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Our precious Ava turned 1 yesterday!! Can’t believe how fast that occurred.

So, in that 12 months, Ava has managed to walk confidently (fastest walk learner on our side of the family…started walking at 11 months), call every food product “apple”, sign “I’m full”, “milk”, and “finish”. Our little adventurer is far more fearless than her older brother, yet she’s significantly smaller. She might be skinny (mainly cause she’s not a milk hog like Ben), but she’s tall.

Ava has managed to win the hearts of every family member with her “sure, whatever you want” attitude. “Ben, you just stripped that toy away from my hands; but whatever, I’ll just play with another one”.  She can’t do any wrong; all she has to do is give a wink, and all is good.

Like her older brother, she’s got everyone under her thumb, including Ben. Now I’m looking forward to what she has to say!

We did it!! We took the kids to Disney World. It will probably be a trip Ava will never remember and one Ben stores quietly in his crazy memory. Aside from the few “I don’t want to go there”,or “I don’t want to ride that” from Ben, we’ll call that a success.

The trip started at 5AM on Jan 6th to catch an 8AM flight to Orlando. After a half day of shopping, we checked into the Disney Swan and Dolphin Resort. Beautiful hotel, great amenities, and a few sugar ants (but once I complained, they upgraded us to another room with a balcony, and facing Epcot and the 9PM nightly fireworks!!). We had adjoining rooms with Ben’s cousin, so the kids had a great time together!!

The weather…amazing…between 23 to 26 degrees the whole week, with half day rain on the Wednesday. With the Park Hopper pass, we went to every park; Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios. They each had their highlight ride (for us), and for the kids. Although Ben was pretty much too short for most rides, the ones he could go on, he “mostly” enjoyed; except for the ones he responded “No, I don’t like that ride” (like It’s a Small World).

Lessons learned from this trip: 1) don’t pack so much clothes for the kids 2) don’t buy so much clothes if you pack so much clothes 3) accept the Disney 400% markup on everything 4) accept the fact that everyone at the resort want to carry your luggage…and want a tip afterwards 5) stay at the Swan and Dolphin (or the Boardwalk or Yacht Club) next time; great location because it’s right in the middle of all the parks!! 6) Don’t pack so much kid clothes 7) take advantage of the Fast Pass on all the popular rides at the park (it’ll save you from lining up for hours) the best time to go to Disney..JANUARY!

I managed to catch a bit of the Disney Marathon. It just so happened to pass right by our hotel!! I think a Brazilian guy won; mainly because no Nigerian ran the race.

We’re looking forward to going back in 7 or 8 years already!!

Ben has been a lot of fun to be around, watching him develop, string big words together that are too big to be used by a 2 year old, watch him turn from an angel at the dinner table to his “I’m exhausted, too tired to play, I’m going to melt down now” melt downs. The pottie training since week 6 of his life have paid huge dividends. He pretty much does it by himself, or at least let’s us know when he needs to go..badly. Now we have to teach him to hold his wee-wee up and out, so that he doesn’t start peeing while it’s hanging down…and pees down his leg.

Ava, my beautiful girl, is officially daddy’s girl. She lights up now when I walk into the room. She crawls over to me and wants me to pick her up and give her the biggest hug in the world…which I do, and don’t let go. She’s standing up pretty well without holding anything, pauses, and then realizes that she isn’t ready to walk yet, and then sits back down. Her best skill so far, stair climbing. When we tell her “no, Ava”, she shakes her head…but proceeds to climb anyways. She loves her baths. I’m pretty sure we could just leave her in the tub for an hour, and she’d be just fine (but we don’t).

Ben officially passed his second swim class with flying colours a few weeks ago. Soon he’ll be swimming pass his dad into the deep end; I’m still working up the courage to make it into the deep end

Ben’s manage to make friends with a little girl at his “school”; ironically, her name is Ava too. We’ll see where that goes…for now, they’re sleeping in separate houses. He made sure his mother got her email address; that’s my boy!

For now, Ben and Ava are still best friends. He watches out for her all the time. Makes sure that if someone gives him something, his little sister gets some too (“Does Ava get some?”). I guess like all little boys his age, he doesn’t know his own strength. He hugs Ava with a strangle hold…like father like son (I thought girls loved that move in high school too… ) Let’s hope Ben figures that out before he’s a teenager.

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September 8, 2011, life changed for Ava. She became very mobile. She’s been itching to crawl for some time now. She sees her brother run around her, jump on her, play with her, hug her, and dance around her. So there’s a bit of envy when she sees her brother do something she can’t. But on that day, Ava is one step closer to full mobility. That day, she manage to crawl more than 2 feet to get to things she’s been dying to put in her mouth!! The little toys that were once out of reach, are no longer.

But not only can she crawl, she’s managed to pull herself up from the sitting position. Now we need to set the crib lower; God help our backs!!

