Ava Turns Two

My Ava girl isn't a baby anymore.

But I know I will still call her my baby!

It's hard for me to believe that she is two! I still feel like it was just yesterday that she was swaddled in my arms, looking up at me with her big brown eyes.

I feel incredibly lucky to have my goofy, passionate, emotional toddler.

We struggled with years of infertility before I got the positive pregnancy test with her.

My unique, heart-shaped uterus grew her.

During labor, her heart rate kept plummeting, so they broke my water to speed up delivery. There was meconium in the waters and her cord prolapsed, sending us immediately to the OR for an emergency c-section. My epidural broke so I was not able to have a spinal and was put under general anesthetic for her delivery.

I didn't get to hear her first cries. I didn't get to hold her or nurse her until she was 2 hours old because I was waking up in recovery.

Despite all the odds, Ava arrived into this world at 2:28 pm, weighing 7 pounds, 14 ounces and 20 inches long.

She was perfect.

She did not have any harm from her delivery. 

She's our little miracle!

And now our girl is turning 2 years old. She's such a big girl now, and very much wants to be treated like one!

Lately she has seemed older than 2 years old to me. I'm thinking that is due to the arrival of her little brother! And how tall she is and all of her hair. She just looks older!

She asks to walk instead of being carried when we are out and about.

She likes to take care of her brother and her baby dolls.

She loves to dig in the fridge and pantry for something to eat.

The other day she sat down with her magnetic letters, which I think she's only played with one other time. She picks them up one at a time and starts to say what letter they are! I was floored!! I had no idea she knew ANY of her letters, let alone like half the alphabet!

Almost every day she's adding a new word to her spoken vocabulary.

Literally THE ONLY TIME she will cuddle is before her nap and at bedtime. I hold her and rock her and I'd sit there forever with her if I could! She's very in to the "mommy" phase right now...I am assuming a lot of that has to do with the fact that there's a baby in the house now!

Some of her new favorite things to do are coloring with crayons, sitting in Liam's jumperoo and organizing her play food on the trays, emptying my feminine product drawer in the bathroom (and dispersing it all over the house), hiding in the curtains in Liam's room, demanding for us to clap so she can sing and dance, watching music videos on YouTube (One Direction and Taylor Swift and "Let It Go"), hiding when it's time to get a diaper change or go to sleep, and any form of undivided attention from mommy and daddy!

We discovered yesterday that she might be a little pyro! She loved the little pop firecrackers and the bigger stuff that daddy lit off in the backyard! She laughed and laughed and laughed at everything! She could not stop! She had the best time getting some much needed uninterrupted playtime with us last night. We put Liam to bed so she could have us to herself and she got to stay up late and do all sorts of fun things in the backyard! She loved water balloons (mommy and daddy did too!) and even helped us pick them up afterward. "I help me!" she'd say! We used her slide to make a waterslide in her pool and we did bubbles and she ran and danced and swinging time and ate snacks. We had to convince her to come inside and get cleaned up because we could see how tired she was getting! We didn't want her to be too cranky for her birthday today!

We are keeping it low-key at the house for her birthday. Just us! We were going to go back to the beach for her birthday, but its so darn hot here and we thought the holiday weekend might be pretty busy. I baked her a cake and we've got her some presents to unwrap and balloons (bah-woons!) and her favorite dinner is on the menu - mac & cheese! We will have some sort of get together once we are in KS to celebrate with family and friends.

This girl has changed our lives more than we ever realized it could. We love her more and more every day. She's incredibly determined, curious, silly, noisy, frustrating, loving, and perceptive! I can't wait to see what else we learn about her in her upcoming years!

My Ava girl isn't a baby anymore.

But I know I will still call her my baby!

Yes, that is donut wrapping paper!

That's our girl, haha!!

She likes broccoli too.

Cake time!! My decorating skills could use some work...

Facetime! She only ate the sprinkles!