We have met the 11 month mark (a few days ago :) and I'm pretty sure I have the smartest kid alive! Haha!! I remember before I had Ava, moms around me would be so impressed with seemingly insignificant developmental milestones reached by their little one, thinking their baby was destined to discover the cure for cancer or develop some other miraculous invention using their obvious magnificent mind that was most certainly bigger & better than any other babies' ... & I remember thinking, "Don't all babies do that?" Well, here I am, in that boat myself, convinced that I have the smartest baby alive. :) Ooooh, it's too funny...babies are incredibly smart in general and learn so much in one single year...it really blows my mind! I am awe-struck everyday when I watch Ava do something new that she has learned from observing us (which can be a little scary:) or discovering on her own. This parenting stuff rocks!!!
Some milestones for the lil munchkin ....
Ava has been tearing our kitchen apart!! First, it was the pots & pans cupboard that she learned how to open and drag everything out of, and now she's working on the towel & washcloth drawer. You know, it does keep her quite entertained though while I'm cooking dinner...so go ahead Dora--explore & entertain yourself! She's also fascinated by the dishwasher, oooh & the refrigerator! If she hears you open the fridge, it doesn't matter where she is, she drops everything and bolts to the kitchen, just in time to see me close the fridge door ;)
The child is a monkey. Plain and simply. She used to crawl up just a couple stairs at a time and then slide or slip back down a measly two little stairs--NOW, she crawls from the first floor to the upstairs bathroom in the amount of time it takes me to brush my teeth! We have a baby gate that swings open & closed at the bottom of the stairs, but I haven't been keeping it closed b/c she hasn't been too curious about the stairs--but that has changed. She also likes to climb into her old carseat that has been just laying around here. Oh, and she'll climb up on "Maggie" her butterfly rocker when she wants to as well. M.o.n.k.e.y.
She is starting to want what we're eating instead of her babyfood. We had blueberry pancakes for breakfast this morning and she went bananas for them! That was after her oatmeal & yogurt breakfast. I've had to start hiding what I'm eating--especially if it's something she can't eat, like chips & salsa or something, because she practically climbs up my leg trying to get some of my food!! We try to base all of our meals now on food that she can easily eat. She's had spagetti, some shepard's pie at my mom's, mashed potatoes, some rice from my Chipotle yesterday, pastas, my gosh she loves anything she can snatch up from my plate really! She likes white grape juice and every now and again I'll give her a few spoonfuls of milk from my cereal or something. I can't wait until we're done with formula! Good for baby, hard on my wallet. ;)
Ava is starting to wave bye-bye. Pretty cute! She doesn't do it everytime, but just lately she has started to do it a lot more. She's getting stingy on giving those kisses I love though--probably because everytime she turns around I'm in her face asking for another kiss!! Ha!
She's a good hide & seeker. We'll take something away from her, like ooh let's say the screwdriver that Eric was using to change the batteries in her dancing doggy last night, and she searched like crazy trying to find where we hid the thing!! She spent a good 10 minutes looking all over the place for that screwdriver! She's very curious about where things go when they're out of her sight!
Here's where the totally smart part comes in--The other day she was playing in her toy box, just rummaging through, throwing things out and making a complete mess when she came across the case to her thermometer (why it was in the toy box I have no idea). It's just a small clear tube with a lid. The lid happened to be buried further down in the toy box at the time, so she just played with this little tube for awhile until she got bored & flung it somewhere. She goes back to rummaging through the toy box and comes across the little clear lid to the thermometer case. She looked at that lid for a minute or so, fiddled around with it in her hands for a bit and then looked over where she threw the tube earlier. Can you believe that she then crawled over there with the lid still in her hands, picked up the tube and
PUT THE LID ON THE TUBE!! Wholly Mackeral!!! I about peed my pants in complete shock at her ability to use deductive reasoning skills!! That thermometer case just randomly ended up in her toy box, we don't use it often, but she thought the two looked like they would fit together so she tested her hypothesis and confirmed that, Yep-these two fit together just like I thought they would! Whoa, I know, I'm getting too deep here, it might've been coincidental, but it's so much more fun to think she used some reasoning here!!! Oh my word, smartest kid alive. heehee.
She has totally given up her 3rd nap of the day. She naps around 9am and then again around 2pm. Since giving up the 3rd nap, she's been going to bed a little earlier, around 7:30 and has been sleeping like an angel:) Aaahhh that's what I'm talkin' about!
She has been taking to the sippy cup much better. She still has a morning bottle with her breakfast, a bottle around 3:00 with a snack and then a bottle at bedtime. I made the hole a little bigger in the nipple of her juice bottle so she could learn to manage the bigger gulps a little better to help with switching over to the sippy. I think it helped, she's getting most of the juice in her belly instead of on her shirt :)
We went apple-picking last week with some of our Mommies & Munchkins group! Ava just loved watching the kiddos pick apples, and my arm about fell completely off my body while I picked with one hand and held Ava and the apple bag in the other. My left arm, I've concluded, has grown to about twice the size of my right arm since having Ava ... 4 arms would've been helpful that day...what am I saying...4 arms would be helpful
every day!!!
That sums it up I think!! We're beginning to plan Ava's first birthday party!! I can't wait!! One year old
already!!!
Miss Ava and her lil punkin ...
The Grandkids
Davis offspring & their little ones ...
Corn-hole!!
Eric & Chad
Our neice Halee ... cutie pie.
Ava (making her infamous face) and Halee ...
The football players ...
And the cheerleaders! :)
Ava-cakes O:)
I just wanna squeeze her .... and do quite often!
S.t.i.n.k.e.r
