Ava Jane is 6. A few funny stories.

           My little girl turns 6. How does this happen? She is so special to me. Her little life has changed me in many many ways. The biggest way would be patience. Let's just say God knows exactly how to order your children. Lord knows I may not have laughed off all of the things she has done if this was my first time experience. In her cute little honor I must share some of her funnies. I hope you enjoy as much as we do.

           Small things first. We knew when Ava was 9 months old and took off running she was going to be fun.  At 9 months old she would run all over, find every wipe container and silently empty each and every wipe out. Few months later she found the diaper packs and she would lay each one out….and then make wipe mountains. To this day if she sees the wipes at 6 years old she gets sheer joy and grabs a few and starts wiping trim. It was no surprise to find Ava in a pile of baby powder. She was silent, she was quick, and she was determined. Dana NEVER did things out of order. She had a huge temper that we had to work through, but Ava was the toddler from movies.

Potty training years-
        Ok Dana was 2 years old on the dot, she took 3 days. DONE
Ava we started at 2….and our life went black.
I may just let Kallen tell me "hey mom Im ready to poop on the toilet now" (even if he is 12) because Ava was a hot mess and I was a still new learning mother.
Ava would go throughout the day, and we would think she was fine but like a typical toddler she would play and next thing you know she has a basketball hanging down her leg. For some reason though she would do this in public at most every time.
      We were visiting family at their church. She was about 3.5. She went through times where she was great all month then she would go back to not so great for 3 MONTHS or so. So we were at church, with family we had not seen in years. She decides to poop. I have no spare clothes and its bad. I take her to the bathroom and awkwardly just throw the entire pooped on underwear in the trash. AND DIE
I tell her "don't you dare move, keep yourself together until we get home" We make it to the restaurant and I am catching up with friends and family and I see morbid looks around the table. Yep Ava was in the booth with legs over her head. End of story, I died

         Ava was about 4. Maybe our favorite story to this day.
I was pregnant with Kallen and Super nauseous. We were at a softball field getting ready to leave. Ava gives me the look and says I have to go potty. So we run. I left my husband and Dana in the car which was quite far away. We start running and I see the clump on her butt. OH MAN. So we get in the bathroom I help her take her leggings down and as I'm pulling them down this half diarrhea half clump PLOPS onto the concrete floor. I start to dry heave, Ava looks at me with huge eyes and says "momma that fart was not a fart, it was a poop" I am now laughing hysterically and crying because I can't stop dry heaving to pick up that PLOP. I have no phone, and I leave a naked Ava in the stall to go out the door to wave at my husband, he finally comes over I beg him to help, he does of course. We took our naked child to the car wrapped in a coat and told her don't move a muscle.

Puking Years-
          Ok so these have not ended. Ava was born with a sever case of acid reflux. She always spit up, and as she got older she threw up. She is finally old enough when she knows it is coming she is a pro, and will run to a trash can, or grab something. It is acid reflux that starts it, but also if she smells something, sees something gross, hears something gross, gets a bad texture, or over eats, the list goes on of what will set her off. The first 5ish years were not that way and let me tell you, we had some awesome moments.

              Probably our most humiliating moment was when we had new neighbors move in next door. They invited us to dinner so we could get to know each other. We went to a mexican restaurant. Barely knowing each other at the time we made small talk and were enjoying our time! Ava sat there swinging her little feet and munching away while we were not noticing she had finished the chips off. The server brought our food and more chips. (Ava was 3 at the time) She gives us the look of death. And there was no time to run to the bathroom, my husband instantly dumps all the chips onto the table and she UNLOADS her entire stomach into the chip basket. Lets just say we did not think it through. She filled that chip basket, which also had HOLES in it. We then got to stare at the people across the table from us in horror, and figure out what to politely do. The puke is pouring out of the holes of this basket and we don't know wether to run it to the bathroom or run out of the restaurant. I am pretty sure we ran out of the place. We are good friends with them to this day, and we still die.

           Nothing tops that story, but this is our recent puke story that many friends and family got to witness. I was pregnant with Kallen. Probably 38 weeks. HUGE. We went with a huge group from church to Old Country Buffet. Kid friendly right. I was getting food and my husband was at the table with the kids and our friends. Ava gives him her typical look of death, and he asks her if she can make it to the bathroom she said no, so he takes her to the trash can where the man is making mongolian grill style food. So as he is cooking food for a line of people Ava is unloading in the trash can. The whole table laughs hysterically and Ava comes back to the table. Again she gives him the look like I am not done Dad. He runs her to the bathroom as she is puking, in the middle of them running the puke is pouring out of her hands the entire length of the buffet all the way to the bathroom. During this time I never saw a thing, my big pregnant self is walking back to the table and I SLIP on puke. I dry heave, wipe my shoe on the floor and go to my table to tell them the horror story that I stepped in puke. They died laughing and informed me that it was my daughter. We got a picture of the span of cones they set up after they cleaned. We still laugh. Oh and the culprit, she got a weird piece of cantaloupe she says.

           Our stories could go on for hours. She is our little girl who loves to stomp in the mud, play with worms, step on snakes barefoot. She loves to dress up like a princess and have tea. Every.Single.Day. I leave the tea pot where she can reach it. She is a mix of all sorts of things, but she is simply herself. She has never been shy to be who she is. She does not go by just Ava but Ava Jane because it just says who she is. She is unique, she is rough, she is soft, she is fierce. She is our baby girl. Happy Birthday Ava Jane.