Her Continuing Education

Oh the joys of being a parent. You get to see your little girl grow up before your very eyes. You get to see her do things that she has never done before. Recently we have gone WAY past Ava's pacifier hoarding and hiding to, what I think, are deliberate, timed actions.

Doni and I are in a small group at our church that meets every other week on Sunday nights. When we get together we have dinner together and everyone brings something. Doni held Ava while I ate and then we switched so that Doni could eat when I was done. Ava had been acting kind of fussy (she was probably tired) so I tried a trick that I had tried once before.

Days before, Ava had similarly been tired and cranky, but she decided to cry it off instead of sleep it off. I lifted her over my head and placed her on my shoulders so she could see over my head. Having never experienced this position before, Ava quieted down pretty quickly. We walked around the house looking in mirrors and seeing everything from a different perspective. It worked beautifully.

Since it had worked before, I tried the same thing while we were at the dinner table. This time it wasn't working quite as well, but she did quiet down a little. However, after not even being on my shoulders for a solid minute, Ava revealed the next skill she had learned..... Skill #2 - Throwing up on dad's head.

Obviously, there was no way I could see it coming. To tell the truth I didn't even feel it for a few seconds after it happened. The only reason I could tell that anything had happened was because first there were wide-mouthed looks (the kind you get when you see someone about to bite the dust across the room, but there's nothing you can do but watch) followed by riotous laughter. My senses began to sink in as my scalp felt something that reminded me of being pooped on by a bird. Needless to say, we have not tried the tall-baby/shoulder ride lately.

Then there's today.... Ava had been sleeping in her swing quietly for a couple of hours when we opened her eyes. It was getting close to her feeding time, so I picked her up and talked to her for a few minutes.

.....There is a little background info that is pertinent to the rest of this story. When Ava sleeps without a blanket, she gets cold and wakes up. When Ava sleeps with a blanket, she gets a little sweaty, but continues sleeping. It is not abnormal for her back to be sweaty when we pick her up after a nap. Back to the story.....

So, when I picked Ava up, I noticed that she was sweaty, but thought nothing of it. Usually just her back is sweaty, but this time it seemed that she had sweat through the back of her shirt, her shorts, and onto her legs. It didn't strike me at first that this was much more sweat than usual although it probably should have. After a couple of minutes of her sweat not beginning to dissipate like usual, I began to wonder about the character of this moistness. It couldn't be pee, could it? A sniff test confirmed the grim diagnosis. By this time I realized this I had traces of her urine on my hands, arms, and shirt. What's the deal with that? She's in size 2 diapers and I thought they were supposed to hold at least 14 lbs!?! Little did we know that Ava had begun working on her bladder control such that she could drop two gallons of her special blend lemonade in one go. Skill #3 - Tricking Dad into holding a slightly urine-soaked baby against his body.

She also coughed a mouthful of formula in my face today, but since she could have done this accidentally I won't count it as another skill.

It's good being a daddy.