Another month has come and gone. Yeah, hopefully spring is just around the corner. I am so sick of being sick and having my kids sick!! We took them to the doctors this week because they still have their stupid coughs and runny noses and for a while it seemed like they were getting better but then started to get worse again. Well, finally we get some antibiotics. Jada actually did have the start of an infection so her said we'll put her on antibiotics and because Ava has had the same symptoms and it has been going on for so long we will put her on antibiotics too. So hopefully, in the next couple of days things will get better. Thank goodness my kids don't really act sick when they are sick. They're just their same crazy selves only with more snot. I also got sick this month too. Another sinus infection and bronchitis. I still have my cough too but I am pretty much over it.
Jada finally cut two teeth on the bottom. Hopefully now she will start sleeping better, well I guess until the next teeth come. She is so funny sometimes. When she wakes up in the morning and I get her out of her crib, first thing she does is climb up onto my bed and play with the remotes. She gets so excited when she pushes a button and the channel changes. Either her eyes get really wide and she says " oooooo", or she screams," aaahhhh". Of course, when I didn't sleep well the night before and it is 7:00am in the morning, this is not so cute. She definitely takes after her dad. No matter when she goes to bed or how much she wakes up in the night, she will still wake up at 7:00 (or earlier, if I'm really lucky). She is now climbing onto everything. She uses her little lion walker or the pink rocking horse to stand on. Today Antione caught her on top of the kitchen table and the other day she was standing on the pink horse and licking the TV. It was a good thing Antione was at school. He would NOT have been happy. She has hit her head running into walls and the table more times than I can count. She loves to get into drawers. Not just get into them but actually get IN them. She takes everything out of Ava's dresser drawer and then sits in it. Last week, she decided to broaden her horizens and sit in the middle drawer. Needless to say, she broke it. If the dishwasher or dryer is open she crawls up and stands on top. So pretty much, she keeps me busy, busy busy. Can't turn my back on her for a second. But I can't even imagine my life without my sweet Jada. :)
Ava is smack dab in her terrible three's. She has turned into such a sass mouth. She just amazes me more and more everyday. The other day we were driving home and I was soooo tired and kept yawning. I said, "I'm so sleepy." To which Ava responded "Well, why don't you got to bed then." Cracked me up. Also, last week I asked her to throw something away for me. She said, "No I don't want to." I said "Why?" She said, "Because I said so." She is so smart too. I registered her for preschool in the fall a few weeks ago. I can't believe she will be going to school, even preschool. She is so excited!! She likes to put on her "pack-pack" and say, "I'm going to school." A few other Ava-isms, she calls steak, snake which is funny when she says, "I like snake." She calls the hospital "hobstibal." Today she was trying to say "bridge" but she kept saying fridge. I said Ava, "Say buh-bridge." She said, "buh-fridge." Whenever I tell her we have to go to the doctors (even if its my doctor), she says, "I don't get shops, Jada gets shops." So cute!! I'm sure there is more I have forgotten. She is constantly making me laugh. Well we tried a couple of different techniques for the potty training. The first one I took her to the bathroom every hour and had her sit on the toilet. At first she didn't even want to sit on the toilet herself, so as suggested from her doctor, I sat on the toilet and then had her sit on my lap. Eventually she was comfortable enough to do it on her own. She would get a sticker every time she sat on the toilet, another one for pulling down her pants, another for flushing, and another for washing hands. She would also get a treat to reward her for sitting on the toilet because it was such an issue at first. She was doing great for a week or so but then she stopped wanting to even sit on the toilet. So the next technique was to just go cold turkey. We got her a bunch of different underwear that she loved, Dora, Tinker Bell, Princess and the Frog and other princesses. She was so excited to wear them. She actually stayed dry for several hours throughout the day. I would ask her throughout the day, do you have to go potty and then take her to sit on the potty. Sometimes it would even be her idea and she would tell me she had to go potty. But she never went potty in the toilet, not even once. She would try and then say she was done and get off. Not even 5 min. later she had peed and would tell me she was wet. It didn't even seem to bother her sometimes. I guess she is just too scared to acutally go potty in the toilet. I decided maybe she is not ready, so we stopped and will try again in a couple of months. Sometimes she still wants to sit on the potty and says, " I have to go potty" so I let her because it's all her idea. So for right now we will still have two kids in diapers.
Ava is about a head taller than Jada but now they are not even a pound different in weight. Jada's arms and legs are bigger than Ava's and so is her waist and bum. The size four diapers are starting to get too tight on Jada but Ava still has plenty of space in them. Dang it, no more buying the same size diapers. I'm pretty sure they can wear the same size shirts now but not pants. We have been asked a few times if they are twins. I don't really see it. They couldn't be more opposite. They are definitley sisters though....cute, crazy, and sometimes just a couple of turds.

I HATE VIRUSES!!

