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?
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