothing I did made her happy, she was being terribly needy and after several hours of trying to either ignore her or calm her down, I finally snapped. I burst into tears and sent Graham an angry text. He called me a minute later and asked what was wrong. I shouted at him that his daughter was driving me crazy and I had so much work to do around the house that I couldn't handle both. I was ready to get in the car and just drive away forever.

He tried to calm me down by saying I should take her to the park where she can run around and not bother me, but it was cold and windy outside and I didn't want to deal with the bad weather on top of my horrible mood.

Ava and I have had several days like this and yesterday I think I reached my limit. I ended up Googling something like 'clingy child driving mom crazy' to find out what other parents do when they're in this situation. I stumbled across an article called 'The Highly Sensitive Child.' It was actually an excerpt from a book, which I discovered at the end (I had wondered why it hadn't seemed finished.)

After a few paragraphs, I started crying again. I began to realise that Ava might be a difficult child, and it's not going to change any time soon. I couldn't believe what I was reading. It was as though they had studied Ava and written about her specifically!

" A highly sensitive child is often bright, articulate, creative, and insightful, easily able to tune into other people and their feelings. She may display a deep sense of empathy and compassion for other people. "

Just after I read that and was crying, Ava said 'What's wrong mummy? What's wrong mummy?' over and over again.

" And yet, she is also clinging and whiny, sometimes bossy and demanding. "

She is very bossy! She's always demanding me to move, sit down, copy what she's doing, or that I pick her up.

" A sensitive infant is often colicky, finicky, irritable, demanding. She may cry constantly for the first year of her life (or so it may seem to an exhausted parnent) and want to be held continually. "

It didn't last as long as a year, but for the first 6 - 7 months, she would only sleep or calm down when she was in someone's arms, or in the bath tub.

" ... She fell asleep only when her mother or father rocked to for an hour or longer. Several times each night she woke up crying and needed to be rocked back to sleep. "

I can't even remember how long we did that for. So many nights we were in her room rocking her or rubbing her back for ages until she was finally in a deep enough sleep that she didn't realise we had stopped. I'm sure she was more than a year old before we were finally able to stop doing this.

The excerpt just goes on and on describing Ava in almost every way. There were only a few traits that she doesn't have, but everything else described her perfectly. I've decided to order the book because I need to find out how I'm supposed to handle this behaviour. Although it made me sad to discover that she's highly sensitive and going to be hard work, I feel better knowing that there's a reason why she's behaving this way and that there's a way to work with it.

The strangest part about reading the article, was that I recognized my younger self in a lot of the description. I don't remember how I felt as a two year old, but I certainly remember things from my elementary school years. I was never very good at making friends, I was shy became embarassed easily. It didn't take much to hurt my feelings, and that still goes to this day.

No wonder it's overwhelming when her mood flips for the worse, we must be too similar and end up clashing on the bad days.

On the good days, she's absolutely amazing. You couldn't ask for a better kid. She's sweet, happy, friendly, helpful and content. I just wish she could be like this more often.

Hopefully this book will help me when it comes to dealing with her moods and sensitivity. The last thing I want to do is hurt her feelings when I have to scold her or if I tease her about something. I guess we'll just have to be a bit more aware of how she's actually feeling and find a way to work with her mood.

Quotes taken from: Challenging Child: How to Understand, Raise, and Enjoy your 'Difficult Child'
- by Stanley I. Greenspan