Little Miss Independent

Ava is becoming more and more independent these days. Her personality shines through more and more every day and Mike and I find ourselves saying more and more that she is "your" daughter. The dreaded climbing stage is in full force. I don't quite understand why they love it so much, but she needs to explore it. She can now get up on the couch without the help of a pillow. Sometimes she still looks for help, i.e her stool or caterpillar, to get up to on to the couch. That is not the worst of it, she then likes to try to climb on top of the back of the couch. She found a spot in the corner against the wall that she likes to stand on. It makes me nervous. I can really not leave her alone. There is a picture right there that she likes to touch. I am afraid that it is going to come crashing down. In the name of beauty, I still leave it up there instead of doing what I should do, take it down. (I would normally post a picture of it, but I still haven't gotten a new battery for my camera and of course as soon as I went to take it, it died again. I am waiting on a Best Buy gift card that I ordered from our MasterCard Rewards Points that we have). I was telling her the other day not to touch it and of course, she went put her hand right on it and smacked it, so I said "Do you want to go in time-out" and she shook her head "yes". She doesn't know what it means, but I laughed. I need to start researching some discipline options as she has also started hitting. She has hit me in the face a couple of times now in the last week and every time I grab her hand and say no, she does it again.

We are still working on words. She still isn't saying that many. It is still that annoying grunting noise that she uses most of the time. I have started saying the dreaded "Use your words". We are trying to be more strict and not do things for her if she doesn't say the word, because she knows a lot of them. She still just says the first syllable of them too. We have her 18 month check up at the end of the month and are going to talk to our pediatrician.

We both survived the first week with our new nanny. I think it will be nice to have someone interact with Ava and for me to get some work done as well as some errands/cleaning. Some of you may or may not know my work situation as I know I don't talk about it on this blog. My company, retail, has been hit hard with the economy and therefore, there is not a lot for me to do. So I usually do my work and then have time to get other things done. It is the best gig in the world. My bosses both know that I don't have a full day's work and are ok with it as long as I am getting my job done. Since I work only 3 days a week, I also make myself available to urgent issues on Thursdays and Fridays too, so I do have to work those days sometimes too. You may say, why do I need a nanny then? Well, there could be a chance that we will be able to survive this downturn and I will need to work full days and I do have weeks where there is a lot to do. Also, I wanted to have someone that I can trust for the 2nd baby, if I still have a job. That is my biggest concern. I really don't want someone new watching my new little one next year :( Ava will eventually go to daycare, but probably not until next summer as I don't want her to bring home all the germs to the new baby. So that is where my head is on the whole nanny thing.