Life with Ava

Webster's definition of stupid is as follows:

Pronunciation: \'stü-ped, 'styü-\

Function: adjective

a: slow of mind : obtuse

b: given to unintelligent decisions or acts : acting in an unintelligent or careless manner

c: lacking intelligence or reason

We meet all of the above.

Here's a clue, stupid parents (us). If your normally sunny tempered baby is suddenly unceasingly cranky for 3 days then you might think to stick your finger in her mouth or take a look to see if there are any new teeth. There's probably a reason that she's fussy and it's sort of your job to figure out why.

As you can guess, Ava popped a new tooth through this morning. Just the teeniest edge but it's there and it's really, really sharp. It's her upper right lateral incisor. And I feel horrible - 3 days and we never gave her anything for the discomfort. No anbesol, no ibuprofen, nothing. My only consolation is that she has plenty of teethers around so she's at least always had something to chew on if she needed it.

It was a 'Duh' moment for sure when I figured it out. I promptly gave her some ibuprofen and our sunny tempered little one surfaced once again.

Daycare went okay this morning. I signed her in, got her things situated, and handed her off before I started bawling in the middle of the room. By the time I left I had 2 of the caregivers patting me on the back and telling me that it would be alright and a host of other parents looking on sympathetically. I handed her over to Miss Yvonne (love this woman - so sweet), kissed Ava goodbye, and told her I'd be back later. Then I went out to my car and cried for 15 minutes in the parking lot.

I loved being back at work. I knew I missed it, but I forgot how comfortable it feels being at my desk with my ginormous wide screen monitor and all my stuff around me. It was very social this morning with people coming to welcome me back and ask about the baby so I didn't get much actual work done (some, though). That said, you always had to push me out the door at the end of the day before we got Ava but I was chomping at the bit to leave and go get her today. And I'll admit, I caved and called the daycare after about an hour to make sure she was okay. She was, of course.

When I walked in to pick her up she was bouncing on Miss Tatiana's lap and chewing away on a toy. She gave me a bit of a strange look when I came in, but came to me right away and started smiling almost immediately. The daily report said she cried for about 20-30 minutes after I left and would start crying when it got too noisy or when the other babies would cry. She doesn't like loud noises so this makes sense and since she wasn't in an orphanage she's not used to other babies crying. She took her bottle this morning, napped for 30 minutes, and ate a small lunch (typical for her). They said she did very well, no smiles for them yet, but she was okay. That, of course, makes me feel better and worse. I would like her to miss us just a little, but I want her to be happy while she's there too. I know, complicated thoughts for such a little one. I just want her to realize that we're the parents and that we will always come back for her - which I know she will learn in time.

I did some heavy attachment parenting stuff this afternoon. I put her in the sling and carried her with me for quite a while and really worked on reinforcing the eye contact and bonding behaviors. J did, too. Ava took a nice long nap (tired after such a busy day, I guess) and ate a huge dinner. She got loads of quality time and attention and went right to bed after another dose of Anbesol. (Side note - Why can't I get this stuff into her mouth without, invariably, some of it ending up in mine and numbing my lip or tongue too?)

So here we are. I'm relieved that the day is over and it didn't go nearly as bad as I expected. J is watching TV in the other room and, compliments of the wireless camera in the baby's room, you can see that Ava is tucked into bed.

Sweet dreams, baby. No daycare tomorrow - it's a mom and chicklet hangout day - and they're calling for 70 degrees. Yay!

We've had a very busy weekend with Ava (her first trip to the beach happened on Saturday) and about a million and one photos of her being mostly not so happy while we were trying to get some official birthday shots - although there are a few positively adorable ones where she snuck a smile in when she thought we weren't looking. My intent today was to post a few of those photos but instead I'm going to talk about her rapidly approaching first day at daycare - which is tomorrow.

