August 2005

Sat, Aug 6, 2005

9:19 PM

Right now I am just looking up some stuff on Homeword.com and deciding that I don’t really want to learn anything new tonight. Baby A is sleeping sweetly in her crib near me & Kevin is hopefully still awake in the other room.

We had another busy weekend- we went to the fair w/ Grandma Joyce on Thursday, where I discovered how fun 4-H could be. I met the most adorable little 4-Her. She was in 5th grade and had just won a champion ribbon on several projects including a “citizenship book” that she made. It showed all the things that she and her family had been involved with over the past year, all kinds of service projects and volunteerism. I was most impressed on one page that she had written ” a lot of kids my age don’t like to spend time with their families, but my family and I always have a lot of fun together and I like to be with them.” That was so poignant to me, I got a little veklemped right there in the 4-H building. That is what I want my daughter to write about us.

Another project that impressed me for some strange reason was the 9 year old who made a record of his experience skinning a coyote.

I also learned that I could enter scrapbook pages(and pie and brownies and flowers & houseplants & veggies & craft items-I could enter the outfits that I made for Aviana and myself but I’d be embarrassed to have someone judge them! :P) in the open class competition. Aviana enjoyed the petting zoo, even though the animals were all pretty hot and reticent to come over and be petted. We enjoyed some Cajun chicken on a stick -it’s not a fair unless you eat something off of a stick- and some music from the 40’s and finally took our very tired tyke home. Then my aunt, grandma, Amelia, Tyler &; my mom all arrived at my house. We played a little Catchphrase which brought my mom to tears a couple of times from laughing so hard and went to bed.

We were up bright and early the next day to go with Amelia on her college visit. Amelia is looking into St. Ambrose (www.sau.org) for next year. I was really impressed with everyone we met. They all seemed really genuine and caring. It made me wish that I had actually put some thought into where I went to school. The cross-country coach bought us lunch and we arrived home in time for naps. The Shays all came out and we made some Nachos for dinner with blueberry torte for dessert. Aviana was most enamored with the torte. She was begging from her Tia & would loudly smack her lips- which is how she asks for food- at her. When Tia got busy talking and wasn’t feeding her fast enough, she smacked even louder and propped her elbows up on Tia’s knees and emphatically signed “more” several times. It was so funny!

SHE ALSO STOOD ALONE for a record minute and some seconds.

Today after our Reliv we went over to Leah & Tony’s new house & went garage sale-ing, where we got some really good bargains.

I feel sometimes that I don’t really have a lot to report since so much of my time is consumed w/ caregiving, but since that’s the life I’ve chosen, I guess I should be proud to talk about how I spent 30 minutes pushing Aviana in her swing & 20 minutes picking raspberries (we made homemade raspberry ice cream!) and 10 minutes trying to get her to hold still enough to change her diaper 🙂 and that is enough minutes updating this site, so I am going to bed!

May God send His love like sunshine in His warm and gentle way, to fill each corner of your heart each moment of today.

Sun, Aug 7, 200510:00 PM

This is a red letter day here in the H– House, ladies and gentlemen! For the first time in 387 days, I didn’t change a single diaper! Can you believe it? Kevin did them all!


Also, we got a dishwasher from a really nice (and garrulous) couple for an incredible bargain. I thought they were never going to let us leave for all the talk- they even followed us to the truck and were still talking to us through the rolled down window as we drove away. But anyway, now we can talk on the phone in the kitchen while the dishwasher is running and we won’t hear it three rooms away. YAY!

Thu, Aug 11, 20054:49 PM

Poor Baby A! She has roseola. She had fever on Monday and Tuesday, and was very nursehappy and snuggly- a little Velcro baby- seemed to be feeling better yesterday and today woke up with a nasty rash that seemed to worsen throughout the day. According to my ped’s office and various websites, it’s quite common and nothing to worry about. But she sure looks pathetic!

It hasn’t interfered with her ability to reason though. She amazes me with all the things she puts together. I put up a new picture of her in the living room & she noticed it right away. Then she wanted to look at her six month picture in which all she is wearing is a bow- she signed “hat” and kissed the picture!

I was lying on the floor reading & she crawled up to me, “walked” up to my face, touched it, was about 2 inches away, and very loudly said “ga, wa, wa, ma” and signed “eat”. She wanted to be sure she had my attention!

She made up her own sign for bubble by signing “eat” and making a short blowing noise. And I swear she said bubble out loud.

Yesterday, the little girl in the movie I was watching started breathing really heavily, and Aviana, who was just cruising the coffee table and playing on the floor, started doing the same thing. Then a few scenes later, the little girl was humming, and Aviana imitated that too! I would never have guessed she was even paying attention.

