Little Lins!

Our little girl is now 58 weeks old!

We started off this week with a huge slobbery milestone. Kisses! That’s right. Ava now gives kisses. Sometimes on command, sometimes with a lot of encouragement, sometimes all on her own, but always with her mouth open. Hmmm, I think it might be time to watch General Hospital during her nap time.

Another new trick, pretty high on the list, is Ava’s reaction to pictures of monkeys. She tries to imitate the way we flail our arms while making monkey sounds but it comes out like dancing. hehe. Dancing.

Continuing with her milestones, Ava also started to put puppets on her fingers. Oh, and now she can point to her eyes in addition to her nose. But when she points to her eyes, she flits her eyelashes like Betty Boop. It’s hilarious.

With a little help from our hand or a wall, Ava can now step up a single stair. This picture is more like the ‘Ava getting ready to tackle her shadow in a game of flag football’ but you get the idea.

At daycare, Ava spends a good amount of time sitting on tiny chairs while eating and painting. At home this week, I’ve noticed that she really wants to sit on Olie the Octupus. It is a bit awkward to sit on him because of the big head and belly…. Olie’s, not Ava’s! Geez.

Ava has been really aware of her clothes in the recent past weeks. She loves pointing at the animals that accessorize her dresses, shirts, pajamas, and shoes. For example, if I mention that there are cats on her shoes, she will touch them and giggle. It’s amazing how much she understands.

Here is Ava admiring her new artwork in her room. It took me over a year to put the counting bird art up on the wall. Not sure why. Well, I know why… l-a-z-i-n-e-s-s. Ava loves them. She points at them during diaper changes, strolls in her room, and even in the pitch dark when she first wakes up. I can hear her saying da and see her hand up in the air as I make my way into her room every morning.

Who can blame her? Birds! Thanks Uncle Carrie.

At daycare, there is a room called the Village. It is a scaled down version of a town, complete with a post office, a second floor, a ball pit and a slide. During rainy days, all the classrooms take turns playing in the Village. Ava loves it. No wait. Ava loves it A LOT. Here she is at pick up time. She did not care that we were there to pick her up and take her home. No wait. Ava did care we were there because we were ruining her fun time and wanted us to come back later for her.

Since trying to lift her out of the ball pit caused hysterics, we hung out for awhile while Ava sat in there and picked up balls.

She thought it was silly when her friend Nathan flew from the slide and into the pit with her.

One afternoon at pick up this week, Dan asked Ava to stand still and smile. Usually she takes off running down the hall, but this time she just stood like a statue. This picture cracks me up. Oh, and when we asked her teacher for an update on Ava… she said that Ava is starting to babble a little more but she sure likes to DANCE. lol.

This past week was a rainy one. We had to spend a lot of time indoors. Here she is sitting all alone on Rudy’s bed, reading about Olivia the pig, upside down of course. No need for me to pose Ava with books. She got on the bed and starting read all by herself.

Here she is enjoying some oranges from Dida Slavo’s tree and watching the rain.

To get her out of the house, we took a trip to the mall. Here is Ava filling up her belly as Grace day dreams of dresses.

Finally free to run more than 8 feet before hitting a wall or the couch. Run Ava run.

When the rain subsided, we bundled her up and took her outside where she became obsessed with holes in the sidewalks that contain rain. She had to dip her finger in each one…

…and we had to be very careful that her finger didn’t end up in her mouth…like she did with Yoda’s water dish.

Once the storm subsided, the waves picked up and Dan was off to catch a few waves, so Ava and I were off for a picnic at the beach.

Ava enjoyed her dinner with a beautiful sunset… so beautiful that it sure looks like I photoshopped her into these pictures… but once all her cheese disappeared, she was on a mission to look for some more in her cooler.

While chowing down, she loved pointing at all the dogs walking with their owners.

Once it was time to leave, I placed Ava on the sand so I could fold up our beach blanket. Oops, I forgot that Ava didn’t like sand and she had a mini-meltdown. Sorry Ava. Oh the way to the car, she didn’t even want to stand on concrete sidewalk because she could see sand sprinkled on it.

I haven’t posted many sad pictures in a while so here are a few more for Ava’s loyal blog readers. Here is Ava seconds after getting scratched by Yoda for bothering her while she was bird watching…

…and upset after she was unable to reach her shoe drawer…

…and needing to be saved when I placed my slippers on her feet.

Ava really enjoys our afternoon walks. Well, the walks are better described as animal hunts. She spends so much time looking for dogs, cats and birds. Once she finds an animal, her excitement spills out, first by pointing…

… and then by yelling…

… and then by stomping her feet…

…and then by running to find her next victim friend.