Wow! It’s been a super busy summer. I blink and my baby girl is 7 months old!! She’s come a long ways since January. She’s almost standing, a little more mobile than her usual “sit and play” position. We’ve got to lower her crib soon, just in case she decides to pull an Al Capone and scale the crib and make a run for it. Her appetite seems to be getting better.

Today, her first tooth broke skin!! Lower front. She’s so easy going, she thinks it’s just another BD day (baby development). Like every baby at her stage, everything she grabs ends up in her mouth, drooling like crazy, and super aware of her surroundings….especially when her mom is not around! She’s the greatest baby ever, but as soon as Sheila’s out of sight, she lets the world know she’s not liking the loneliness. For now, she’s mommy’s girl. But she always smiles at daddy when he walks in the door from work. All is fanatastic!!

Ben, our bratty little 2-1/2 year old, still has everyone wrapped around his finger. A few more tantrums are expected, but he knows which buttons to push to get his way. Like daddy, like son

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It’s been a long rainy May 2011. The weather has been nasty; rain almost on a daily basis, and cold. We’ve had the heater on until this past weekend. The sun and hot weather finally arrived just in time for the May 24 weekend! It’s like feast or famine. If it’s not cold, it’s HOT!! But we’ll take it!!

So, what goes with long weekends? FIRE-COOKIES!! Yup, fire-cookies. That’s what Ben calls them. I guess you can say a “cracker” is a cookie…and he likes them loud, but not too loud. He especially likes the read and green ones. He seems to like to ones that are hard to see…like the one’s “over there” and “over there” and “over there”. Our house is surrounded by small parkettes which the neighbours have been using to display their fire-cookies. So, in every direction we looked, there was always something going off in the sky…like “over there”!!

Ava, she was pretty wow’d with them too. Not too sure what to make of them of course, but she was definitely curious and not one bit afraid. She seemed more interested in her brother’s reaction.

The zoo visit this morning proved to be quite an adventure too. The new African penguins were officially on display for the first time. Just as we arrived at the exhibit, so did the rain. Perfect timing…it cleared most of the visitors and left us and a handful of families there to see without all the congestion. Then as we arrived at the zoo train station, a small thunderstorm rolled over us…again…pretty exciting, except for the lightening and thunder…although it didn’t phase Ben one bit (he just wanted to get on the train)…and Ava slept through it all.

Another long weekend crossed off the family list

So, it’s been just 2 and a half months since the arrival of Ava and life has been busy. Math would say that 1 kid=busy, 2 kids=2Xbusy. NOPE!! More like 3X busy. It takes an hour now to get the entire family out of the house for anything. It takes longer to get both kids to bed, and it takes even longer to get them out of bed and ready to go out the door!!

One thing that’s new (aside from Ava), the fun factor watching Ben interact with Ava. Now that Ben’s 2 years old, his vocabulary is coming along exceptionally well (as any proud parent would say). What accompanies his knew found knowledge of speech is his “right” to boss everyone in his life around. When I mean everyone, I MEAN EVERYONE! He tells us where to sit at dinner, what we should eat, things he needs (and therefore we need to buy for him), his control of all the fun electronics in the house including my laptop, XBox, Apple Touch, Blackberry, and cameras.

BUT, the one thing he’s starting to do is look out for his sister. Case in point; he received a red envelope of money  yesterday from a family friend, and then immediately (after saying thank you) asked where Ava’s red envelope was. He’s been a fantastic brother so far, but who would have expected that?

As for Ava, things are chugging along. She’s hit double-digit weight (10lbs this week!!) and continues to sleep through the night!! The pottie training has started with much success. Her “tell” is she hiccups when she needs to poo. Eight out of ten times she does. We hate poopie diapers!! She’s recognizing my face and smiles back now. It’s priceless!! Next lesson, swimming

So, toes! Yes, I checked today…she has 5 on each foot!! Whew!!  (I know…a little late)

So, it’s been just over 3 weeks since Ava has been born and life has been relatively calm on the home front. Ava is a fantastic baby; eats, sleeps, and when she’s awake, she just stares around quietly. She’s starting to look like Ben when he was at that age…weeks old. Now, we’re full force into the poopy diapers again. Since we started Ben on the potty super early in his life, he’s pretty much potty trained (except at night…we still put one on him). He’s officially wearing underwear during the day and only slips up once a week…and only pee. We’ll call that success at age 2.

But, with Ava, we’re back to “crap up the back” cleanups, projectile “sharts”, and pukie bibs. Ah…the joys of a new infant.

What’s new this time around? PINK CLOTHES! Lots of it!!

What’s the same? The Australian Tennis Open at 3AM LIVE!! Winter clothing at this stage. Changing diapers at 4AM.

What’s great? The family sitting around watching TV.

What’s weird? Ben instantly became too heavy to carry. Compared to his sister, he’s a giant. Overnight, Ben became 2 feet taller and 8 times heavier. What happened?

Ah…family life!!