Long Time Gone

So, how do I sum up our lives between Mother's Day and New Year's? One word. Ava. She's a busy little gal and she has dominated our (read: my) world for about 11 months now! She's gone through the typical Buchanan stages: crawling at 5 1/2 months, stairs and pulling up at 6 months, walking at 10 1/2, and teeth at 11 months. That's right--walking before teeth. She just barely has 2 little buds breaking through the gums, but she can walk laps around the house!

She has one word. Dog. Or daw daw (pant pant pant) as she says it. Brad thinks she says Dada too, but it's pretty hard to distinguish the two. So, since we basically have one word, that's all we say. We see a dog, we say it; we hear a dog, we say it; we see an animal on TV that might be a dog, we say it; we see mommy coming in after nap time, we say it; we see the big kids out riding bikes, we say it. You get the idea. Here's a sample conversation that happens about 476 times a day:

Ava: Daw daw (pant pant pant) Daw.

Emily: Yes, there's a dog. Cocoa is a dog.

Ava: Daw daw (pant pant pant)

Emily: Do you want to say hi to the doggie?

Ava: Daw daw (pant pant pant)

Emily: Good job! Cocoa is a sweet doggie. Are you hungry for some lunch? (Trying to change the subject)

Ava: Daw daw (pant pant pant) . . .

REPEAT

She gets so excited when she talks, you can just tell she's brimming over with possibilities for conversation. Now, she just has to learn more than one word! 

She's very much like Will at this age--constantly moving and destroying anything in her path. She especially loves paper--eating it. She gets it in her mouth as fast as she can and closes up like a clam so no one can fish it out. She knows she's not supposed to do it. You can tell by the impish look on her face. Lucky for her, it's pretty darn cute! She's starting to play more with the big kids too--it's so fun to watch them all interact. It won't be long before she's doing everything they do. Maybe even riding a plasma car . . . watch out world!