The Ava Chronicles: Naps are Optional

The decision to continue on the blog has made me think about what to continue writing about. Since this is basically being used now therapeutically, I guess, dear reader, you get an insight into my life and inner workings of my brain and life with Ava.

 Before Ava my life was pretty standard - get up, go to work, home for dinner/TV/housework/Girl Guide activities and to bed to do it all over again. My life changed in August and no day is quite the same. Hospital life was a lot different than home life. Hospital life had a schedule, home life has no schedule that I have been able to figure out which I am learning is normal with a baby.


Nap Protest

Ava and I have been hanging out together for almost two months now (I know, where did those two months go?!). I have learned a lot about this little human, including the fact that she does not want to nap. Naps have become optional around here this week. She would much rather sit in her swing for an hour cheerfully making happy noises than lie in her crib. I have purchased a couple of books based on recommendations from fellow mommy friends to help get inside the brain of a baby. I suspect this still won't help 100% but it's a start. She has been sleeping fairly well at night which Dave and I are thankful for.

I might have also been the cause of the nap protest. With everything going on related to Mom's estate Ava has been on the road with me a lot. We usually end up in Erin and she naps at my Mom's house while I start the process of sorting. Other days she ends up on the road with me as run other errands, go to appointments or just go out for a drive.

Ava's First Movie

Last week we ended up at the movie theater for Stars and Strollers. For those who don't know about this wonderful service, it allows parents/family members with little ones the opportunity to go to the movies and bring their little one's along. You get the option of 2 movies on Thursday afternoon (or whichever day your theatre decides) and instead of a pitch black, loud theatre, you get a dimmed, quieter theatre with a change table and stroller parking included. Stroller parking is limited, but when we went to the movie the theatre wasn't full so we were able to park (I think there was a lot more people in the other movie option).

Based on recommendations of avoiding a movie that had a lot of plot and talking (in case she got fussy and I missed parts of the movie) I decided her first movie would be Trolls. It turned out to be cute. Who doesn't love brightly coloured animated figures singing with a good message about happiness being inside of you and not something you consume (spoiler alert - the "bad guys" thought the only way to be happy was to eat a troll, kind of morbid for a children's movie) or gain from outside? I also happened to spill my entire tray of nachos on the floor at the lobby. Thank goodness for the wonderful staff for cleaning up my mess as I profusely apologized and getting me a new tray of nachos.

Ava enjoyed sleeping through most of her first movie.

No Naps = Photo Shoots

Once upon a time, we bought a "fancy" camera. I put "fancy" in quotations because there are much fancier cameras out there, but this is very fancy to us compared to our run of the mill point and shoot digital camera. Dave had to convince me before we went to Italy in 2014 that investing in this camera would be great for the trip and we could use it in the future to take pictures of future children. I gave in only because if we were only going to make it to Italy once in our lives, I wanted the best possible pictures to look at when I turn 80 (why 80? who knows, seems like a good age to look back on photos from a trip we took in 2014). It turns out this investment was great! Now when Ava refuses to sleep I pull it out and take pictures of her until she gets grumpy. It's been amazing watching her growth already through the photos over the past almost 8 weeks. When Dave was packing his hospital bag for Ava's birth day, I probably asked at least 5 times if he packed our fancy camera. I really wanted pictures of this day to look back on when I'm 80, or as I do right now, just about every afternoon after Ava's photo shoots. I love watching how much her face has changed already. It's going to be fun to look back through her first year one day and reminisce about how small she was.

Ava also likes to look at her pictures. 

