15 Months

Ava turned 15-months last weekend and there's so much going on in her world right now. She has just taken her first steps just a week after she started standing up on her own. Since she was later to develop those skills, I think she just put it all together so quickly once she got the confidence to try. She observes the world around her closely and then cautiously tries them on her own when she's ready. Ava is on her own schedule!

Here are some pictures of our play date at the park with my friend's 18-month old daughter. Ava got to ride in a swing for the first time! She loved it. She even walked in the grass, which I was very excited to see since she only took her first steps the day before.

Growth:
22lbs 2oz (gained 1 lb in 3-months)
32 inches long (grew 1 1/2 inches in 3 months)
46 1/2 cm head size
Clothing - 18months to 2T on the top, 12/18-months on the bottom

I just took Ava for her 15-month check-up. She was very upset during the appointment, but her pediatrician said that it's very common for 15 and 18-month old babies to react that way because of their stranger anxiety. Even before the shots, she got very upset. We nursed through the beginning the the visit so she could calm down and then after her shots, which put her to sleep. Poor girl! The doctor and staff were amazed to see her relaxed and sleeping in her sling as we were leaving since she was so upset before.

I always say, thank goodness for nursing! In fact, I'm happy to report that she's extremely healthy. She's never had an ear infection in her life or anything other than colds and some elevated temps. And at 15-months, we're nursing while we're together that I still express at when I work in the office. At daycare, she has made the switch to sippy cups and eating a really good lunch and snacks. She's never had cow's milk since we're nursing. But she does well with water in her sippy and still ramping up on drinking expressed milk in her cup. She tends to take smaller amounts of milk now, but we nurse a lot when we're together. I save all the extra milk to donate to the milk bank for the babies.

Ava is very vocal and expresses herself by talking and singing. Listening and dancing to music is one of her favorite activities. Her favorites are the Veggie Tales songs, especially the theme song. She sings the song all the time and points to the iPod so we'll turn on the music. Aaron and I can't get the song out of our heads, but it's worth it because she loves it! Today, at Meijer, we saw a box of Veggie Tales fruit snacks and when she saw the box, she started singing the song. It was so cute!

New words:

• Bena - her favorite and she says it at daycare all the time
• Stop - to the babies that are bothering her at daycare
• Go - when we're getting in the car
• Bye-Bye (with the hand wave) when we're going somewhere
• Jacob - Ava's friend at daycare and she says it really well!
• Ma - that's me
• Da - Aaron
• "That?" - when she's pointing to see what something is and we do this over and over again!
• Uh-oh - she says that when she drops something.
  
• Light - she pronounces yight

It's funny that she doesn't have a word for nursing yet. She just either points to my boob or pulls at my shirt when she's desperate. Usually, I can read her body language before we get to that point.

What Ava is eating:

• Fruit and yogurt smoothie: We share a breakfast smoothie together. Her favorite is berry, but she also likes the banana-pineapple with OJ.
  
• Yogurt-mashed banana combo: and sometimes I add almond butter. I mix in a dab of maple syrup because I use plain yogurt. She also likes vanilla yogurt with unsweetened apple butter.
  
• Fruit: peaches, orange slices, plum (new), my homemade cinnamon applesauce, and freeze dried strawberries.
  
• Snacks: yogurt melts, puffs, graham crackers, cinnamon school book cookies from Trader Joe's, honey wheat pretzels.
  
• Dried fruit: cranberries and pineapple
  
• Veggies: Beets, zucchini, carrot-apricot puree, sweet potato (sometimes I add mashed black beans), and a combo of potato, leek, and pea.
  
• Meat/protein: just started to eat chicken (pureed). I mix in lentils in her food too.
• Bread: she just started eating bread a little bit.
  

Breastfed babies get a sampling of family foods from the flavors in their mother's milk. They say that after an hour of a mother eating a banana, its flavor is in her milk. I guess it's not a surprise that Ava loves fruit and yogurt so much because I make a smoothie every morning and eat lots of fruit. We always have seasonal fruit on the dinner table and offer it to Ava to try. It takes us many attempts to get her to warm up to new foods so we offer her what we're eating and see what sticks. It's still hoping for her to like avocado! Her way of eating is interesting. You give her a large piece of food and she breaks it up with her fingers and mashes it and then puts the small pieces in her mouth. Lots of food ends up immediately on the floor so it's a good thing for Bena! We call her the hoover!

Ava enjoys the outdoors, especially with her Daddy and Bena. She loves watching Aaron throw the ball for Bena in the backyard. Aaron pulls out the playpen and she stands in it happily watching the fun action. We've had lots of rain powerful storms this year and she likes to watch them on the front porch with Aaron. Sometimes we all sit out there together. We're hoping to get a porch swing so we can sit out there together.

Overall, we're having a great time. She's really enjoying her Daddy-time!

First Steps...

Ava is a new walker! She stood by herself independently on Friday. And then the next day took her first steps. I had a feeling it would be all at once. She's been able to use her push toy all over the house and has been sophisticated enough to know how to move it back on track if she got caught in a spot that she couldn't go forward. I have watched her grow stronger and faster as she has practiced pulling up and scooting quickly all over the house.

