Oh-Bla-Di

Getting dressed is one of the toughest skills for a toddler/preschooler to learn.  The fine motor skills involved in the process are difficult to master, but Ava’s been working hard on a few of them.

About a year ago, I bought a toy called Dressy Bessy.  Turns out that I bought it way too early for Ava to really begin working with it, but Bessy has been waiting patiently in the toy box for our girl to be ready.  In the great get-ready-for-baby toy sort a couple of weeks ago, Bessy resurfaced and immediately caught Whoozy’s attention.

Just as with puzzles, Ava works at dressing and undressing Bessy’s buttons, zippers and velcro with some pretty amazing patience.  Early efforts were punctuated by cries of “Help me!  I can’t do it!” and some frustrated tears, but after helping her the first few times, we left her to figure it out on her own.  Now, after several very quiet minutes in the playroom, we’ll hear cries of “I did it!  She’s all dressed!”

Thanks, Dressy Bessy, for helping our girl feel such pride in her accomplishments!

Last night, when discussing baby names (because we seriously have no idea and are about 10 days away from having a baby)….

Matt: “Ava, what should we call Doozy?”

Ava: “Doozy.”

Matt: “Ok, but you know how we call you Ava?  What should Doozy’s real name be?”

Ava: “Baby Ava!”

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Today, in the van on the way to school…

Ava was singing one of the circle time songs from school.  She was, though, definitely playing the role of teacher in circle time because she kept reprimanding her imaginary students for standing up or not listening.  It took 5 stoplights to get through one verse due to all the “interruptions.”

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Monday, when Matt did pick-up from school…

Ava sitting in a chair by the water cooler “reading” to her circle time students.  Her students were all imaginary.  (I see a theme here…)

Oh, Whoozy, we do love you, and your weird little quirks, so, so much!

In an effort to streamline our chores at home and get us ready for the impending new-baby time crunch, I’ve put us on a new cleaning and laundry regimen to break up the tasks over the course of the week.  We’ve been on the new plan for about three weeks and I have to admit that I love it.  I don’t have to spend a whole day in the week cleaning house and weekends are left free for fun family time instead of chores.

This is the plan we’ve been following…

Another perk of this little program is that none of the tasks take longer than 15 minutes, which is the perfect amount of time for including Ava in the work of the home.  As I scrub the sinks and wash the mirrors, she climbs in the bathtubs and scrubs the floors.  (This is doubly great since I really can’t get that task done right now thanks to Doozy’s size.)

We’re enjoying the benefits and calm of a clean house and Ava’s learning to contribute.  In fact, she asks to help with a chore each day when we get home and is agreeable to picking up her toys every night since she gets to check it off on the chart.  I’m hopeful that this plan continues to work for us as we settle into our “new normal” after Doozy’s arrival!

So there’s this iPhone app called Talking Carl. I first learned of it after reading this dooce.com post. That video was so funny, that I downloaded the app immediately. Then, when Matt got home, I stole his phone and downloaded it for him too. Then, our Talking Carls had a conversation. I haven’t laughed that hard in a while.

In the meantime, Ava really found that she liked Talking Carl too. Only, somehow, she decided his name was Carlo and, instead of being just a repeater, he was supposed to be a conversation partner. She gets really bossy with him when she says something like “This is my headband” and he repeats, “My headband.” Then she fights with him about whose headband it actually is until Carlo misunderstands and doesn’t repeat correctly or she decides to share. Needless to say, watching Ava talk to Carl is pretty entertaining. The video below is their first solo interaction. Taking him away so that she would eat lunch that day resulted in a lot of crying. We have that video, but you probably don’t need to see that.

So, now, several weeks into their relationship, I find that I’m grateful for Carlo too. On the mornings when Ava wakes up early and I’m still getting ready to work, I just hook her up with Carlo and they have a conversation in my bed until I’m ready to deal with getting her dressed and ready for school. iPhone toting parents, if you haven’t invited Carlo into your life, now’s the time, friends.

We’re lucky enough to have a whole room for office space in this house and, believe me, we’ve filled it and it’s a busy room.  It’s actually a bedroom, so it’s a nice size and has a closet for stashing all the stuff we don’t really want out for public viewing.  Until this weekend, though, that room was just for Matt and I.  Ava really had nothing in there to occupy her and, for the most part, we spent every second we were all in there together telling her to stop touching stuff – not really fun or productive for anyone.

Last weekend, in a stroke of what I’ll just admit was pure genius (ha!), I decided that it was time that Ava had her own workstation in the office.  She needed a place to color or stamp, where she could reach some of her own art materials – in other words, something to do so that we could get stuff done too.  We have a beautiful secretary desk that was sitting upstairs in the hallway serving no function except to look pretty, so it became my desk – plenty big enough for the laptop and full of little cubbies & drawers to stash my stuff.  My old pine table became Ava’s workstation and she now has access to markers, crayons and coloring pages whenever she wants them.  All in all, it’s working out great!

I love that we’ve made space for our girl in a room that used to be so off limits.  And now, rather than nagging her to leave stuff alone, I get to look over from my desk and see something that’s a lot more happy.