Introduction to Binge Watching

When we aren't running the roads, going to the movies or doing photo shoots, we watch Netflix. Thank goodness for Netflix. I don't know what I would do without it. Daytime TV is seriously lacking. I don't enjoy a lot of the talk shows and don't get me started on soaps. Some days I watch what I PVR'd the previous evening because I usually missed the episode because of hanging out with Ava. If for some reason, I ended up watching my show the previous night we head to Netflix to introduce Ava to the fine art of binge watching. What has been on our playlist lately? Gilmore Girls, of course. I started watching the 1st season again in the hospital, but didn't make it to the 2nd season. In the past 3 weeks we have rocked through the 2nd season and are slowly making it through the 5th. The goal was to finish my 3rd viewing, Ava's first, of the series before tomorrow when the revival comes out on Netflix. I think I will have to let go of this goal and just jump to the new episodes as there are not enough hours in the day to get through all the coffee-drinking, fast-talking, quirky character filled episodes of Gilmore Girls. 

What kind of question is this Netflix?

After tomorrow, we will have to find a new show to binge watch during feedings and sleep fighting, any recommendations out there? 

Learning How to Swim

It’s been almost 3 months since my life changed forever with the loss of my mom and almost 2 months since my life changed again with the birth of my daughter. It’s been a while since I blogged about anything as so many emotions have occurred over the past three months and it’s sometimes hard to put them into words, especially on paper and to be shared so publicly. I had full intentions of just blogging until Ava was born, as a way of mass updating everyone. Today I had a realization that this was more of a therapeutic outlet for me as I struggle with two different worlds as well as a way of updating anyone who is interested in what Ava and I (and Dave, of course) are up to.

With the holidays approaching there are a lot of mixed emotions right now. Christmas is my absolute favourite time of year. I usually beg Dave to let me put the decorations up as soon as November 12^th hits. We have an agreement that decorating cannot occur until the day of the Toronto Santa Claus parade. Typically I know the date off by heart. This year I had to look it up and am really debating how much, if at all, we will decorate. I was at my mom’s yesterday going through boxes in the basement with one of my aunt’s and one of my uncle’s and a lot of emotions and memories came flooding back. Christmas was sometimes a hard time of year for my mom as we often did not have a lot of money to celebrate the way we did when we were younger. She was able to make Christmas special for us and usually worked like a crazy person throughout December to be able to give us special presents. I realize now that the presents weren’t that memorable, but the times spent with her and our family was. In recent years, she would occasionally make her way up to the beach to spend Christmas with Dave and I. We didn’t do anything elaborate, just a nice meal and a day spent resting and relaxing with Christmas movies, something my mom rarely did when at home. Last year, our gift was paint. I know this seems like an odd Christmas gift, but mom always got us something that would make our house a home. Looking around our home right now there are so many things that my mom made or bought/found for us. Last year, in true Gwenda fashion, she woke up, put her paint clothes on and started painting our feature wall. These memories make it so hard this year to get into the spirit, even with it being Ava’s 1^st Christmas.

As I prepared to leave my mom’s house yesterday, I sent Dave a text message about having a really hard time leaving today. He asked why? I really didn’t have a good answer for that. Reflecting back on it, I think it’s because I was waiting for her to appear so I could say hello and give her a massive hug. That was the first time I had truly been alone in her house without her. It was really hard to leave knowing I couldn’t say hi or goodbye properly. The reality of the situation hit me that the lead up to Christmas this year will be organizing and sorting out her things in preparation to sell her house. This is a very different holiday season than any other year.

On the other side of my life, I want to make this year special for Ava. I know she will only be 3 months old and likely won’t remember if we will have a Christmas tree or decorations out but I will. I have struggled with what to do as I am struggling with how to approach the festive season. I don’t want to look back on pictures and see our regular home décor and regret not setting things up for her this Christmas. At the same time, celebrating will be hard this year.

To anyone reading this, I am sorry it was so sappy. It’s been a while and there are so many emotions this year. As I close one life and open another, it’s sometimes easy to lose track of myself. I find that this blog is very helpful for me to get perspective on who I am as I am stuck somewhere in the middle of grief and joy. Thank you for reading and continuing to be interested in my ramblings. I appreciate every single one of you for being in my life and riding this crazy wave with me. 

A joyful find yesterday - my baby shirt from the hospital