I am positively wracked with guilt over this. All I can think about is how hard it's going to be on her (and me) when I have to take her there and leave her with virtual strangers…and then turn and walk away. She hasn't been away from me for more than a couple of hours since we got her and even then she's only been with her dad. She is a total mama's girl - understandable since we spend all of our time together - and looks immediately to me if she's afraid or stressed, so I just don't know how she's going to react when I'm not there.

Her daycare is very good and we're extremely comfortable with the center and the people who will be taking care of her. She has a primary caretaker (Miss Tatiana) and there are also 3 other carers in the infant room. The ratio is low and I know she will get plenty of attention. We've visited a few times so she's familiar with the center and I'm easing her into it slowly over the next couple of weeks. She will only be there for about 3-4 hours tomorrow, Wednesday, and Friday and I plan to feed her breakfast in the mornings before I take her in.

I realize that I may be worrying for naught (Oh, I hope so!), but I'm just so worried about what this could do to her attachment to us since it's really just in the fledgling stage. Not to mention her innate tendency towards anxiety. We've gained so much ground and she's come so far since we brought her home and I'm simply terrified that this might set her back or damage her trust in us.

I'll be taking her favorite blanket and lamb toy that she sleeps with in the hopes that the familiar objects will help ease her anxiety. I've already taken her supplies up there so I only need to take her and a couple of changes of clothes to leave. I have no idea of how you're supposed to dress a kid for daycare and I can't believe that I'm even worrying about that, too.

I know she's picking up on my nervous vibes today. She was extra clingy and barely slept at all which made for an even crankier baby. She finally fell asleep in my arms as I was changing her into her pajamas. Her bedtime is at 7:30pm and she was sleeping at just a little after 6pm. She's woken up fussing a couple of times since.

It's days like these that I think being a stay-at-home mom sounds like a good idea. Unfortunately it's not a practical one for us, but it sure would lessen the guilt right now. I can't believe that the time has gone by so fast since we got her and I've been on leave from work for about 2 1/2 months already. With complete certainty, I can assure you that time sure never moved this fast while we were waiting.

Does anyone out there have any tips or experiences they can share with me on how this worked out for you? It's got to get easier, right???

Birthday gift from Grandma:

She loves the zebra - not so keen on the parents at this point since they were taking pictures and that obviously offended her terribly.

Not cranky for about a millisecond:

It didn't last:

Maybe a smile?

Nah - still unhappy:

And then she reached out for me and I couldn't take it anymore. We were done and she was off to bed shortly thereafter.

And since we're talking about pictures I'd like to draw your attention to a new link located just above Ava's wishlist in the sidebar. If you click on it you will be whisked away to our other webpage - which is a photoblog only. Our goal is one photo every day in an attempt to force us to pay more attention to capturing bits of our life. We've had this domain for ages and set it up as a photoblog last year but it fizzled out due to increasing depression from the wait for Ava and my frustration with the blogging software and template that I was using. I've made a complete change and we hope to do better with it now.

I do reserve the right to skip a day or two every now and again, though. After all, I'm the mom of a very active 1 year old who sometimes decides that plans are meant to be broken on a (her) whim.

And here's one last photo:

Even with all the crankiness - are those not the most adorable baby legs you've ever seen????

You know how there are some people who don't really like having birthdays? Apparently Miss Ava is one of those types. She was mega cranky all day long, which necessitated  a number of changes to the birthday plans, and overall didn't seem terribly excited about the fact that she was turning the big 1 today.

I got a clue that this was a cranky day around her morning naptime. She went down easily enough but was up again within 20 minutes. Not good when she usually sleeps at least an hour. Lunchtime was horrendous - she wailed and sobbed and screamed throughout, only stopping when I would stick a bite of food into the wide open mouth. She'd gum it up, swallow, and then go back to yelling. After about 30 minutes of this she was literally falling asleep in her food so I canceled our afternoon plans and I put her to bed early for her afternoon nap.

