Ava loves having her picture taken. Even if she can't stay still enough to take a not-blurry shot. Anytime she does something that she thinks is pretty cool, she says "hey mom, will you take my picture?" Most of the time (especially in the last couple of months), I just pretend to take one with my phone while she poses away. Yesterday I actually grabbed the camera because she was still in church clothes, and her face was mostly clean.
Ava loves to talk (she and Ian both got the talking genes). I always know when she is awake because I can hear her blabbering away to a half-asleep Max (no more than three inches from his face) about whatever happens to be on her mind when she wakes up. And she loves to make up stories. She always requests bedtime stories, but always takes over and prompts the entire thing. They are usually about her, riding to the magic pink forest on her magic pink horse with her friends Lena and Sydney. When they get to to the forest they eat lots of candy and pick lots of strawberries. Then they make a pie with the strawberries, eat it, and ride home on their magic pink horses. She also loves to sing songs and has several memorized. She thinks the part about Yankee Doodle sticking a feather in his hat and calling it "macaroni" is the funniest thing ever and can't ever finish the song because she is laughing so hard. She also likes to change lyrics to songs. I often hear random things like "Twinkle, twinkle, little star...how I wonder what you ate for breakfast!!!" And she always starts laughing uncontrollably at her clever twist.
The other day she fell asleep in the car and took a late afternoon nap (we quit naps at two, otherwise she can't fall asleep before 10 p.m.). I knew it was going to be a long night, so after I put the boys to bed, we came downstairs, cut up a bunch of mangoes, and turned on my favorite Zee Avi pandora station. As we were eating mangoes at the kitchen table in our pajamas, she looked at me and said "Mom, this is a nice day. I love you mom. Jesus said love everyone. I'm Ava, and you're the mom. We are both people. And we are superheroes. We can disappear everyone with our magic powers...like this! (Proceeds to lift both fists in the air and make zapping, explosion-type noises)."
In a surprise turn of events last week, she jumped up after I took off her soggy diaper, ran to the bathroom, pulled her little toilet out from the cupboard under the sink, and produced a nice bowel movement. I haven't even thought about potty training, partly because I have been so sick, and partly because potty training Max traumatized me for life. I told myself I would never torture myself by starting the process before 2 1/2. Despite the fact that Ava has been begging to take off her diaper and wear her Dora underwear for months. She is apparently more ready than I am, and I am hoping this last bit of nausea will go away (shouldn't it be gone by 17 wks?) so that we can be a diaper-free household for at least a few months before the baby comes.
