Virginia is for Lovers

Ava: "I miss Daddy! Where is he today?"

Me: "He's in Virginia, he'll be home after you're in bed, so you can see him in the morning."

Ava: "I want to go to Virginia...is it for four-year-olds?"

Me: "VIRGINIA IS FOR LOVERS!"

Ava: "Oh! I'm a lover!"

(If you don't know, "Virgina is for Lovers" is the state motto. So I found it hilarious the way the conversation played out and had to throw that in there.)

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Ava: "I want a big brother! Who's going to buy one for me??"

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Ava: (puts a piece of cheese under her nose, like a mustache) "Hello, I'm Mr. Reagan!"

Me: "Bahahahahaha!! Honey...who is Mr. Reagan?"

Ava: "Oh, he's my babies' doctor..."

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Ava and a neighbor boy were playing on our swing set, and I was pushing them on the swings. After awhile I decide I was done and they needed to play on their own, and the boy was complaining that he had nobody to push him on the swings...

Ava: "Listen--we've had enough pushing for today. I'm tired. She's tired. We're all tired!"

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Ava's newest exclamation of surprise: "Oh! Gracious!"

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Ava: "Wouldn't that be funny if cows were humans?"

Me: "Uh...sure!"

Ava: (thinking for a bit) "If I were a cow, I'd drink milk from my own udders!"

Me: "..."

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Me: (trying to get out the door to go somewhere, but Ava is taking her sweet time) "Ava, LET'S GO!"

Ava: "Alright! Hold your ponies!"

Me: "HAHAHAHAHAHA! Don't you mean 'hold your horses?'"

Ava: "Haha, yeah! Hold your ponies!"

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Me: *picks up CJ and gives him some kisses*

Ava: "AHHHHHHHH!!!! YOU'RE KISSING A WILD BABY!!!!!!"

Me: "..."

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Ava: *making really annoying noises with her mouth*

Me: "Ava, please stop, that's really annoying."

Ava: "Hey, I can do whatever I want with my tongue!" (continues to make noises)

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Ava has a new habit of randomly naming things. She drew a picture of a worm and named it "Farble," for example. Anyhow, this happened in the car the other day...

Ava: "Hey, look at that garbage truck! His name is Bob."

Me: "His name is...Bob...?"

Ava: "Yeah! Bob!"

Me: "How do you know?"

Ava: "Because THAT'S HIS NAME."

Me: "Okay..."

Ava: (as we drive past the garbage truck) "Hey, Bob!"

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I was driving and I hit the brakes a little hard at a stop sign. Under her breath, Ava muttered, "Cruella..." in reference to to my driving...hahahahaha!

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Ava: "Oooh there's Adam*! I want to say hi!"

(This is a little boy at school that she apparently gave a kiss to on the playground. I have changed the other kids' names to protect their identities... ;o)

Me: "Oh good grief, you didn't kiss him again, did you?!"

Ava: "No. I kissed Tommy during snack time, though!"

Me: "AVA! I told you not to go around kissing boys!"

Ava: "Well, he liked it!"

Me: "Oh, ya think? NO MORE KISSING BOYS. You can give kisses to mommy and daddy and CJ."

Ava: "WHAAAAT?! I don't kiss babies! They're too disgusting! And they drool and whine!"

Me: "Fine, you don't have to kiss babies...but please stop kissing the boys!"

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 Me: "So, we're going to drive by Target, but we're going to Chick-Fil-A. We're not going to Target until I have my coupons."

Ava: "MOM, stop talking! I already know this stuff about Target! Saying all that stuff is going to make my ears throw up!"

Me: "..."

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Me: "Ava, look, a garbage truck! Is that Bob?"

Ava: "Yeah, it is! That's Bob!"

Me: "It is? He looks different."

Ava: *sigh* "No, that's not Bob. He's yellow. This is...uh...Carpamina."

Me: "The truck's name is Carpamina?"

Ava: "Yes. And that trash truck is really mean! He's a bad guy and he steals babies!"

Me: "Alrighty then..."

The Butt Store

Today is pajama day at preschool....

Ava: "So I get to wear my ballerina pajamas to school today?!"

Me: "Yes, you do!"

Ava: "Why?"

Me: "Because your teachers decided today would be pajama day."

Ava: "OH MY GOODNESS, THIS IS THE BEST HOLIDAY EVER!!!"

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Ava: "Mommy, you are the best mommy in the whole world!"

Me: "Awwww, thanks, honey! And you are the best daughter in the whole world!"

Ava: "I don't want any snacks or treats made out of coconuts."

Me: "..."

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Ava: (looking at herself in the mirror) "Oooooooh I look fashionable!"

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Ava: (as we're leaving the drive-thru window of the pharmacy) "I WANTED A LOLLIPOP! WHY DIDN'T THEY GIVE ME ONE?!"

