Ava has said her first sentence!  In fact, she says a series sentences, all beginning with, "I like" or "I need."  Her two favorites are, "I like ice cream!" and "I like music!" Today, she wanted me to repeat after her as she went through a series of, "I....(repeat, Mommy)..like (repeat)...ice cream, music, water and swing.  Or whatever is in her little head at that moment.  She also likes to say, "honey bunny," which sounds like, "honey gunny" and is so adorable. 

She and Bobby sent me the most beautiful flowers today for an early Mother's Day gift, and when they came to the door, it surprised me and brought back memories of last Mother's Day when I was still working at Avonworth.  I am so glad to not be there anymore; my new job is perfect.  The peace that this career move has created in our home is amazing.  Ava is totally thriving - talking, walking and learning, and I couldn't be happier. There are days when I feel fragmented and that I accomplished very little, but I think that is just because my expectations are higher for myself. I have to take care of the house and grade 85 essays, plus play with a toddler and...take a shower?   Something always gets lost, but that's ok.  It's the life we've chosen.

We've been spending a lot of time outside and Ava's #1 activity is swinging.  She LOVES to swing.  She also loves to throw an absolute tantrum when we try to get her out of the swing.   She actually cries like we have seriously hurt her feelings.  I feel so bad that I don't know if I'll ever swing her again, but I always do, of course.  I can't wait to get her little pool out and maybe some kind of a sprinkler toy - she will love the water this year!

So, I'm looking forward to a relaxing Mother's Day with my family.  Grams just came home from a stay in a rehabilitation center, so I'm really hoping to celebrate her this weekend.  She always believes in Ava and says, "She will do all kinds of things; you just wait."  I dearly love her.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms reading this!   

It's been quite a while since I've had time to write - I feel as though as Spring arrives, we are busier every day.  Ava is getting bigger and stronger and continues to talk up a storm.  Some of her latest words are: oatmeal, neck, crab ("cwag"), music, organ, wagon, and just about anything that we say.  She is our little mockingbird. 

As many of you know, we found out a few weeks ago that we are expecting our second baby in early December.   I keep trying to teach Ava how to say, "baby" and it comes out sort of right.  She has a little baby doll that talks and she will touch it's nose and her nose at the same time.  She needs a real baby to hold, though, so we're working on getting her some infant exposure soon. I don't know how she will react to have another little one in the house - I suppose that is how every parent feels about their first-born child.  I am excited to know a new baby, but I don't want to lose the precious time that I spend with Ava.  I make promises to myself that I will still rock her before bed, still give her a bath every night, still read and sing and play just as much as I do now, but I'm sure things will change.  As I lie in bed at night, knowing full well I am about to get 8 solid hours of sleep, sometimes I wonder, "why are we doing this again?!"  But, like most things in life, the sleeplessness will be temporary.

A cute Ava story: She adores this little Fisher Price toy, whom we call "Crab" - she whips it around and it plays a little sailing song and bubbles like it's under water.  She has had this toy forever now, but just a couple of weeks ago became completely obsessed with it. While I was away in NYC this past weekend, Bobby told me, "Well, 'cwag' broke...in the middle of the night.  Ava let out the saddest cry I have ever heard."  So, I was on a mission to find a new one: I went to Toys R Us in Times Square...nothing.  On Tuesday, Ava and I went to Target, and there he was: cwag.  So, we bought 2, just in case.  I took one right out of the package in the middle of the store, and said, "Ava, guess what Mommy found?"  When I handed her that toy, she drew in this big breath, and said, "Cwaaaag!" as if to say, "Finally!"  Needless to say, she has not let go of cwag ever since - she eats with him, sleeps with him, and I have had to explain every night why cwag can't go into the bathtub.  Even when she is playing with other toys, she will babble to herself, and then every so often, reach to make sure cwag is still there, and she will ask, "Cwag?"  Just checking, I guess.

This week is my Spring Break and I LOVE not having to work!  Ava and I have been out and about every day so far, and today I am taking her to her babysitter's house so that I can spend a few hours shopping by myself!  Amazing!  It's been a while since I've done that.

Last weekend, Ava learned to say, "Gram" when Grams was visiting my mom's house.  It was so cute - now she will say it randomly, and I wonder if she suddenly thinks of Grams, or what.  Ava continues to be a chatterbox, imitating everything.  She said, "net!" for a little toy fishing net, she says, "swing!" when we're at the park - it's like the floodgates of language have just opened up for her. I can see now that she will be very ready for preschool in less than a year.