Alright, our walk and weekly post is over. Go home.

Hello there. Ava is now 57 weeks old.

The stomach flu hit me again this weekend. When will it stop? Has this been the worst cold and flu of your life or is it just me? What is going on in this world? Enough complaining. Dan kindly dropped Ava and me off in San Pedro this weekend so I can get some rest. Ava had a blast running from Little Buddy’s aerial acrobatics…

…enjoying peek-a-boo floor time with Nona Ester…

… reminiscing with her Nona Dinka over baby pictures…

…dancing to her new favorite CD ‘Puz Muz’ while holding her Mama’s bronzed baby shoe…

…locking doors with Mama’s keys…

…and eating enough to bring her dearly missed double-chin back.

OK. Milestone time. My new favorite milestone of the week is twirling. Ava makes sure that her eyes are looking as far to the right as possible and then spins and spins. Hehe. It appears that she thinks her eyes are guiding her in her twirling. At the end she usually tries to walk away while laughing, but ends up crashing into the couch or falling down from the dizziness. Hehe.

Ava also took her first step down a porch step this weekend all by herself. It is a little step but it counts.

She also started throwing a ball.

Over and over again.

Daycare is going much better this week. Ava had little to no separation anxiety at drop off. I think it might be due to her finally feeling one hundred percent better. She is no longer coughing at night and thus is no longer using her inhaler. Here is Ava in the morning, sitting at the little table, waiting for breakfast… all nice and clean.

Here she later that afternoon, full of stains from her gnocchi lunch.

Dan was in charge of picking Ava up from school last Friday while I was sick at home. Here she is when I saw her at home. Notice anything missing? Ummm, pants and socks? When I asked Dan what happened to the rest of her clothes, he said that he didn’t ask. He didn’t ask?!? Hmmmm. Nice one Dada.

Guess who is no longer a alien?!?! Dan! Here is the very first picture of us after his citizenship ceremony. Yeah.

Oh, so proud to be an American. His shirt even said so.

Welcome to the U.S. of A., Dada!

While waiting for Dan to wave his flag and watch a video of Bush welcoming him to this country, Ava and I passed the time by showing her Uncle David all the cool things she can point to now. He had no idea that she could recognize so many objects and I had no idea that I never mentioned it on this blog. Shame on me. Some of the things Ava can point at now is shoes, socks, sweaters, lights, sippy cups, pillows, clocks, pictures of Rudy, Yoda… and her nose too. That is our new one this week.

Ava got to stay at Carrie’s house this week too. She had a blast with Darla, Susan and their new rocker canary. It was way better than going to the zoo.

She especially liked chasing Susan around the house, who is recovering with a few stitches. Susan didn’t mind Ava’s petting as much as Yoda does. Susan was comfortable enough to walk over Ava’s tummy during a diaper change within minutes of meeting each other.

When she finally tuckered out from running around their house, Ava sat on her Uncle David’s lap for her first piano lesson…

…and when her foot ran across the keys, she was all smiles.

Back at home, Yoda loves to play with the string attached to Ava’s pull toy snail…. and Ava thinks it is very silly.

Silly girls.

Ava just turned 13 months old!

And what was she doing at the exact minute that happened? Stepping on stones during our daily lunchtime walk.

Ava and Nathan got to spend some time together at Scata’s birthday party this weekend.

Everything was going smoothly until he decided to touch her behind.

His reaction is priceless. hehe.

Here is Ava in her first bounce house. We sneaked in here while all the other kids were smacking a pinata.

Ava enjoyed whacking herself in the forehead with random balloons at the party too. For some reason, her ability to say ‘goon’ is still missing so her four word vocabulary has shrunken back to three.

We also had a chance to host an impromptu dinner party…

… with some two buck chuck…

… and a baby parade.

Ava finally had her first taste of ice cream that evening. I guess she is not a big fan of mint chip. Weirdo.

The living room baby yard got packed up this week. So bye bye prison striped onesies.

Ava is now free to read books in the living room…

…and then run to her room to continue reading, upside down or right side up…

… or laugh with five silly monkeys.

Ava trick of the week is getting onto all fours and then placing her head on the ground. It is difficult to take a picture of it so here is a blurry one for you all. It is super cute when she does it. Well, it’s super cute until she decides to do it during our walk outside and she decides it is a good idea to kiss the sidewalk.