Me: "Well, maybe they already gave them away to the kids who weren't having tantrums."

Ava: "Well, I should find those kids and kick them!"

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Ava: (angry at me for something) "I AM YOUR KID! YOU LISTEN TO MY RULES!"


Yeah....how about NO, Ava?

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Ava: "Are we going to the butt store? To buy a new butt for me?"

Me: "No. Why on earth would we need to buy you a butt?!"

Ava: "Because this one I've got has a crack in it!"


She didn't come up with that on her own, we've made comments about her butt being cracked to her, but it was pretty funny that she repeated it.

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Ava: (to my dad, while they were tickling each other) "Stop whining, Papa! You're not a little girl anymore!"

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Ava: (doing something with her foot that had me nervous that she'd get hurt)

Me: "Ava, stop that! You could get hurt! Your foot could get cut off!"

Ava: "Haha! If that happened, you'd have to call me 'Hoppy!'"

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Ava: "I want to take my baby doll to school with me today!"

Me: "No, honey, sorry--we don't take dolls to school."

Ava: (mindful of the allergies of some of her classmates) "Why? Do they have nuts inside?"

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Ava: "How do cows have babies?"

Me: "They grow in their tummies."

Ava: (in a tone of voice that indicates her belief that I'm just talking nonsense) "Cows don't have tummies!"

later in the week...

Ava: "How do cows get babies?"

Me: "The same way all mammals get babies."

Ava: "Oh. And how do they come out?"

Me: "Through a hole."

Ava: "Oh, okay! And then the doctor gets the baby cow out!"

Me: "Sure."

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Ava: (Singing "Living on a Prayer"...yes, she is obsessed with this song) "We've got to hold on, ready or not, you live for the fight when that's all that you've got!"

*pauses to consider this for awhile*

"Mommy, why does he live for the fight?"

Me: "I have no idea."

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At Target, when I refuse to give in to Ava's demands to buy her everything she wants....

Ava: "You're a bad mommy!"

Me: "Ava, that's not kind. What do you say to mommy?"

Ava: "Banana peanut!"

Me: "Excuse me...?!"

Ava: "BANANA PEANUT."

Me: (trying not to laugh) "Ava, no. I was thinking more along the lines of 'I'm sorry!'"

Ava: "NO. Banana. Peanut. BANANAPEANUT!!!!!"

Me: (laughing too hard to pursue receiving an apology)

YOUR MOM IS GHETTO

You know what's worse than forgetting the funny things that Ava says? Going so long between posts that even the notes I've jotted down on my phone no longer make sense...yikes! Anyhow, here's what I *do* remember...

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Ava: (in the car, totally out of the blue) "Your mom is ghetto."

Me: "WHAT?!"

Ava: (defensively): "The trees said I could say that!"

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Ava: "Mommy, I prayed for you at school today!"

Me: "Awww, that's so sweet! What did you pray about?"

Ava: "That you would come back for me...and you did!"

Awwwww....

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Ava: (randomly) "Jesus thinks I'm a weirdo!"

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Ava: *gets angry at me in the car because I won't take my eyes off of the road to search for one of her toys*

Me: "Ava! I cannot look for your toy! Do you want me crash this car?!"

Ava: "DON'T SAY CRASH! That's a bad word!"

Me: "..."

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Ava: (watching me change CJ's diaper...her fascination with anatomy continues...) "What's that thing called again?"

Me: "It's a penis."

Ava: "Oh. Can I touch it?"

Me: "NO."

Ava: "Oh...will it fall off?"

Me: "Yes. Yes, it will."

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Ava: "So, boys have penises?"

Me: "Yes."

Ava: "But what about boys who DON'T have them? What are they?"

Me: "Ummm. Girls?"

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Me: *singing*

Ava: "NO. I have had ENOUGH "Amazing Grace" for today!"

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Ava: *misbehaves*

Me: " Ava, knock it off. I don't want to have to spank you!"

Ava: *sigh* "I don't want to have to spank you either, Mommy."

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We were watching a documentary on sea turtles with Ava. At one point, the turtles were mating. For reasons unknown, Ava turns to us and says, "NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL SWIMMING!" There's no way she could have known what was truly going on, but holy crap, we about wet ourselves laughing at the timeliness of her comment.

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Ava: "Ready Girl is ready for action!"

(I guess she was in superhero mode...I'm not sure who Ready Girl is, but apparently she is ready for action of some sort.)

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Me: "Eat your dinner, please."

Ava: "I can't eat! I'm busy saving the earth!"

Me: "..."

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Me: *I ask Ava a question about why she did something*

Ava: "Oh, I don't know...because I'm crazy 'bout Elvis?"

She took that from the line of a Tom Petty song...I. AM. SO. PROUD.