Can I just say how much I hate viruses. Once again, my kids are sick. Ava woke up crying about 4am on Wednesday morning. She had a temperature of 101.8. She has been running a fever on and off for about four days. Today it went up to 102.3. She has a horrible cough and a runny nose. Jada has been running a fever on and off for about 2 days. Same horrible cough and constant runny nose. So we took them both in to the doctors today to make sure that there is no infection going on. Good news: there is no infection. Bad news: there is no infection. It's almost better when they have an ear infection or throat infection because then they can go on antibiotics and start getting better in the next day or two. But no, it's a stupid virus that "just has to run it's course." Ugh!! So frustrating. As long as they have a fever they are contagious which means we can't go anywhere. The family is celebrating Kylie's Birthday tomorrow and it looks like we won't be able to go. Also, me and Antione started working out at the gym last week. It's been pretty cool to get out of the house and go somewhere. We want to go every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday because that works the best with my schedule. We go to a gym in Sandy that just opened up so there is no enrollment fee and it only costs $15 dollars a month with no contract. We go to our friends, Nicci and Justin's house and the kids all play together. While me and Nicci work out the guys stay with the kids. Then they go work out and me and Nicci watch the kids. We usually end up having dinner together too and we are all trying to eat healthier. So, we just started this last week, but so far it has worked out really good. We each get to have someone to work out with which is so much more motivating then going by yourself. Antione wants to lose about 30 lbs. I just want to get in shape and get my "core" stronger. Anyway, if the girls are still sick then we can't go. The thing about working out is you need consistancy. You have to keep going and keep doing it. It's so much easier to not work out. I have been so motivated this last week to go and work out. Even when I was so tired and was tempted to just stay home. But we got in the car, drove the 20 min to their house and got ourselves to the gym. I felt sooo much better afterwards. I had so much more energy too. It was great. Just what I needed. Just what WE needed. So I hope that the fact the girls are sick and we won't be working out, possibly this whole week, doesn't mean that we or I will lose our motivation.
This month has actually been a very difficult month with Jada. She has not been sleeping well at all. There are some nights that she will wake up every hour. It has been so hard on me because I work graveyards on the weekends. On the nights I don't work I am trying to switch back over. So usually I don't go to sleep until later, about midnight. Then Jada wakes up within an hour. Sometimes she will go back to sleep. Other times she stays awake wining for awhile and then finally falls alseep. At this point, I usually can't fall back asleep. My body is used to me being awake at night and sleeping during the day. So I am awake for 3 to 4 hours and by the time I finally fall back asleep, Jada wakes up again. So the next day, all I want to do is sleep. I feel like a walking zombie. I'm pretty sure that the reason Jada is having such a hard time at night has something to do with her teething. Unfortunately, the child will not take medicine by mouth. Believe me, we have tried everything. She either spits it out or ends up throwing it up. We never had this problem with Ava when she was teething. We would just give her Tylenol and she would be fine.
Don't get me wrong. I love Jada, but she has sure made me think twice about wanting to have any more kids. I don't know how much more I can take of this. Once again, I just realized I am complaining about my kids on my blog and focusing on the negative parts of being a mom. Why, when there are so many more positive things I could talk about. Like, Jada is now walking. Well she has been for a few weeks now. She is a little whirlwind of destruction and gets in to everything and anything she can. Oops, there I go again, being negative. She has four teeth all on the top. It's so weird that she doesn't have ANY teeth on the bottom yet. The doctor assured me it's nothing to worry about. It's just a rare occurrence, in only about 10% of kids. She can say bye bye, momma, dada, hi, hey, and she will just walk around somtimes saying Jada, Jada, Jada. Only it sounds more like Ja-duh....Ja-duh. It's so dang cute. She also loves to play ring around the rosies with Ava. She tilts her head to one side and goes around and around in a circle saying "aa-ches, aa-ches (ashes, ashes). Ava thinks it so funny. Somtimes they play so well together. Other times, well let's just say it's a love-hate relationship.
Ava started primary at church this last month. She is in Sunbeams. The first week I had to stay with her the whole time. She wasn't going to let me go anywhere. The next week I took her she walked into the primary room and sat on her teacher's lap. She looked perfectly fine so I just left. I was able to go to my classes and I was told after that Ava did so good. She didn't cry or anything. I was so proud of her. We'll see how week three goes. Unfortunately now, that won't be tomorrow. We have also been working on potty training with Ava. The approach I have been trying is every few hours take her into the bathroom and have her sit on the toilet and try to go. She was doing so good at first at would want to sit on the potty and try to go. She never did go potty but she tried. Now she doesn't even want to sit on the potty. So I think I need a new approach. I am going to try this week to just put her in her underwear, no diapers, and just let her have accidents so she can feel what it likes to be wet and hopefully she won't like it. She talks about how her friends go "poop in the toilet" all the time. And she wants to wear big girl "princess" underwear. So hopefully this will motivate her. Also, she can't go to pre-school until she is potty trained . So we have about 7 months to go. I know once she actually goes potty in the toilet she will be so proud of herself and want to do it again. The thing about Ava, she's always done things on her own terms, when she wants and how she wants. I don't think this will be any different. It's just right now it seems like she will never be potty trained. But I remember thinking the same thing when she wasn't walking yet and also when she wasn't able to eat any solid foods. She conquered those things and she WILL conquer potty training. I know she will!