The great comparison

Ava at 18 months old:

Audrey at 18 months old:

The new Mary Camden

Yesterday we made a trek to Target in Woodinville and picked up some things we needed like a new toaster (the one we got for our wedding just died a couple weeks ago), a lamp for my desk in the office and a few toys for the girls.

For Audrey we got a bead maze, like you see in the office of Dr.’s and Dentists. And for Ava we got her a basketball hoop and ball. It adjusts from 2 1/2 ft. to 4 ft. high. She had been asking for a basketball for what seems like FOREVER. She loves sports, soccer, football, baseball, basktball, volleyball, tennis…..anything that has a ball.

So yesterday we set up the b-ball set in the garage and opened the door for extra sunshine and played while Audrey had her afternoon nap. SHE LOVED IT!  One of the best purchases EVER. We took pictures and if I got up and found the camera I’d put them up, but right now I’m using the stock photo. I’ll post the actual pictures on Flickr soon.

(Mary Camden is the oldest daughter on the show “7th Heaven” who was a basketball player, very sporty and what we call Ava because of her love of sports.)

New picture time!

Head on over to Flicker  (now in convenient sets!) for new picture of the girls including Ava’s first ice cream, potty time Audrey and gangsta juice!

Upon enterting our bathroom

Our cat Connor has a mental issue, he likes to go poo on the bathroom floor next to the litterbox. This only started to happen about a year ago. He didnt do it when the litterbox was in another bathroom, and he doesnt do it in any other bathroom…..just right next to the litterbox. It is something we hate, yet we have not been able to fix. It has nothing to do with the cleanliness of the litter, and we have used many different cleansers on the floor to get rid of the odor. Nothing we have done has stopped it. The only thing that gives us hope is when we move it wont happen. It stopped at my Mom’s house.

So this morning I was going into our bathroom to brush my teeth and Ava followed me in. Next to the litterbox on the floor was a huge pile of poo. Ava stopped, took a step back and said:

“JUMPING JUNE BUGS…….THAT’S A BIG POOO!”

She said it like she really meant to say “Damn! That’s a big pile of poo!” but she doesnt know “damn” so she put in “jumping june bugs”. It was mighty funny.

Passing down imperfections

Before I had kids I wondered if I could even have kids. I have scoliosis and my ribcage is rotated, the right side of my ribs are all scrunched together and the left are all spread out and in a nice point. I then worried about passing it down to my children. So far both the girls have perfectly straight spines and healthy looking ribcages. The one imperfection I didnt think about passing down were my ankles.

When I was little, around Ava’s age, my Mom said one day she noticed I was walking on the inside of my ankles, literally on the bone. I was then given orthotics, plastic moulded inserts for my shoes and I had to do ankle excersizes. I remember hating the orthotics, I had to wear tennis shoes with them, no cute little sling back sandals. The biggest issue of that being when I wore dresses we didnt have money to get cute dress shoes that worked with them. In a super cute picture of me and Jen I am wearing a dress, with my hair curled but I hated that day. I had to go wearing my tennis shoes, and I was embarassed. In the corner of the picture you can see them.  And I had to wear them until about 6 or 7 years old. I hated them. It was also painful, the excersizes and the re-shaping of my bones.

And with all the excersizes I had to do for my ankles you would think I have the strongest, skinniest ankles ever. But it’s just the opposite, weak tree stubs that led me to break my wrist last November.

Since Ava started to walk we’ve noticed her walking on the inside of her feet. Finally within the last few months I made an appointment with Dr. Parish, her pediatrician about it. She had told me to wait until around now, since most kids grow out of it. But given my history it was more necessary to keep an eye on it. We were given the number of a specialist who measured her feet, and made a mould for her own orthotics.

I cried when I heard she would need them. I remember how much I hated them, and how painful it was. I felt incredibly guilty. I felt irresponsible for handing down something like this. It’s silly, I know. It’s not that bad, it’s fixable and it’s also not as bad as mine was. But I still felt awful for doing this to her.  Then I went online and looked for cute summer sandals that she could wear these with. Of course the shoe’s I found were all around $70 to $100. But then I sobbed and told Sean about my “shame” of sneakers and dresses and vowed I wouldnt let Ava feel that way. He comforted me by letting me know we would get her cute shoes.

Yesterday Ava had her appointment to pick them up and wore them for the first time. She doesnt mind mostly. We dont wear shoes inside, and for the most part hardly wear socks. So wearing socks and shoes inside is new for her. This weekend we are going to take her to pick out a pair of “house shoes”, special inside shoes. She starts out an hour a day and builds every day until she is wearing them almost all day. The Dr. did say she could go a couple hours inside without them.

We go back in a month to have a checkup and see how they are doing with her feet. Here is a picture I found on the internet of what orthotics look like. Ava’s are clear and small. I would have taken a picture of them but Sean has the camera today.

It’s very, very, quiet…..

A photographic journey looking for Ava…

An abandoned Ariel doll and unfinished snack….

Too tired to play….

Sleep sweet, my sweet.

She loves flowers

While looking at my catalogue for Stampin Up, Ava saw a set called “baroque motifs” and exclaimed with a gasp:

“These are the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever seen in my entire life!”    (maybe I should get this set for her)

Learning more all the time

I bought these alphabet cards for Ava from Whole Foods about 6 months ago. She already knew the alphabet I just wanted to get her cards with flowers on them and new words to learn. There are two cards for each letter, and each letter represents a flower with it’s picture and name on it. They also have little fairies, butterflies, ladybugs, bumble bee’s, grasshoppers and snails on them, quite cute. You can play with the cards 7 different games, she wasnt as interested in them as I had hoped when I brought them home. Maybe she thought “I already know the alphabet……”

But when we moved home and got her big girl bed, I wanted to put some cute decorations on her walls and I bought the same cards but in 8×10 size from “Merry Go Round” in Bellevue, right next to Whole Foods. I attached them from the walls on twine and mini-clothespins, super cute. Since she has had them in her room she’s taken more interest in the smaller cards.

Each day we bring them out and look at them, organize them by the alphabet and learn the names. Since she has the big cards in her room sometimes she wakes up saying the names of flowers she didnt remember the day before. It’s really cool. And she doesnt just know them from straight memory of their order, because I’ll mix them up and she recognizes them. She remembered Tulips from her first trip to the Tulip festival 2 years ago, after that trip we take her every year. She absolutely loves flowers. If we are outside she’ll call out pansies, or hydrangeas and lilacs. She’s so dang smart, it kills me.

I thought I would list all the flowers and I would make the one’s that she knows in bold. (for those keeping count, she know’s 19 out of 26)

A: Azalea
B: Black Eyed Susan
C: Cosmos
D: Daffodil
E: Elderberry
F: Forget me not
G: Geranium
H: Honeysuckle
I:Iris
J: Jack in the pulpit
K: Knapweed
L: Lilly of the Valley
M: Morning Glory
N: Nasturtium
O: Oxeye Daisy
P: Pokeweed
Q: Queen Anne’s Lace
R: Ranaculous
S: Sweet Pea
T: Tulip
U: Utricularia
V: Violets
W: Waterlilly
X: Xanthium
Y: Yellow Ladys Slipper
Z: Zinnia