We had another daycare visit scheduled today and I really wanted/needed to do that one last time with her before the real deal starts next week, so we headed out for that excursion as soon as J got home from work. It went fine and it eases my mind a bit more every time I visit. Beyond the separation from me issues, I think Ava will do fine.  That said, Monday will likely be utterly miserable for both of us.

I'd planned to take Ava for her first trip to the beach today but that didn't happen since the much needed long afternoon nap took priority. It was in the upper 70's/low 80's today and was absolutely gorgeous. I did manage to find a small enough spring dress in the closet for her so she was sporting the preppy look with her Izod polo dress and tennis shoes this afternoon. She's gotten tons of pretty little dresses and outfits for her birthday but they're all 12 month size and she's still not quite there yet. Hopefully soon, so she has something to wear. I've really tried to hold out on buying too many 9 month sized clothes but I may have to give in and buy a few things as the weather gets warmer.

After our daycare visit we took the chicklet out to Ruby Tuesday's for dinner. We took a jar of baby food just in case, but she turned up her nose at that and managed to chow down on my mashed potatoes and the cheese and cottage cheese from the salad bar.  So far so good on teaching her to be a restaurant baby - we've been out for dinner several times this week and she's done really well. Girl is learning quickly that most food comes from restaurants and not from the kitchen at home. Her daddy also bought her 3 balloons for her birthday and she had quite the time with them in the car.

We had big plans for the evening and got almost none of them accomplished. The mini meltdowns continued once we got home so we snapped only a few pictures in which she is wailing in the majority of them.  We opted to save the photo shoot for tomorrow and tortured her only a little bit more by making impressions of her hands and feet (well, one hand and one foot) using a kit given to us by our friends', Steve and Angie, before putting her to bed. That means there was no birthday cake, no pretty party dress, and no presents on her actual birthday. I'm not too, too worried about it since she's one and really doesn't care anyway.

More and better pictures will come tomorrow (hopefully). J smushed the birthday cake a little when he was getting it out of the car so it's ready and waiting for her to smush it more. We have the cutest birthday dress for her and only a couple of gifts from us since she's already gotten a gazillion and, heck, what do 1 year olds really need or want anyway.

I do have some photos to post from today but I can't get them to upload to my server right now and I'm giving up and going to bed. I'll sort it out in the morning!

We've been Ava's mom and dad for two months already. I can hardly believe it. It seems like gotcha day was just yesterday, yet it also seems like she's been a part of our lives forever. I'm in awe at how resilient this little girl is and how far she's come in such a short time.

I also realized while rocking her to sleep tonight (twice - the little faker tricked me the first time!) that I can't imagine not having her, this particular child, in our lives. The pain and disappointment of the long wait is numbed by the everyday joys of having her here and we can now see that the wait was necessary so Ava would come to us in her time. I don't want to ever totally forget the pain of the wait as it makes us appreciate these moments just a little bit more, but the sharp edge is gone and that's how it should be. As they say, "the sharper the thorn, the sweeter the rose." And oh, is this rose sweet!

It's truly amazing and such a gift to be able to watch this new little person grow and learn. I never knew how delighted we would be with the small things - like watching her face light up when she learned how to clap her hands together and play pat-a-cake all on her own. Even better when she giggles and starts applauding mom who's dancing around the kitchen trying to entice Ava into just one more bite of mixed vegetables. Or how much I, the non-morning person, looks forward to waking up so I can go in and get Ava in the morning. Her face just lights up when she sees me (or J) - what a rush it is to know that you're the cause of that great big smile and belly laugh.

And the joy. Oh my, just to see those moments of pure joy that she experiences over the smallest things. The wind on her face, splashing in the tub or Sophie licking her hands will bring on paroxysms of giggles. We adults could all learn something from the little ones on finding our joy in the everyday.

No doubt about it - we're the lucky ones here. I just hope we're up to the task of being the parents she deserves.