Ava lately

I thought since it’s been a while since I have regularly blogged, I would dedicate a post to each child to come up to date on what’s been going on with them.

Ava seems to just be growing up before our eyes. She’s halfway from six to seven and I’m just amazed at all she’s accomplishing these days.

The thing most noted about Ava right now is that we s-t-r-u-g-g-l-e daily with homework with her. She’s just lazy and doesn’t want to mess with it. Learning sight words has been downright frustrating. It really wears my patience thin because she doesn’t try, she cries and it’s just all out drama. I was starting to get concerned with her abilities and what I thought she should be doing at this age.

Then came her parent/teacher conference this week. She is expected to read at a DAR level 4 when she leaves kindergarten. She is currently about to be at a level 6. Say what? I didn’t even know she could read because when we would try it would just be a fight. Gig’s up sister! She is also doing math, writing sentences and everything she should be doing and more. We just have to figure out how to motivate her to do work at home!

She has also been having some friend issues at school, which makes me sad. I know that’s part of it and I know that it’s inevitable, I just wish it hadn’t started so early. What’s worse is that she is upset and embarrassed and doesn’t want to talk about it with us. Through a series of other happenings and events, we finally figured it out. We’re keeping a closer eye on it and encouraging her to play with new people. Hopefully she can work this out and we don’t have much more drama related to it.

She has started getting used to the idea of having another brother. At my appointment last week, my doctor referred to the baby as a girl, and the heart rate had increased from the time before. I joked with Zach that maybe they got it wrong. Knowing we have another ultrasound in three weeks, I wasn’t too worried because I know we can get a confirmation peek. Ava heard us talking and I asked her what she would think if we found out they were wrong and she said she didn’t want the sister anymore, she just wanted our boy. I’m thankful she has come around! :)

   

She has recently decided she wants the new American Girl doll of the year. I told her she could ask for it for her birthday, or for Christmas. She cried about that being too long. I told her that we have to work hard for things we want and that we don’t just get them because we want them. She asked if she could earn the money. We talked about it and agreed that she doesn’t need an allowance for normal things we expect of her (cleaning her room, picking up toys, picking up her laundry, etc) but for things above and beyond her normal duties, she could work on earning money. I’ve had her cleaning baseboards and other bigger jobs. She also had a prepaid gift card to anywhere from a birthday, got a little Valentine’s day money and has earned $32 (most of which is the birthday gift card). She has quite a ways to go. She’s sly, though. This past weekend she told me we should go visit her cousin, Luke. Then she casually threw in that they have an AG store close to where Luke lives so we could probably stop and buy her doll. I’ll be curious to see if she continues to want to work for it b/c if so I have plenty of things I need to get done before the baby gets here! ;)

So that’s what’s been going on with lady. She is growing up before our eyes and I’m thankful we get to raise this little girl!