Mon, Oct 3, 20053:18 PMMy latest obsession: Ebay. I never have experienced the thrill of the hunt quite like this before. I was just bidding against someone for some adorable Christmas Gymboree clothes for Aviana & my heart was beating fast and MY HANDS WERE SHAKING! I won the auction incidentally, and I don’t even have cable internet! I’m still a little breathless. That is weird. Huh?

Aviana and I have been keeping busy. I’ve been doing a lot more with Reliv over the past few weeks and that is pretty exciting! Aviana is changing every day it seems like, adding new words to her vocabulary, walking a bit more, observing new things.
Thu, Oct 6, 20056:45 PMAviana can say Opa, Tia, Ellie, and Ella. She also now says “nana” for banana, her all time favorite food. She says “ba” for ball, balloon and baby.

She can go down slides at the park, and at Grandma’s neighbors’, by herself, and makes the stairs into a slide. The first few times about gave me a heart attack, but she doesn’t have any problems landing on her feet. She knows to turn around. She can climb up the ladder to the playhouse at Grandma’s neighbors’, and she isn’t even walking yet! If she sees a slide or swing out of a window, she does everything she can to get to it. We’d better be careful letting her play on it all the time with the temps dropping like they are or we’re going to end up playing in the park in the dead of winter! Not my idea of a good time!
Sun, Oct 9, 20054:58 PMWe have had a BUSY couple of weeks! Aviana has been doing remarkably well, considering that she hasn’t had much of a schedule. We went up to Chicago yesterday and she was terrific! We had a Reliv training and she stayed with a new babysitter. She did very well and went on a walk to see Wheaton College. Then we went to eat at Red Robin, where we indulged in gourmet burgers and tortilla soup and Aviana got a balloon. We went to the park and played on some giant play equipment. Aviana got excited and almost did a somersault coming out of a tunnel, but instead landed squarely on her noggin. She barely cried because she wanted to go right back down the slide. After driving all the way home with the sun in our eyes, we went to Tia & UT’s for an open house. She immensely enjoyed her first pumpkin pie (slice, not the whole pie) and playing with all the Small People who were in attendance.

Today she has been a challenge- to say the least. She and Dada opted to stay home from church so she could nap, which was a wise choice, but it didn’t really help. Too much stimulation cumulated. Right now she has been vehemently protesting getting her nappy changed and into her pajamas. Poor Baby. Poor Dada.
Fri, Oct 14, 20056:58 AMSweet Baby A was so grumpy this morning that I put her down for her nap early & now she has been intermittently crying & banging on her crib for 10 minutes. Hopefully she will fall asleep soon as we have a busy day ahead. A friend is coming over to hang out & pick some apples this morning- yesterday I picked SO many apples. I made applesauce & applesauce cake & still have enough cored & cut to make an apple crisp or something, which I will do whenever that child of mine lets herself fall asleep. Then we are going to a pumpkin patch w/ Dee & her boys this afternoon. Tonight we are getting a sitter for her as we are greeting at an all-church party.

Tomorrow she is staying with the same sitter as I am doing the training for Reliv on Sat a.m. & then all three of us are going up to DeWitt to see if we can score some good deals at their city wide garage sale.

Ah- the sweet sound of silence.

We have been trying to capitalize on this most excellent weather and go to the park as much as possible. Aviana loves the play equipment, especially the slides. She can climb up, turn around, and slide down & land on her feet at the bottom! I’m so impressed, especially as she isn’t walking yet.

Speaking of excellent weather: I learned recently that you can’t call it an Indian summer unless you have first had a frost, and THEN the temps go up to unseasonably warm. So I guess we just call these 80 degree days an extention.
Mon, Oct 17, 20058:10 AMYesterday was a splendiforous day. After a great service at church, we went to see Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. Aviana actually watched part of the movie. The rest of the time she alternately nursed, walked around our row of seats (it was a Sunday matinee at our ‘second showing’ theater, so there weren’t that many people there) and played in the back. She did escape one time & started crawling up into the lap of a small boy who thought that was pretty funny, as did Miss A who squealed with laughter when I caught her. I thoroughly enjoyed this version of Rolad Dahl’s classic story. In fact, Kevin got a little embarrassed because I was laughing so much. I was apparently the only one in the theater who thought it was funny. Afterwords, we stopped at Dollar General. I was looking at baby clothes (big surprise), & Kevin went to look at paper towels, when a store employee came up to him, carrying this adoable blonde baby and asked him, “Is this your daughter? She was climbing my ladder.” I thought that line was absolutely hilarious. We each thought the other had her. A pretty innocuous place to learn such a lesson, but still…
in today’s world–what a fright!!

Here is a good website for ALL: You type in your address and it will show you any sexual offenders (along with their pictures) that live near you or those you care about.

www.familywatchdog.us

Aviana is now awake from her morning nap, so I need to get going.Tue, Oct 18, 20057:00 AMAviana has started saying “yeah” in an affirmative response to a question. It’s so cute: “Do you want more?” “Yeah” “Do you want down?” “Yeah”

We spent yesterday with her Tia & cousins and really enjoyed the company. Leah & I decided we can totally understand the appeal of living in a commune.It’s just SO nice to not be the only adult around.
Thu, Oct 27, 20059:47 AMI think it’s a record here folks. I did more crying than Aviana and she cried longer before her nap than her actual nap. I could just cry.
Thu, Oct 27, 20052:00 PMMy daughter is getting a little too imperial. She climbs up on my lap and signs “banana”, says “nana”, and points vigorously to the kitchen all the while saying “ooh, ooh, ooh” at major decibles. So clever mama that I am, say “do you want a banana?” She grins, grabs me and says “yeah”. So we proceed to the kitchen, her leading the way with that lovely pointer finger of hers (me feeling a little like Cleopatra’s litter carriers). I get the banana and she shakes her head, mouth closed tight, and points to the cabinet. I stand her on the counter so she can open the doors which she does. After examining and eschewing the cinammon, she closes that side of the cabinet and opens the other one. She passes up the generic peanut butter to point at the Skippy. I spread a bit on the banana and she enthusiastically takes a bite. Sheesh- let her eat peanut butter once, and now it’s no plain banana for her.

I printed off a picture of her & her cousins. She points to Ella and says “Ella” and we say “where’s Cora?” and she points her out too. Everytime. I guess Cora is still too hard to say. We say “Where’s Baby A?” and she points to herself in the picture, but not to herself in real life. Hmmm. Interesting.

She also expects applause for every acheivement- like putting all the rings on her ring tower stick (whatever you call it), finding the crayon that she hid in her overall tops…And if you don’t clap, she’ll clap for herself. And if you still don’t clap, she’ll take your hands and clap them for you. Imperial, I told you.Mon, Oct 31, 20056:27 AMI was explaining something to Aviana and I said “Isn’t that funny?” meaning odd and she said “Heh, heh!” with her fake little laugh. It really was funny!