Ava’s lab test results came back clean on Friday. The doctor was a little surprised at the lab results, especially in comparison to what she found during the office visit. Ava still feels a little sick but is improving everyday. No more fever. Yeah.
Our little Ava is now 29 weeks old. Yeah!
Evey workday morning starts off the same for us. Ava the alarm clock gets me out of bed when she starts singing or crying, depending on her mood, usually around 6:30 am. Then I bring her in bed with us for some breakfast. Once she is filled up, I leave her with her daddy so they can play and snuggle while mommy gets ready for work.
But every once in awhile, Ava’s daddy will continue sleeping while he should be playing with her. Here she is making fun of her sleepyhead father.
Ava hit a couple milestones on Friday. First, she is really starting to pulling herself up now. I know she did this back a few weeks ago but now she is doing it all the time.
She is so proud of herself and so are we.
And second, she has given up on the worm for the most part, and has started real crawling. She moved a lot faster doing the worm but I’m sure after a couple weeks, she will be racing around the house even faster.
Here is the craziest drooling picture I have taken so far. It just cracks me up.
On Friday night, Ava and I packed up our stuff and headed to San Pedro while Dan and Jeremy stayed in Ventura to work on their empire. We stuck around long enough to make sure Ava and Jeremy could spend some time together. But poor Ava cried the entire time she was with him… just kidding…
…she was all smiles and loved when he imitated her pursed lip snort.
Ava had the chance to interact with a handful of animals this weekend. Most of Ava’s experiences with animals are positive. But my cousins, Marko and Anthony, have this parakeet named Tarzan, that has a loud piercing squawk. The first time she met him (well, they recently found out he was a her when she had an egg stuck in her but that is a story for another blog…) Ava started crying after he squawked repetitively at her. Then this weekend, while at her great grandparents house, Ava would close her eyes with a painful look on her face for no apparent reason…. but there was a reason… Ava would close her eyes every time Tarzan chirped. It was so sad to see her develop a second fear in less than a week.
Ava was reintroduced to Birdy this weekend too.
She tried to grab him several times and he even flew onto her shoulder once. I think they were both stunned.
Ava had a chance to go to the local farmer’s market with Grandma Ester and Great Aunt Adrian on Sunday. She saw a dog tied up and thought is was funny to playfully scream at the dog every time he yelped for his owners.
Leaving town every once in a while is nice, especially when Uncle David helps out by feeding Ava. The feeding was a bit messier than Ava didn’t mind at all.
On Monday, Ava got sick. It started out as a fever, which first reached 101.1 degrees, and made Ava a little delirious.
Since we was delirious, I thought I would introduce peas to her. Sneaky, i know, but it did not work. It actually backfired on us. This is her gagging on peas. But later in the week, I added mashed bananas to her peas and she ate it with no complaints. I am getting better at this sneaky thing.
Shortly after this moment, her fever spiked to 102.5 degrees which made Ava an unhappy camper. The fever broke eventually with some baby Tylenol and a wet washcloth. The fever ended up being caused some type of infection, maybe the stomach flu, which caused the cha-cha-chas and then caused a red bottom. Poor Ava. We spent the next few days at home napping all day in our pajamas and snuggling when the sharp pains made her scream.
So we took her to the doctor, which we already had an appointment for since it was time for her 6-month check-up. We delayed her next set of vaccinations until her 9 month visit due to her illness. Ava weighed 17 pounds 9 ounces (72 percentile; a little lower than I expected probably because she of her decreased appetite this week), was 26.5 inches long (67 percentile) and her head circumference was 18 inches (98 percentile!). I wonder if by her next visit, her head circumference will surpass 100 percent. Is that possible? Anyways, here she is crinkling paper.
To get a proper diagnosis, the doctor needed to collect a urine sample. Ever wonder how they make a baby pee in a cup? Me too. They actually place a foam sticker which is attached to a plastic bag to her, so when she pees, it will collect in the bag during her visit. But Ava did not want to pee during the visit. So we had to sit and wait. The doctor recommended we put her foot and hand in a cup of warm water to help speed up the process. Good thing she learned how to stick her hand in cups of water during her water-filled weekend.
While waiting for the results of her urine test, Ava dozed off in the office and started snoring due to her congestion. It ends up that Ava has a large amount of white blood cells in her urine. So that called for a sterile urine collection which was not pretty. Let’s just say it involved a catheter and a lot of screaming. Poor Ava. So what was first thought to be the stomach flu, might actually be a something a little more serious, like a UTI. We get the results of her test on Friday.
The flow of smiles has dipped this week but once we got home, she gave us a few. I guess she was glad that the doctor visit is over.
