Life with Ava

Day Care - Take 2:

I was hoping that Day 2 would be a little easier and it most definitely was not. The morning started out fine - she ate breakfast in a somewhat timely fashion (for her, anyway) and even fell asleep in the car on the way there. We were listening to the Wicked Cast Recording (which she loves) so it was all good until we went in and I handed her off to Miss Yvonne before putting her things away. Ava was a little bit okay with being handed off until Miss Yvonne took a step away from me and that's when all hell broke loose. As long as I was in her line of sight it was not okay and she was screaming. Sooooo pitiful with the little red scrunched up face, tears streaming, sobbing like her tiny heart would break, and (the worst) the little arms reaching for me. Not to mention that the volume ratcheted up a notch approximately every 5 seconds.

I hurried up and got her things settled, bent down to kiss her, told her I loved her and would see her later - then I got the heck out of there. Sadly the volume increased and I could hear her all the way out in the parking lot. Yep, I sat in the car and cried again.

The daycare called me about an hour later, which scared me to death, and let me know that she finally did settle down and was doing fine. I did appreciate the call once my heart started beating again. That said, she didn't do as fine as the first day. She wouldn't take a bottle or a sippy cup at all from them so she gulped one down from me once I got her in the car. She did eat her lunch but didn't nap until she nearly fell over from exhaustion around noon. Her usual nap time is around 9:30am.

I picked her up around 12:30pm and made a quick pit stop before coming home. She drank more milk from her cup when we got home and basically stuck to me like glue. I finally got the hip carrier out again and just kept her right with me for an hour or so while I was dealing with the dogs and straightening up the house a little. She got dozy at about 2:30 and went right down for her afternoon nap after a dose of ibuprofen and a bottle.

J got home a little early so we woke her around 4pm and headed for the park. She had a ball. There was no one else there so she got to do it all - swing, bounce, and slide (with mom and dad's help). It was cool out, but she had on her fuzzy lamb jacket so she was ready to roll. After leaving the park we headed down to the piers to take a walk around then headed for Target to pick up some necessities. While there, J spotted the newly opened Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant and decided dinner would be take out tonight. That would be great except even the take out line was about an hour's wait. He toughed it out while Ava and I laughed and played (and she ate) in the car. I'm pretty proud of myself for finally getting to the point where I'm prepared for just about everything with a fully stocked diaper bag that includes 3 different kinds of snacks, formula, and food, just in case.

I will say that being away from Ava makes me appreciate the time with her more and that makes both J and I much more focused on her once we get home. It's like anything, I guess…you always appreciate things more when you don't have them right there all the time. We may not be able to give Ava the quantity of time that we'd like to but we can give her the quality of time for sure.

As always, after any stressful event for Ava she becomes very clingy - my little shadow.

It will probably be like this x2 tomorrow since we have her 12 month checkup. I can't wait to see how much she's grown but I'm not so excited about arguing with the pediatrician about vaccinations. We're going to go over her titer results tomorrow and lay out a vaccination plan. I don't want to do more than 2 vaccinations at a time so there isn't going to be a big catch up shot visit (I don't mind paying the copay a few more times) and I absolutely won't do the MMR shot now or even anytime soon. It's pretty reactive and I would rather wait until she's a bit older for that one.

Milestones:

She let go of the crib rail and took 2 steps toward me yesterday before pitching forward. She's tried to do this a couple of times now.

She can give me five when I ask her to. She also thinks this is the coolest game ever and we should play it for 23 hours a day.

She has started trying to say mama (FINALLY!!). She hasn't wrapped her tongue around the m sound completely but, right now, I'll do just about anything to hear her trying to say it. It probably won't take her long once she figures out I excitedly come running every time she says it.

P.S. Don't forget you can see a daily Ava picture here.