We have so many wonderful people in our lives, and one of them is our friend, Mary Helen, who I used to work with at the University.  She is in her late 50's and just retired from Pitt and she and I visit whenever we can.  She was a strong influence on me in the beginning of Ava's life - always thinking positively and encouraging me. Her most recent gift to us is the writing of a letter to the director of The Falk School, the University of Pittsburgh's private laboratory school that I believe is the right place for Ava.  I also completed my one-year teaching internship there and fell in love with the small, nurturing atmosphere.  It is a progressive school and Ava's teachers would all be Pitt instsructors/professors - she would thrive!   Mary Helen worked closely with the new director of Falk before she left the University and she wrote the following letter just a couple of weeks ago:

Outside today in beautiful weather!  Ava was happy and very energetic.  It will rain this afternoon, but we got our fill of the sun before lunch.  Ava is starting to wear bits and pieces of her new Spring wardrobe (size 2T everything) and boy is she cute!   Her "new" Stride Rite shoes are actually getting a little dirty in spots, the sign of a walking toddler. 

She has recently started saying, "Mom-my" instead of just "mama" and I love it.  Today, when we were out in the yard, she kept asking, "Mom-my?"  and I would say, "Yes, Ava?" and then she would babble some little phrase or word in her toddler talk.  I feel like she is beginning to understand how to USE language, which is one of the goals that we talked about at her annual meeting. 

I have played two new games with Ava this week:

1. I will ask her where her body parts are, and not only does she point to them, but she continues to try to name them.   But, the really fun part of the game, is that when I say, "Ok, ready?  I'm gonna try and trick you!"  Ava will say, "Ok! Trick you!"  in her own language (it acually sounds like "kick ooo").  Hey, we can understand it, and that's all that counts for now.

2. The second game is something that I tried just the other night and I could not believe the results!  Ava likes to take small toys in and out of two soft bins, and I decided to ask her to find certain toys and give them to me.  I asked her to find a stuffed dog, a bead, a ball, and several more objects - she located about 95% of them on the first try!  I had no idea that she connected so many object names with the objects themselves, and that she could identify them by touch alone.  What an amazing little girl.

Ava is talking up a storm!  Last night (at 1:30am ), she sat on my lap and tried to name the following body parts: back (gak), belly (ee-ee), nose (na-deh), teeth (geek), and mouth (ma).  Today was her best session ever with speech therapist Jen.  Ava was so funny and playful and she tried to repeat many of the words that Jen said.  We also have a new device that allows us to place objects in 4 different slots and to record their names.  Jen does this every 2 weeks (Ava likes hearing her voice) and then we work on mastering those 4 words.  Today, Ava went nuts trying to say "block" and it kept coming out "glock."  She can do the "b" sound,  but not all of the time.  She also tried "bead" and "ball" - we're getting there!  She ate a cotton-candy flavored sucker and chirped like a little bird.  And finally, she mastered the straw yesterday at my mom and dad's house.  Yes!  She sucked down almost 3/4 of her "milk box" today and loved it!  It's strange the things that many parents take for granted.  The idea of drinking through a straw may seem like nothing for the average child, but without sight, there is no modeling.  Talk about scaffolding!  Teaching Ava some things takes so much thinking and planning - I am always saying, "ok, how would I approach this if I could not see?"  and it is sometimes a very different experience.  Not bad or good, just different.

Today was Ava's annual meeting with all of her therapists and case worker.  In attendance were: Julie (OT), Lynn(TVI), Jen (Speech), Diane (PT), and Kelly, Ava's case worker from the Alliance.  We used the Oregon Project for blind and visually impaired children to assess where Ava stands in such areas of development such as cognitive and social.  She scored 80-100% in most categories, with the one exception of speech.  She does, however, have a vocabulary of about 17-20 words.    She's been so vocal lately, shouting out, "Dog!" or "Cow!" when she hears those sounds.  She also shrieks, "Hiiiiii," to our cat, Zoe, whenever she hears her meow.  Is Zoe her first friend?  He he.

We did decide since Ava will transition to preschool a year from now, she needs more socialization opportunities with kids her own age.  I need to take her to story time or a play group.  I can't help but feel apprehensive about it; I hate explaining why Ava does or doesn't do this or that to new people, but it's the only way that we both will get over our fears.  She had a very successful playdate a few weeks ago with little Nicholas, who is about 16 months old.  Maybe we could keep that up every other week.  Between my full-time cyber school job, teaching at Pitt and raising Ava - who has time for play dates?!  I guess the answer is: make time.

Ava was cute during the meeting - a little shy and surprised at first, probably that all of her "friends" were in one room together.  But, eventually she warmed up and started talking, walking, and even at a blue raspberry sucker.  We have such an amazing team of women working to prepare Ava for preschool - I do feel for families who don't have all of this available to them.  I can see Ava truly developing the skills necessary for her transition, all with the guidance of her "team."  I am thankful for each one of them.