Lastly, we are all a little stressed this week, so Ava and I decided to join a mommy-and-me yoga class. Namaste.
This past weekend, Ava spent a lot of time in the water. It all started on Friday when we were preparing for toddler time at the aquatic center. Ava was a bit concerned because her diapers were blue.
Once I explained that these were her little nemo swimming diapers, we were in good shape.
When we got near the swimming pool, Ava decided that she would give it the stink eye.
Once we lathered up with sunscreen and put on our hats, we walked to pool and got ready to sing Old MacDonald had a farm… as we do at home in the tub.
When we got in water, Ava wasn’t too happy with the whole thing. She was very clingy and didn’t want to look down at the water.
But after adjusting to the environment for a few minutes, Ava decided that it wasn’t so bad and started splashing water with her hands.
Then she discovered that the drain looked like a piano…
… and started to sing her heart out.
Overall, she did great and we will back in the pool next Friday for toddler time. Good job Ava.
When we got home, Ava insisted on shoving her hand in my glass of water and playing with the water. It was very cute until she tried to do the same thing the next day with Grandpa Jack’s wine glass! Let’s just say that I am glad her hand wasn’t stained purple for too long.
Then on Saturday, we drove to Grandma and Grandpa’s house with our blow-up pool to show them what she learned the day before. Someone fill this up please.
Here is Ava splish-splashing with her Uncle David.
So silly.
Then she got into the pool with her devo hat…
…spent time chewing on her water book…
and the rubber ducky too.
Then she lounged off the side of the pool as her admirers watched from the porch steps.
It’s a rough life.
Ava is now 28 weeks old and still enjoying the summer months.
Ava has a couple new tricks up her sleeve. In between bites of food, Ava started to bite her high chair tabletop. I don’t know why she’s doing it. So very strange.
And every once in a while, she will make fart sounds… but thankfully it is after she swallows her bite of food.
This was the week that we introduced acorn squash, peaches and apples for the first time. The squash and peaches went pretty smoothly but the apples made Ava’s lips disappear like a magic trick.
And once her lips returned, Ava quickly turned into Popeye the sailor man, chu chu…
… and then Popeye ran outside to catch her sailboat before it left the grass dock. I think Dan was trying to stow away on the boat. Send him to the plank!
Ava told me she wanted to grow up and become a veterinarian. So to start her training, we found a puppy to examine. The puppy’s paw was very interesting.
After the examination, Ava weighed the puppy on her special scale. Stay very still please.
She was very excited about the outcome. The puppy was okay, just covered with a little slobber.
Then we took our little vet to check out the ponies.
She didn’t get to ride them this time but had fun watching her friend Grace go around in circles.
Ava just woke up from a nap and didn’t think posing as Capitan Hook was very exciting.
That afternoon, we also checked out the new Brophy Brother’s in town.
And that is where we got to witness Ava’s new fear… swinging car seats. When we walk with her in the car seat, the natural swinging terrifies her… causing her to grab onto the sides and make the saddest faces.
Over the weekend, we went to the new aquatic center in town to sign up for mommy and me classes. While checking out the kids area, I dipped Ava’s feet into the water and out came a scream or two. Our class starts next Friday so wish us luck.
No more pictures please.
And another new trick this week is this funny face. Ava likes to purse her lips and blow air fast in and out of her nose… sorta like she is imitating some kind of an animal. It is very silly.
Since we never give her bottles of milk at home anymore, we rarely get to see her drinking from them. But this week, we caught her with a bottle at daycare. Who knew that she could hold her own bottle!
Ava’s crawls are improving everyday. She gets lots of practice at daycare. She isn’t doing the conventional crawl yet, it looks more the the worm. You know, that thing our friend Mikey does at the end of a great party. Hehe. Here she is blocking the entrance to the infant room with Hannah, her palindrome friend.
And here she is crawling across the room just to get to baby Lexie… to pull her hair, I think.
And all this crawling isn’t all fun. Ava has her first boo-boo from it all… a popped blister. Ouch.
Every day around 5:30, Ava waits for her dada to come home from work. We used to wait at the window for him but now that she eats solids around that time, I open up the curtains, position her in the high chair and patiently wait for him to arrive.
Then she sees him pull up in the car.
Ava is looking at him but is not sure if that is really him yet.
It is him! Here they are waving at each other. Ava’s wave was an accident in this picture… she hasn’t reached that milestone yet. Rudy also looks at him through the window everyday and Yoda too.
Hi Dada!
It’s so nice to see you!
Now come inside already… it is too bright outside without my sunglasses.