Oh, happy belated Valentine’s Day everyone. Here is what Ava got us. Too cute. And on Valentine’s day, Ava got her 10th tooth (canine bottom right side).

I have been trying my best to keep sick people away from Ava so she doesn’t get sick before she is completely back to old self. So stay away sickos. This week she has been waking up from her afternoon naps with sweaty head, which is a sign of an illness but so far it seems like she is fighting it off. Yeah for now. Oh, and I keep forgetting to blog about the bottle. We stopped giving her the bottle when she turned one and is now strictly on a sippy cup.

A silly thing Ava figured out this week is that Dada’s beard equals tickle time.

Guess who finally got off her lazy behind and got a J-O-B? Just kidding. Every once in a while we will find Ava playing at the front desk at pick up time. We never really ask why. We just assume it is because she is the cutest kid ever and no one can resist her (or she didn’t want to nap and was poking the other kids while they slept).

Ava met a few new milestones this week. First off, she started to pull her snail pull toy around the house now.

And I think we can officially say that she is running too, even though it can involve a face plant or two.

And lastly, she has met the learning boundaries milestone. It involves doing unsafe things around the house, like drinking water out of Yoda’s water dish with her hand, banging on the fireplace screen or opening off-limit cabinets. She always gives us a look before she does a no-no. But with consistency, I think she is getting the hang of boundaries. I hope this is the not the start of the terrible twos.

Since we don’t have a chalkboard for her to write ‘I will not throw my sippy cup at Yoda’ three hundred times, we opted for her to read the bible instead for three hours straight.

Alright. It is time for bath time with my friends.

Ummm. That means bye-bye.

Someone at school told on me. Can you believe it? They said I don’t like creating art in my new classroom.

Oh, come on, you taddletale! Check me out. I’m loving this.

Dada was an art major in college but this is way better than anything he has ever made! Just kidding Dada… but pretty close.

Oh wait. There’s more?

What the?

Look. Happy little clouds. Bob Ross would be so proud.

You asked for a mess…

…and you got it. Yeah.

Show them, Mama. Show them.

Tada!!

What do you think?

I only have one word. Perfecto!

OK. Now, where is that cat?

Hi there. Guess where I am going today? To see Tall Ships!

Wow. Check out these cool tents from the civil war. Wait. Who’s that man over there?

Oh no! Abraham Lincoln. Noooo!

Get me away from here! I don’t care if it is Lincoln or Mike Dutkewych… Get me out of here!

Oh God, that was scary. I’m still not over it but I must focus on the Tall Ships. Focus. Focus. Focus.

Grace! Thank goodness you are here to save me. You can read, right? Which way to the Tall Ships?

Grace?

Grace???

Oh wait. Here they are!

That better not be Lincoln following me!

Ahoy mate! Land ho!

To tell you the truth, I had more fun just playing on the grass with Grace. We both had birds on our shirts and loved pointing at them.

Check out our Prom 2008 picture. hehe. I think someone forgot the corsages. The end.

Guess who is 55 weeks old and happy to be home? Ava!

We took Ava in for a check-up last Friday to make sure she was still holding her own. And she was. She is doing great. Thanks for everyone’s positive thoughts while Ava was fighting her battle. Based on her shrinking belly, we knew that Ava lost some weight. It ends up that she lost a pound and a half of weight.. bringing her down to 20 pounds 13 ounces from her previous fighting weight of 22 pounds 2 ounces.

Ava was never on any medications since she had a viral, not a bacterial, infection. But to help her breathe, she needs to continue breathing treatments, in the form of this inhaler, until her cough disappears. She does pretty well with it. Dan and I make silly faces while we count to five to distract her… but by the time we get to the fourth try, she usually lets us know that our silly counting is not so silly anymore.

Ava loves walking around the house holding the inhaler to her face when it is not treatment time. Go figure. She even shakes it which is something we need to do prior to administering the treatment. Ava the copy cat. Those two little red marks on her cheeks are still from the tape while she was in the hospital.

Wondering what is making Ava smile so sweetly?

It was a get well card from all her friends and teachers at daycare. She loved pointing and smiling at all the familiar faces she hasn’t seen in over two weeks.

Here she is at pick-up time during her first day back at daycare. She was busy sitting and playing with Miss Arisbeth and her friends Ava R and Evan. Her teacher, Miss Arisbeth, says that she does not talk too much and does not want to participate in any art projects… which is the opposite from what she did in the infant room. So this weekend, we are going to encourage Ava to paint and color, in an effort to see if that will help her in school. I was hoping she wouldn’t be shy like her mama.
Maybe it is a side effect of her hospital stay. Who knows. Or maybe there is a bully in her class. We’ll just have to wait and see.

