Waiting

My husband's parents are in town to celebrate Michael's birthday with us. We went to dinner last night to kick off the festivities in style. The children were getting a bit impatient while we waited for our food to arrive. Grandma taught Ava to use her iPhone to take pictures and that was a huge hit. Michael immediately wanted to "play". I pulled out my phone and showed him how.

I kid you not. In five minutes he took 271 pictures. He took extreme pride in the fact that he had taken about 30 pictures in a row of his Grandpa's arm and I have all the shots to prove it.

At the end of the meal, the children were waiting again while the adults finished up. They took a few more pictures, but that wasn't going to do the trick a second time. Grandma picked up Ava and they went for a little restaurant tour to talk about all the pictures they could see. It was sweet to watch Ava in her Grandma's arms chattering away happily. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but she had a lot to say.

Little Imp

Yesterday morning Ava started calling, "Daaaaaaa-dee! Daaaaaaa-dee!" I wasn't quite sure where she was so I called back, "Daddy's in the shower sweetie," but she didn't seem to hear me. I went searching.

I found her in her room. She looked pretty surprised to see me open the door rather than her daddy. (She had locked herself in. I had put a childproof doorknob protector on the inside of her door the day before when she kept wandering instead of napping.)

She quickly said, "Let's do speech Mommy!" I was pretty startled at this out-of-the-blue suggestion until I saw the open baggie of froot loops on the floor. Apparently she had taken off with the bag from my tower of speech supplies and snuck up to her room with it.

She figured volunteering to do speech would get her out of being fussed at. It worked actually. I said, sure and headed downstairs to find a card deck. At that point she helpfully pointed out, "The bag is already open Mama!"

The Weekly Review: Week 34

The Weekly Procrastination Update

Last week I mentioned that I need to get 13 more hours of continuing education credits by the end of the month. Since then I got two. That's better than 0 right? Now, that leaves about two-three more weeks to get 11 more. Hmm...

The Weekly Accomplishment

I'm managing to fit some speech drill in with Ava on a daily basis. Sometimes that is two 30 minute sessions. Other times it is 5 minutes. All of it is better than nothing.

Now, the kittens knocking over my rather precariously balanced tower of speech materials three times in a row was less helpful. The first time I simply sighed and picked it back up. The second time, I scolded a bit and picked it back up again. The third time I used several inappropriate and uncharacteristic words before picking up the tower a third time and trying to re-stack it in a way that was less tempting to kittens. Good thing the children were napping at the time.

Sibling Moment

Michael is starting to feel proud about being a big brother I think. I told the story about him defending her when eavesdropping on our speech session. Later, when he overheard his grandfather teasing her a bit, he piped up rather loudly with, "Don't talk to my sister like that, Grandpa!"

Ava this Week

I'm trying to pay attention to how often I don't understand Ava. It is more often than I think. I have a strategy I use in these situations. I can often tell if she is making a comment or asking a question due to her inflection. If she's making a comment I can't understand, I'll say, "Tell me more." and hope to get additional hints from her expansion. If I still don't get it I'll make a generic comment like, "That's really cool." (if she sounds positive) or "That stinks!" if she sounds negative and just move on. But we've missed an opportunity for more meaningful conversation. If she's asking me a question, I'll respond with, "Well, what do you think?" and hope that she'll answer her own question or that whatever she says next will give me a better clue about the subject of the original question.

The Weekly Michael

We're getting ready to celebrate Michael's birthday this weekend. His actual birthday isn't until next week, but I'm not sure I'm going to try to explain that distinction to him. He is adorably excited. When asked his age, he now responds with, "Almost 4!" instead of "3 1/2!" The party will be small, but hopefully just right for us. My husband's parents are travelling in from out of town and it will be wonderful to have them here to celebrate with us. My parents will be there as well and we'll have a few close friends that Michael is really comfortable with. I'm looking forward to it too. Watching 0-4 has been an amazing transformation.