Ava’s vocabulary has been growing steadily lately and it seems like everyday she is saying or signing a new word. Yesterday she did the sign for ‘bird’ several times when one landed near her, and last night she came over to us carrying Jessica’s rain boot and said "shoe." It’s really exciting to see her learning and communicating so much, and I’m not constantly looking forward to what she discovers next. Today however, was all about one word – apple. Jessica asked me this afternoon to feed Ava an apple for dinner tonight because she’s been saying and signing the word for apple all day. Jessica has been on an apple kick lately and it seems to have rubbed off on Ava.
I decided to surprise Ava by slicing the apple before dinner and pairing it with some string cheese (which she loves), but when I gave it to her she didn’t recognize it as an apple because it was sliced into small pieces. I tried to explain that it was an apple, and she kept saying the word apple, but she wouldn’t eat it. I was in the middle of homework so I decided to give her a few minutes with the sliced apple while I worked on my paper. When I came back about 15 minutes later I found her covered in chewed up apple. Apparently she liked the flavor, but not the texture. It was pretty cute though. She used to do the exact same thing with oranges and blueberries but now eats them entirely, so I’m sure apple will follow suit soon enough.
It’s nice to be having a mellow normal week this week considering how crazy last week was. Jessica tripping over Bruno and falling down the stairs was very scary but luckily everything turned out all right. She had her phone with her and was able to call me immediately. I had carpooled with my manager that day and luckily I was driving or else I could have been stuck at work. I felt bad to leave him but made it home in record time. We were able to get into the doctor’s office for an emergency ultrasound and found out that our baby girl was doing fine.
You don’t think about all that could be wrong in that situation until getting to the doctor’s office. Until then the only thing on your mind is getting there, but after the news comes in that the baby is okay you start thinking of how bad it could have been. Hearing that she was okay caused a rush of emotion that you didn’t allow yourself to feel during the heat of the moment.
Unfortunately this situation felt oddly appropriate based on Jessica’s fainting incident at a grocery store in San Diego a couple years ago. It turned out to be the only incident during her pregnancy with Ava so hopefully this will be the only incident of this pregnancy as well. I keep getting tempted to refer to our new baby girl as Elise but we haven’t finalized her name quite yet. That’s definitely my preference so we’ll see what happens.
Luckily for us, Jessica’s boss Cooper is a friend of ours and when I told him what happened he immediately gave her the week off to recover. It was restaurant week in Seattle meaning that things were crazy busy, but it didn’t matter to him. He even went out of his way to call and check on her both days when I was out of town to make sure everything was okay. This really meant a lot to both of us. I was hoping to thank him in person when I worked at Gaucho on Saturday night but he wasn’t there.
Tomorrow is Friday meaning another week has flown by. No traveling this week, which is nice, but lots and lots of coding. I’m constantly learning new stuff at work and am getting closer to taking a leadership role within a project. I’m really busy with school these days but am looking forward to taking the family to the zoo on Sunday if the weather permits it. Here’s a pic of Ava making a mess of her fruit and cheese dinner.