We are keeping her hospital stay in the past, even though I keep talking about it in this follow-up post. I refuse to think of her as a sick little girl because she is not. No sense of living in the past. It was a learning experience and we are focused on the present and the future. But one of the side effects of it all is her need to be close to us. This is the face I see several times a day with arms outstretched… and a slight grunt to get her point even more clear. Pick. Me. Up.

At home, Ava is back to her old tricks and has added a few new tricks too… like whacking everything around the house with her new wand that her friend Camilla gave her. It plays a magical princess sound with every whack.

She also starting stomping. Yes, I said stomping. Not sure if it is more like the dance or more like a scary monster interpretation. You be the judge the next time you visit.

Ava also decided a few weeks back that she was a big girl and can get off of the couch all by herself.

Guess who decided that spending his birthday with Ava was more fun than playing bocce ball? Dida! Maybe next year she will be old enough to play with her US Champ Dida.

Fresh from Solvang, Ava got to enjoy a special treat covered in powder sugar. Good thing she just got her first canine tooth on her bottom left side!

Here is Ava with a Mickey Mouse pancake. At first she was perplexed at the idea of eating a mouse.

But after the first nibble, Mickey Mouse went bye bye, right into her belly… blueberry eyes and all. Yum.

Her eating of animals continued that day, but without the same results. Poor ladybug.

On Sunday, Ava enjoyed her 2nd Super Bowl Party at Matheus’ house.

She had fun running around and around…

…crawling through plastic tunnels…

…sweeping their clean floors…

…eating cheese and homemade pizza…

…and ignoring the game with her mama.

Ava doesn’t mind wearing hoods from her expansive sweater collection.

But it is a different story with standalone hats. Here is Ava with her new hat. This look will not last long. Don’t blink.

Here is Ava so proud of herself just after pulling her hat off of her head. I guess no fishing for us today. Thanks a lot Ava.

I sense a walk in a near future. See you next week if not sooner!

Our little Ava is now 54 weeks old. This week has been difficult for us, physically and mentally. Here is the story of our road trip hiccup.

It all started on the Wednesday morning of our southern Arizona road trip. Ava had a rough night… fever, wheezing, restlessness… and on top of that she was having difficulty breathing. Her entire stomach was expanding and contracting with each breath she took. Bad sign. So we packed up and headed for Oro Valley Urgent Care, just a mile up the road. As soon as the nurse took her vitals, we knew something was very wrong. Her respiratory and heart rate were off the chart and her blood oxygen levels were very low. They whisked us away to a private room and immediately gave Ava oxygen through a mask, an IV, a steroid shot thru the IV, and several nebulizer breathing treatments. Ava was in respiratory distress. Her low oxygen levels were not healthy for her organs. The urgent care was not equipped for Ava or for her ailment so they sent an ambulance to pick us up and we headed for the nearest ER until she could admitted to a room at the Children’s Hospital. The Tucson Medical Center’s Children’s Hospital would not accept Ava in their ER even though we were on a waiting list to get admitted to their pediatric wing. Politics. So, we spent most of the day at the Oro Valley Emergency Room, where I held Ava on a hospital bed, watched her vitals and held an oxygen mask over her face. Dan and I did our best to be strong for Ava’s sake… until this one nurse kept repeating how hard it must be for us to have a sick baby. No kidding.

After about 8 hours in Urgent Care and the ER, another ambulance picked us up and dropped us off at Tucson Medical Center which had a whole wing devoted to pediatrics. Actually, Ava couldn’t have gotten sick in a better location in terms of children’s hospitals if she tried. They immediately hooked her up to their machines to continue monitoring her vitals and administering oxygen. They actually stopped giving her an IV because she didn’t seem to be dehydrated… but they kept the IV in place just in case. The nurses actually had a difficult time locating a vein on Ava because of her chunkiness . The needle was located on the back of her hand and wrapped with that blue splint to prevent her from pulling it out.

Ava had one of their private rooms because she was considered highly contagious. Her breath rate was between 60-80 breaths per minute instead of the norm of 20-40. Her heart rate was between 165-200 instead of the normal 120-140, and her blood oxygen was in the low 80s instead of the high 90s. The doctors expected us to be there a night or two… but we weren’t… we were there for 8 whole days. Yes, I said 8. The doctors diagnosed her with bronchiolitis which was caused by the RSV virus. It is a common virus this time of year and she probably got it at daycare or from any of the numerous people that are coughing right now. But when babies younger than 2 get RSV, it can settle deep into their lungs instead of concentrating in the sinus or chest area. About 1 out of 100 babies get bronchiolitis bad enough to be hospitalized and Ava was the lucky winner. Too bad Ed McMahon didn’t run in with his microphone as balloons and confetti fell from the ceiling.