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Ava is prone to bursting into song these days...sometimes real songs, sometimes made-up ones. A few weeks ago in Target, she randomly busted out "Living On A Prayer." She was spot-on with the lyrics, too. I was highly amused, and extremely proud. ;o)

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Ava: "What does that boy next door do?"

Me: "Huh?"

Ava: "He goes to that thing...ka--something? And he wears that outfit?"

Me: "Ohhhhh....you mean karate?"

Ava: "YES! What is that?"

Me: (I have no idea how to explain this) "Well, it's a type of fighting...like, ninja moves. Like in the movie 'Mulan.' I guess. I don't know."

Ava: (ponders this for awhile) "Mommy, can you buy me a ninja suit?"

I burst out laughing, which prompts a near-tantrum from Ava. I laugh harder. Note to self: when the preschooler asks for a ninja suit, she means business.

Wow.

So, thanks to the handy little voice-to-text feature on the new iPhone, I have been able to quickly record little notes for myself regarding the things Ava has said in the past week. And it's a lot. I don't know if she's just on a roll, or if she's always this amusing and I don't realize it because I never recorded this much of it before. Anyhow...

Me: "Ava, you're so pretty!"

Ava: (proudly) "And SNEAKY!"

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Me: "Go Bears!"

Ava: "GO EAGLES! I like the Eagles. Eagles live in the forest."

Me: "Um...yeah, Bears live in the forest, Ava."

Ava: "Oh! Haha! I was just kidding, go Bears!"


(I am not sure how she's deciding which team to cheer for--my Bears or Craig's Eagles--but I suspect she seems to prefer the Eagles because 1. she knows it annoys me, and 2. she thinks eagles are cool, forest-dwelling creatures. Seems legit.)

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Ava: "Mommy, are we aliens?! With three hands???"

Me: "No."

Ava: "Oh, okay."

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I was asking Ava where her Tinkerbell doll's dress was, because it was freaking me out that Tink was sitting there on her dresser, buck naked, with the other princesses (who had also been naked until I found their dresses for them). She decided to go on a mission to find the dress, and began by rooting around in my makeup drawer.

Ava: (brandishing a makeup brush like a sword) "THIS MAKEUP BRUSH WILL PROTECT US!"

Me: "From what?"

Ava: "The MONSTERS! In the CLOSET!"

Me: "They're afraid of makeup brushes??"

Ava: "YES!"

She proceeds to run into my closet and comes out with Tinkerbell's dress. I have NO IDEA what it was doing in there. Mission accomplished, I guess.

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Me: "Oooh Ava, look at those trees! Look at all the beautiful colors of the leaves!"

Ava: "I'm going to rip all the branches off so you can't look at them!"

Me: "Well, that was kind of ugly and unnecessary."

Ava: (in a sing-song voice) "You forgot the spoo-oon, now it's too la-ate, you ca-an't spank me! HA HA!"

Me: "Um, yeah, I wasn't going to spank you for saying that you were going to rip the branches off of trees, but whatever..."

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We were listening to a CD of lullaby hymns in the car, my mom's friend sent it for CJ and both kids find it particularly soothing.

Ava: "Oh, Mommy, they said "God!" This song is about God!"

Me: "Yes, you're right, it's a song about God, honey."

Ava: "God is in our hearts."

Me: "Awww, that's so sweet...yes, He is!"

Ava: "I want a Barbie doll."

Me: "..."

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Me: (we are in the car) "Ava, please stop kicking your legs."

Ava: "I can't help it, it's my legs! They have to jump!"

Me: "Wow."

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Ava: "Oh no! I forgot my phone at home! (pulls out a little plastic horse from her purse) I guess I'll just have to use my horse phone! ("dials" a number on the horse's side and then puts it up to her ear) "Oh, hi! How are you? (pause) We're good! Just out doing an errand! Okay bye!"

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Craig: "Ava, if you have one and then you have two more, how many do you have?"

Ava: "Three!"

Craig: "Oh my goodness, that is SCARY. How does she know that? How is she that smart?!"

Me: (I'm pretty sure it's coincidence, because he said one and two, so she just followed with three, so I test her with my own math problem) "Ava, if you have two, and then you add three more, what do you get?"

Ava: (pauses to think) "Pudding!"

Craig: *facepalm*

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Ava: (hides her hands behind her back) "Oh my goodness, WHERE ARE MY HANDS???? I think I left them in the forest!"

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Me: "Ava look over at CJ, is he asleep?"

Ava: "Nope! He's just chillin'."

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Ava: "Mommy, sit down right now or I'll touch your butt with a screwdriver!"

Me: "Jeez Ava, what the heck? Why on earth would you say that? That's really weird!"

Ava: "Haha! Yeah, that's the worst thing I ever said!"

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Ava: (sighs) "I wish trees would walk around and talk..."

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Ava: "My brain is in my head. It protects my head, it keeps it from falling off."