We’ll look through Country magazine (which I highly recommend btw, check out http://www.country-magazine.com/ ) and “talk” about all the pictures. It is so fun!

She stayed with Grandma Joyce today and I got the whole house cleaned, including some MUCH needed deep cleaning, and re-upholstered 3 1/3 dining room chairs.

Aviana is wonderfully darling. She can correctly identify cows, dogs, kitties, ducks, horses and (I think) pigs. She even turns to the duck page of her Leap Pad book and makes the right sign, or she’ll find the horse page on her Baby Einstein book and tell me about it. She also tells me when she is having a bowl movement. Besides animals, she knows many other words that we use almost daily. I am in awe of how this tiny creature can be so full of knowledge and take in and give so much!

Mon, Aug 15, 20057:43 AM

I am positive that Aviana said bubble the other day. And yesterday, although the words were unclear, she mimicked exactly, the tones and cadence of “all done” . Yay little verbal chickadee

Tue, Aug 16, 20059:00 PM
I was just at the library & got some terrific books-
*one from the 80’s w/ all kinds of ideas how to make toys from stuff you have around the house it is very cool -totally fits my reuse mentality & educating my child w/ me, instead of a bunch of toys-
*The Proper Care & Feeding of Husbands by Dr. Laura S. that I probably need to read semi-monthly–
*A Year of Fun just for One’s (monthly activities to do)
*The Best Word Book Ever by Richard Scarry (I loved that book as a kid & now there’s a bilingual version-it has all the words in English AND Spanish) you can put that on our Christmas list! 😉
*- Tails by Matthew Van FLeet (a new toddler book with lots of animals that has parts to pull, textures, flaps to open & even a scratch & sniff- you can put that on our list too!)
*a book on finger plays- but there’s no tune to them, so maybe you just chant them.
*And I got a crochet book w/ an easy (so they say) pullover sweater & beret pattern in it. I’d like to attempt that at any rate.

We had a great time. There is just something about libraries. Aviana is figuring out puzzles now. She crawled around with the cow puzzle piece for quite some time. She also is learning how to put things “in” like putting the blocks back in the box.And -huge breakthrough-she is listening to me now when I tell her not to take the grown-up books off the shelf.

There is huge stuffed snake there that we had a great time with & a little girl entertained her for the longest time.

I gave Baby A soy milk today & she liked it. Kevin won’t even try it, but I thought it was pretty good. I know because Baby A wants me to take a sip, then she’ll take a sip , then I’ll take a sip, then… well you get the idea.

A garden of God is our childhood, each day,
A festival radiant with laughter and play
M.J. Lebensohn

Thu, Aug 18, 20052:33 PM
Aviana told her first joke today. It is sort of one of those ‘you had to be there’ deals, but I’m going to try to impart the amusement anyway. So we were in the bathroom & the conversation goes a bit like this:
*points and signs “shower”
*”yes that’s a shower, you take your bath in there”
*signs “dada”
*”yes that’s right, dada gives you your bath”
*signs “shower” and “dada”
*”yes, you take a bath with dada don’t you?”
*signs “flower”
*confused look, “um, no there’s not a flower in the bathtub”
*Aviana erupts into gorgeous giggles and grins like “ha, ha, mama, I gotcha!”

Also, Aviana is standing alone long enough to capture it on the camera! (It took me three tries, but still, ain’t it a wonder?) I’m not sure that I’m ready for her to be walking though.

Yesterday we had a nice relaxing day. We spent a long time in the park and just played. I spread out our park blanket under a nice big tree and we sprawled out. I kept thinking that the pond smelled bad, but couldn’t really figure out why, since I couldn’t imagine that sewage empties into the pond at VanderVeer! Then suddenly I notice that like four inches in front of my face is disgusting dog poop. I KNOW there is a city ordinance that you’re supposed to clean up after your dog. It reminded me of Matthew 7:3 “Why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?” Kind of like– don’t complain about the smell when you have poop right in front of your face. Ok, maybe that makes no sense to you, but that was my little epiphany for the day. Fortunately, neither one of us rolled in it, & I hadn’t put the blanket on it. So it was all good.

Fri, Aug 26, 20059:56 AM
I was just watching mini-videos that I had on the computer of Aviana. On August 5 of 2004 we videotaped her hiccuping and she just was lying there, not making eye contact or anything, and on August 5 of 2005 she is sliding down the stairs with Cora and Amelia and giggling like crazy. Wow. What an amazing difference.

She took her first step this week. We were at the zoo. One little step yet to be duplicated.

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