Ava had three electrodes on her chest for her heart and breathing, and a pulse oximeter on her toe to measure her blood oxygen levels, which glowed like E.T. Phone Home.

And a cannula for oxygen instead of a mask. At first, Ava hated it and tried to rip it off. Then she forgot about it. And then it made her itchy and she hated it again. All in all, she did better with it on than Dan or I would have. The reason we were not released in the predicted time frame was because Ava could not hold her oxygen up. As soon as they tried to wean her off of it, she would dip down below the acceptable levels and they would have to turn the flow back on. This lasted for 8 days. Did I already say that? She could not be released from the hospital until she could hold her own for 24 hours.

Ava also couldn’t be released until she was fever-free for 24 hours. Her fever ranged from 100-102.5 during our stay and disappeared around day 6.

Ava was confined to her cage crib for the majority of the time. Once her energy levels started to rise, we let her take a few steps around the room. But, she couldn’t get too far because of the wires. And she didn’t venture out of her room for fear of catching a new illness or giving hers to another kid.

During Ava’s stay, she lost a noticeable amount of weight. Her leg rolls, rubber band wrists and stomach shrunk. Her previously tight shirt was now a little baggy.

Ava’s appetite plummeted during her illness. And the hospital food did not help.

At first, her meals consisted of solid table foods, which she either pushed away or played with, like this green bean flute.

And then we switched to a puree diet, which is normal food, like french toast, placed in a blender and reformed to its original shape. So gross but she ate some of it.

I don’t even want to say what this pureed sausage looks like…

Ava also used her new straw skills to drink juice for the first time… but water is still her drink of choice.

There were two things that saved us from frustration and boredom… her binky and TV. She loved watching Elmo, some penguin cartoon and Hip Hop Harry.

She even enjoyed watching President Bush’s State of the Union and clapped with the audience. No joke. It was a long 8 days.

If you think that a hospital is a great place to rest, you are in for a big surprise. Nurses, techs, and doctors visit all day long and all night long too. We were lucky to get two hours of sleep in a row. Her breathing treatments began every hour and eventually tapered off to every four hours. Ava protested through most of them. She also got her nose suctioned by a wall vacuum several times a day. And her temperature and blood pressure were monitored constantly too. I think she hated the less painless, temperature and blood pressure cuff, more than the suction or breathing treatments. Go figure. During the night, I slept next to Ava in a fold out chair bed. And Dan slept in our trailer in the parking lot with Yoda.

After a day or two, Ava was getting antsy and tried to escape.

To keep her (and us) entertained, Dan bought her balloons so we can hear her say ‘goon’ over and over again… but she didn’t say goon… she just pointed instead.

Ava passed the time by brushing her new monkey friend…

…reading books…

…over and over again…

…kicking soccer balls in her book…

…and pretending she was a bracelet model on QVC.

She also spent just as much time throwing the toys out of her crib as she did playing with them. She must have said ‘oh-oh’ at least a hundred times each day.

Silly Ava would visit sometimes too…

…on more than one occasion.

Ava became more clingy to us during her stay. As soon as someone walked into her room, her arms would fly towards us and she would let out a little shriek.

Poor Yoda. She spent 8 days pretty much alone in the tiny trailer. Dan brought her for a visit outside of Ava’s window when Ava was feeling better. You should of heard her giggle.

After 8 long days, Ava was more than ready to leave. She even helped put on her going home socks…

…and brush her crunchy hair. It really was crunchy. It was impossible to give her a proper bath while she was plugged into the wall.

Bye Tucson Memorial Center. Thanks for letting us stay at the most expensive place in town. Cha-ching.

We made the long trip home in one day. No one complained. Well, no one complained until it was breathing treatment time.

We passed the time by reading books. I wonder if Ava needs glasses.

And we passed the time by taking breaks to see cactus.

One of the goals of this and future road trips is to take Ava’s picture with something that represents the state we are in…. and for Arizona, we thought that the cactus was a pretty good object. We almost did not get this picture. We were exhausted and had home on our minds. But luckily, we pulled off on the last exit before the California-Arizona border, stopped at a historic graveyard and got this shot. Bye Bye Arizona. Thanks for having us.