Me: "Ohhhkay....your brain protects your head?"

Ava: "Yes...so you need to stop talking so much! IT MAKES MY BRAIN HURT!"

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Ava now belts out the chorus to "Livin' on a Prayer" frequently...except instead of "Take my hand/and we'll make it, I swear" she thinks it's "Take my HAIR"...this makes me laugh. A lot.

Queen of the Swingset

We were playing in the "tower" on Ava's swingset today (part of the reason I'm so sore...I'm seriously too old to be doing that) and she made a crown out of my belt, put it on my head, and said, "There! Okay, you're the Princess Queen!" Then she shoved me down the slide and yelled, "NOW GO MARRY A KING!"

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Ava: (playing with a little plastic lion she got at the dentist's office) "What does this thing DO?? I thought it would roar or something!"

Me: "Ava. It's a tiny little plastic lion. Why on earth would you think it was going to roar?"

Ava: "Yeah. And it doesn't shoot fire either."

Me: "Ummm...what?"

Ava: "Haha! No, lions don't eat fire! What do they eat, Mommy?"

Me: "What do you think they eat?" (This was not said in a sarcastic way, I was trying to see if she actually knew what lions ate.)

Ava: "Meat. They eat meat. What kind?"

Me: "Oh, I don't know. Zebras, antelope, elephants..."

Ava: "Awww, that's MEAN! I like elephants, they're nice! They have babies, and they lay eggs!"

Me: "Wait, what? Did you just say that elephants lay eggs?"

Ava: "HAHA, yeah...just kidding!"

Princess Castles

Ava is very destructive. I know everyone thinks that destructiveness is just a little boy thing but I assure you, it is not. Anyhow, she was about to destroy something else the other day (in the car, so I was powerless to stop her) and this is the resulting conversation:

Me: "AVA. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. If you break that, I will take money out of your piggy bank to pay for it!"

Ava: (wailing) "Noooooo! Mommy you can't take my piggy bank! I'm saving my money for a princess castle!"

Me: "Oh, for your dolls?"

Ava: "No, for me! I need to buy a princess castle to live in!"

Me: "You are going to use your piggy bank money to buy an actual castle....?"

Ava: "YES!"

Me: "Who's going to live there with you?"

Ava: "YOU ARE!"

Me: "Oh. Thanks. So I guess you better stop destroying things so you can get your castle, huh?"

Ava: "Okay! I'm sorry!"

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Ava was watching the cartoon "Oswald" on Nick Jr. It's about an octopus that lives in a city, not underwater, and the characters totally give me the creeps. Anyhow...

Ava: (whispering to herself, sounding both fascinated and disturbed) "Oswald...doesn't have a nose????"

Apparently, he does not. But she fixated on this and seemed pretty worried. You really had to be there I guess...

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Ava: (Licks my leg for no apparent reason)

Me: "Ava, that is DISGUSTING. DO NOT LICK ME!"

Ava: "Well, it wasn't me! My tongue just wanted to lick something!"

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Ava: (Out of her seat at the dinner table for about the fifth time)

Me: "Go back to your seat right now, young lady, or you are going to get popped on your butt!"

Ava: (Goes back to her seat) "Mommy! Can you move that chair? I can't see the TV!" (yeah, we don't normally watch TV during dinner but I was feeling a little lazy today)

Me: "Ava, you are a big girl, you can move it yourself."

Ava: "No, I can't. You told me to stay in my seat."

Me: "You are right. I did. Thank you, I'll go ahead and move that chair for you..."

Ava +1, Mommy +0

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Ava: "I'm sick, I have a fever!"

Me: "No, you do not."

Ava: "Yes I do! And it's ALL YOUR FAULT! You talk at me too much and it gave me a FEVER!"

Me: "..."

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Craig: (in the daily video he sent to Ava this evening) "Go Eagles!"

Me: (speaking to the video) "No, GO BEARS!"

Ava: (with a very ornery look on her face) "GO EAGLES!"

Me: "Oh, Ava...you are not my child."

Ava: "And you are not my mother!"


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Translating Ava-Speak:

1. "gonuts" = donuts

2. "hotted chips with cheese" =  nachos (she refers to heating things up or setting them on fire as "hotting" them)

3. "ambleeance" = ambulance

4. "ridicleeus" = ridiculous

Guarding the Baby

"I have a sword at my house! And if any bad people try to take CJ, I WILL USE MY SWORD AND SEND THEM TO JAIL!"

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Ava: "How old are you, Mommy?"

Me: "Thirty-two."

Ava: "Oh, good! You're old enough to watch a movie about sharks!"

Me: "Great!"

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Lately, Ava has become convinced we are growing a giant pumpkin in our backyard. She talks about it every day. Today, she said, "We have to invite my friend Emily over! You need to take a picture of us on the giant pumpkin!"
Yes, the pumpkin that does not exist.