Av’s ‘friends’

Here are all Av's friends on their cots going "night-night."

Av has many many ‘friends’ that she plays with all day everyday and takes them from floor to floor with her in our house and she must sleep with them all. They are just her stuffed animals but we have always called them her 'friends.' Let me see if I can remember them all. Monkey (the first friend ever), ducky (what she slept with at school when she napped there), periwinkle (from when I took her to Blue’s Clues), Mickey (the horse John bought her named after the first horse she ever rode), school blankie (the blanket that she slept with at school, Matt’s mom made it for her), and Good Luck Bear (Care Bear, this one is the newest. She has had it forever. John bought it for her when she was first born. We took it to every one of her many many many dr appointments we went on with her. It brought us good news each and every time. It has been sitting up on her shelf till the other day when it came down and now goes everywhere with her). She sleeps with all of those ‘friends.’ During the day though she adds baby Rachael, baby snow white, another baby, 2 pillows and many blankets to the mix. She puts all her ‘friends’ night-night on their cots for nap while I am putting Camille down for hers. Then she gets them all up and folds all the blankets (about 10 of them). She is something else.

nesting

Boy did it hit me this weekend. I worked all weekend on the house and made sure everyone around me did too. Heheheh I was a slave driver. Finally on Sunday afternoon John said, “lets go to the pool, I need to have some fun!” So I let us go for an hour. Heheheh We got some much done though. Av is now in her room in a super duper big girl beds (bunk beds, top one is blocked and no one is getting up there for a while). She is very excited. The rest of her room is very cleaned out and organized. All baby stuff is out. Camille and her crib are waiting to move it. There is plenty of room for her though. We got the guest room furniture moved out of what was Camille’s room/the guest room that no one was allowed to sleep in. The changing table, rocker, baby stuff and his clothes are in his dresser. This coming weekend we will take apart Camille’s crib to move it to the girl’s room. Then they will officially be roommates! On top of their rooms being completely cleaned out and purged, we did the basement and the playroom too. Many loads went to goodwill and some stuff just went out to the curb so we could be WT for the day as John said. It worked though; everything we put out was taken. By different people at different times. It was a game all day to see if and when things were taken. An old cheap TV cabinet hung around for the longest. At one point John went out and “re-marketed it” as he called it. He wiped the dust off and turned it so it’s best side was showing from as many different sides as possible. It was pretty funny but worked, it went shortly after that. Makes me feel better that it all went to people that will actually use it. We are about all ready for baby E!!

Yes Camille is staying in a crib a little while longer. Until she is actually 3 as long as I can help it. No way I am going to make my life more difficult and take her out of a crib when I know she is 100% safe there and she is happy there. I would be a nervous wreck and not sleep worrying she is wandering around my house if not for the crib. We borrowed a second crib but even if we hadn't I would have bought one.

friday

Av went to school in the morning. It was her second day of school. The first day she went all day to after care bc I work on Thursdays. Then I picked her up and took her to hbr like I had been doing all summer from Cornerstone. It all went great. She had a good day and was very excited. She took a small catnap in the car on the way out to hbr. She never does that but whatever. So Friday Camille and I pick her up at noon and head to the park to play and eat our lunches. Something we do a lot. Went home for quiet time/nap time at 2. Spent till about 4 doing quiet time so I thought she had a pretty good rest. Guess not. That night we had planned to go eat dinner with friends and then head to an out door concert. It was about 7:30 and we had just got to the concert. All our friends were there and the girls were having a ball dancing with their friends. One of Av’s Cornerstone friends was there and I was excited to see them getting to remain friends. All the sudden Av bumped heads with a little boy and she lost it. It hurt I’m sure but she could not pull it back together. She cried and cried and cried. We tried to go back and have fun but she just could not. My first clue that she was over tired when she wanted to go home and to bed over staying and playing with her friends and getting ice cream afterwards. I was so sad/mad/disappointed. I didn’t want to go home, all our friends were there having fun. To top it off I had to go home alone bc it was John’s night to go out and he had plans. At that moment I could not rationalize that Av had had 2 big days and was just tired. To me she was being different than all the other kids and of course that was/is bc of the chromosome and I just didn’t handle it well. I blame the prego hormones for that. I cried the whole way home and for the rest of the night after that. Hehehehe I know she was tired though bc I brought her straight home and put her straight to bed without the usual books and playing in her room we do. She was sound asleep by 8. Crazy. It's really hard being a parent sometimes.

