45 weeks old…
Ava has turned 45 weeks old…
…and still loves her papuche.
Ava had a handful of ‘firsts’ this week. Yeah.
The first of the firsts was her Indian call. I know this is not very PC but I don’t know the correct term. Sorry. Maybe I can call it wah-wah-wah instead? Awhile ago, I told someone to go sit Indian style and was quickly corrected. It’s called Criss Cross Applesauce. I’m a jerk. Wah-wah-wah.
For Thanksgiving weekend, we drove down to Ava’s Nona and Dida’s house (Grandma and Grandpa). It seems like Ava loves doing things for the first time when we are visiting and this week was not an exception. Ava was playing with her plastic animals, dropped one on the carpet and said ‘oh-oh’. And then she repeated it over and over again. I think she was as surprised as we were. I wonder if ‘oh-oh’ counts as her first word. She has said Mama and Dada but hasn’t said it solely to correct person. Ava will point and say Dada to Yoda, to the wall, to lint on the floor, etc. And she stopped saying Mama unless she is about to cry. But oh-oh actually happens when something drops on the floor. Watching Ava grow up in front of our eyes is amazing. Huell Howser would even say amazing if he ever met Ava.
She also started to climb stairs all by herself… with someone ready to catch her of course.
Ava started to do this call thing also. It started when she was standing in the hallway, wondering where Nona and Dida were. She would say ahh and then wait for a response. And if no one responded, she would wait and a couple seconds and say ahh again. I guess there was no need for this type of calling when at home since we live in a tiny house where hiding from Ava is almost impossible. But when you have a large hallway and an upstairs area in your house, Ava needs to make sure you still around, in case she runs out of people to play with.
Ava’s Uncle David is a guitar hero…. not like the video game, but a real one. At least that is what Ava thinks. He spends a lot of time in my old bathroom at parent’s house, playing and writing new songs. The bathroom door was cracked open a tiny bit and Ava and I decided to listen to his songs in secret. After a song or two, Ava pushed the door open to see what was happening…. to Uncle David’s surprise. When the door swung open, he screamed and had a super surprised look on his face… which in turn caused Ava to start crying. I guess she never scared the daylights out of someone before. hehe. After a few whimpers, Ava sat on my lap while Uncle David continued to play his guitar. Ava sat there like a statue for at least 5 minutes, not moving even an inch… just staring at her Uncle David while he played beautiful songs to her. And that is why he is her guitar hero.
Over the weekend, we were also lucky enough to attend cousin Nathan’s baptism and I was lucky enough to be his godmother.
Ava was excited but it sure didn’t show in her pictures. I forgot to take some smiley pictures.
Here is Ava with Nathan and his godfather Uncle Bobby. Ava kept her distance since she got a little sick on Thanksgiving.
Ava really misses playing with little kids when away from daycare. At the baptism, she got a chance to play with Scata. She didn’t even mind just watching Scata play from afar, just as long as she stuck around.
But when Scata let Ava play with her doll, she was elated.
Another new thing that started this week is holding onto our legs. Ava started to hold on and even peek through them like all kids do. Sorry for the butt shot Dada.
But even with all these new things, Ava still loves to listen to us read books to her. She loves turning the pages, which sometimes occurs before we are done reading the page and sometimes in the wrong direction, Chinese-style.
Here she is making silly faces with Nona Dinka.
And waiting patiently for dinner with Nona Vinka. I love having grandmas with rhyming names.
When out and about, we sometimes have to use this portable chair when a high chair is not available. It is supposed to last until Ava is three years old but it is not going to last even to her first birthday. Her belly is just a little too big for the tray to fit… sorta like Santa Claus. 
And speaking of Santa, Ava got all dressed up to meet him for the first time.
Hello Santa?
But Santa was not there. But we did get this great picture of Ava running to us. Ava and Nona Ester have the biggest smiles on their faces.
Ava decided to tell us her wish list instead… reluctantly.
When picking up Ava from daycare this week, we found her trying to push her way to this corner, oblivious to her friend Evan. I guess she really wanted to play with the musical instruments that he was playing with at the time.
And on a sad note, Ava’s friend Hannah is moving to the east coast on Monday… and her friend Ava R is moving up to the toddler room. So she is losing one friend forever and the other for a month or so, at least until she is ready for the toddler room too. At pick-up a few days ago, the three of them were giggling together as usual. I almost got a picture of it but my stupid camera wouldn’t take the picture. When it did, our Ava looked away but the other two were still smiling. Stupid camera. Silly girls.
We sure did have a lot of trouble with our car this week to say the least. So we are considering trading it in for a plastic car instead. I hope Ava doesn’t mind driving us around town. Beep beep.