Ironically, Ava hasn't been interested in moving around until she turned 1. Then she started realizing that she could move her body to get things she wanted. The last 3 months have been fun watching her make big developments leading up to her walking!

Check out our video from last night's first steps. Go Ava!

Mommy and Me Lunch

I took today off of work to have an extra day to relax after the holiday weekend since we hosted 4 friends for the Indy 500. Ava and I just had lunch with my friend, Helen, and her baby that is only 1 week younger than Ava. Helen and I met in Lamaze class when we were pregnant and in the first week's class we discovered we had very similar views. She's from the Bay Area also, which right there goes a long way since we're in Indiana! And we're both career-focused, educated and driven women. We have taken different paths since becoming mothers. She is a stay-at-home mom (for now) and I'm a working-outside-the-home mom. We love to talk about the differences because we're curious how the other side of the coin would be. She wonders about daycare and the time apart from her son and I wonder what it would be like for me to be with Ava all the time.

Between the "Mommy chat" we were surprised how different our babies are with eating. When Ava and I arrived a few minutes late, she had already put in an order for Dominic's meal. It arrived and he went crazy! He wanted to eat it so fast that she could barely cut up the fruit and sandwich fast enough for him to gobble it up! It was like a race! Ava was staring at him very quietly. I gave her some crayons. Not much of an eater herself, she started to reach for his sandwich so Helen gave Ava the crust since it was long and skinny and easy for her to hold it. Being inspired by Dominic, she put it in her mouth and tried the bread. She had a few tastes, but then started to throw things on the floor. Little toddler hands were everywhere and Helen and I had to work quickly to prevent accidents and keep our sweeties happy. When my food came, it got more interesting. I put Ava in the high chair and she got busy. Not eating, but throwing pineapple, flowers, crayons on the floor. Busy little hands were on both sides of our small table. Then she got antsy. I offered her tastes of my gazpacho and sandwich, but she didn't want any of it. Pineapple was spit back out. It was crazy!

Dominic ate cereal O's, most of a sandwich, fruit, crackers, yogurt, and drank milk. Ava ate a couple bites of bread and a handful of yogurt bites. I nursed her for a few minutes at the table before we paid the bill. I wish she would eat a bit more like Dominic. We tried to pick up the crayons and big pieces of food off the floor as best as we could.

Then outside of the restaurant, with our newly calm and sleepy babies, we made the decision to get together at one of our houses next so the busy toddlers can run around safely and we can relax more. Turns out both babies were asleep in the first few minutes in the car ride home!

Between all that action, we did enjoy a nice talk about the reality of motherhood in your 30's. I'm realizing that balancing working and mothering is just as hard as not working and just mothering and everything in between. There's so many choices for women and their families. At the end of lunch we agreed that you have to try it out to see if it works for you and if not, then change it. I'm so glad to have girlfriends that I can talk to about these things!

Playtime

Ava and I have been playing a cute game together. She thinks is really funny when you put something on your head and then take it off and put it on hers. Ava's daycare made this cute Easter Bunny hat and since we brought it home she's had fun playing with it, which is remarkable because some of the other babies instantly ripped and ruined their hat on the spot! That Bunny hat has been on my head, Aaron's head, and even the dog's head at times. Ava asks for it and then puts it on her own head and then takes it off.

It's the same game we play in the bathtub. When Ava is taking a bath, we put her cups on our heads. She cracks up because she knows the cup doesn't belong on our heads. This game comes in handy when she is getting her diaper changed. Right now she's too busy to get her lay down for her diaper change. Sometimes it's nice to have some fun distractions.

Here is Ava with her bunny hat. She's wearing a T-shirt from her daycare picture day. They give you a T-shirt with the child's picture on the front. It's roomy and comfy so she enjoyed hanging around the house with it that morning. Her pictures turned out great! She looks like a little lady.

She's only in the daycare nursery for one more month. By the end of June, Ava will transition in the toddler room where they take naps in a cot and have more activities like puzzles, drawing, and hand painting. I know she'll enjoy those, especially because dinner time features lots of hand painting on her tray! I'm a bit worried about the transition since she already has trouble napping in the afternoon at daycare. I've prepared myself for a 3-4 week adjustment period like it was when she moved to the older baby nursery last Fall. At least she'll know most of the babies in the room since they travel together as they grow.

This last picture is from last Friday afternoon when Ava sat next to her friends watching the daycare version of the Indy 500. Last year, Ava was the Indy 500 Queen! They daycare has push toys for toddlers and toy cars and trikes for the older children to race around a small course. Ava didn't race, but her caregiver told me that earlier that morning, she walked with push toy for a very long distance while they were setting up. So she got to have her fun! She will use that push toy forever at home! I need to take some pictures of that! She's making lots of progress towards walking on her own each day. She's now able to stand on her own for several seconds, but then when she realizes she's not holding on sits down. We are working on her body rotation to help her with skills for walking. Usually she plays with her shoulders, hips, and legs all in the same direction. We are helping her with rotation by sitting her on the bottom of step and encouraging her to rotate her shoulders to play with the toys. She's definitely getting the hang of it. Playtime is getting fun these days!