Another Big Girl Feat

On March 25th, Ava sat up all by herself! She's been sitting up with our assistance for a while now, but on the 25th, she did it completely unsupported by us (for longer than a few seconds)! Since then, she's done really great--although she does tumble over after a few minutes (partially because she wants a toy that's across the floor and really wants to get it and partially because she gets off balance). When Matt's parents were here two weeks ago, Laura kept saying that she felt like she was experiencing deja vu while playing with Ava. Apparently she takes after her Daddy in the motor skills, dexterity, strength and determination departments! Laura would just laugh at Ava because she said that Ava had the same looks in her eyes as Matt did when he was her age. It's as if she resents being a baby. Ava wants to walk, but she can't understand why her legs can't take her to where she wants to be yet. When playing with her, it's as if you can see the wheels turning in her head, as she wants to be everywhere, playing with every toy, doing everything, with every limb on her body.

Here are the pictures we snapped of her sitting up all by herself for the first time (we put pillows behind her so that she wouldn't bonk her head on the hardwood floors if she fell over--she's already done that once and that resulted in a trip to the ER!). In one of the pictures you'll notice that she's leaning onto her left arm..she's already figured out how to support herself and not completely topple over when she gets off balance (as Matt's cousin, Melissa, would say, 'she's just so advanced')...

(Yes, that's a Wii in the background. It was Matt's birthday/Easter present. It's still sitting in the original packaging, as we're trying to decide if we're going to keep it or return it to the store.)

And here is some video footage of her sitting up playing with her new blocks...







Here are pictures of her sitting up again on March 26th (the next day) playing with her toys...




Here are some pictures of her sitting up again playing with her new toolbench that she got from the Easter Bunny! The random piece of paper in the background is my 'cheat sheet' for Ava's songs, fingerplays, and nursery rhymes for Baby Lapsit (storytime) at the library. I've somehow managed to forget almost all of the nursery rhymes I ever learned as a child (I think most mommies have, which is why the librarian is incredibly nice and prints them out for us to take home to either learn or spark our memories so that we don't look foolish trying to read the words off the storyboards at Baby Lapsit!).

And of course, here's some video footage of her playing with her toolbench. I didn't really capture on video how great she is at pushing the buttons or pulling the lever on the far left hand side (you can see her pulling it in the 2nd photo). She gets so excited when she pushes the buttons and the characters pop up and talk to her. She hasn't mastered the art of hitting the shapes with the green hammer yet--she's still trying to figure out how to hold it, much less use it! You'll see that she tumbles over at the end of one of the videos, so we're still working on mastering our balance--it's tough work when you've got a long torso and short legs!





As you can tell, we're so proud of our little cupcake. She amazes us each day with her new abilities and incredible strength.