biting

Is it ever going to end???? We had not had a biting incident for a while now. Partly bc I think she was learning not too and partly bc Av has gotten better at showing her she is not standing for it any longer. Until 2 nights ago. Ugh, I just wanted to cry. We were in Avery’s room reading books before bedtime. It had been a very nice night. The girls were sitting next to each other on the floor facing me and I was reading to them. Out of nowhere Camille laid back, rolled over into Av’s leg and bit her! I could not believe it. I just sat there in disbelief for a minute. Poor Av, I think she tried to pull her leg away as Camille had a hold of it so it made the bite that much worse. She has a huge red, black and blue mark on her leg now. I was trying to comfort Av while John ran in to deal with Camille. It’s so hard and breaks your heart when one child hurts your other child like that on purpose. Poor Av was so upset and it hurt her so badly. I had a hard time calming her down. John took Camille gave her a stern talking to and put her right to bed. Told her that biting was bad, that hurt her sister and to go to bed. She must have knew we meant business bc she didn’t make another peep after that. We felt bad not kissing her good night. We would have for sure went back in there and calmed her down if she was crying and upset but since she was not making a peep we didn’t want to disturb her. It was hard not saying goodnight to her. The following night they were playing on our bed and for some reason Camille tried to bite again. Av got her off quickly before it could so much harm. I told her “No Bite” and put her in time out. She was upset of course. When I got her out of time out I told her she hurt her sister and to go say she was sorry. She went in and said “sorry sissy” with her little lisp that she has. Av was so sweet. She said, “it’s okay sissy, I love you” and gave her a hug. It made me melt how forgiving Av was. I think Camille is starting to feel her 2-year-old molars and I think that’s why this is happening again. I just hope it stops quickly and for good.

zoo

I took the girls to the zoo yesterday. We had such a nice time. We have not been to the zoo all summer due to the heat. Usually we are there a few times but not this year. Our zoo is one big circle set up on a huge hill. So once you go down of course you have to walk back up pushing a stroller and 2 kids. Although I love to walk and still walk a lot that hill is very daunting to a 34-week prego momma of 2 in this heat! Our zoo has just put in a wonderful new sea lion home and has starting putting on training shows. I knew there was a show at 10:30 so our goal was to see that. It was pretty cute. After that we were hot already so we went off to the splash park. The girls loved it and had a great time playing and getting soaked. After that we had lunch and then went to see some animals. Our zoo had another baby giraffe on July 21st so we got to see him. He is sooooooo cute. All legs. His legs go right up to his neck. As of now he really does not have a body. We watched him and his mother for a while. They were inside so they were about 3 feet from us. Pretty neat! It was a nice day with my 2 favorite girls.

Big accomplishment!!!

Av can now button her own shirt!!!!! Even when she is wearing it. I have to admit this is something I have never worked on at home with her. Just not something I think about. The only thing she owns with buttons (shirt wise) down the front is a hideous pair of princess PJ’s that she does love but does not wear them that often. Her OT has been telling me for weeks this is one of the activities they do weekly. Really good fine motor work for her. First it was really big buttons on a shirt on a table. Then they started working on smaller and smaller buttons and putting the shirt on. I’m not sure at therapy though she has ever done it totally by herself. Well she did at home a few nights ago. She got those PJ’s out and did it and came running over to show us what she did “all by myself!!” We were amazed. The buttons were not lined up though and after telling her that she unbuttoned them all by herself and re-did it correctly! It’s really pretty darn amazing. The last couple of nights she has worn those PJ’s and every night she button’s them. She loves practicing it and is so proud of herself. She is too cute.

first day of school 2010

Av started back to Friends today. She was so excited. She woke up early even before John and I were out of bed. We could hear her bouncing around in her room. She looked so cute in her “school day outfit” and backpack. It was just a normal day for Camille but she of course had to be in the pictures. Aren’t they sweet??? At school I stayed for just a bit with Av and then she came over and said, “give me a kiss momma.” I bent down and gave her a big hug and kiss and asked her if she was ready for momma to leave? She said, “yes!” So off I went. I am sure she will have a great day!