Paging Dr. Ava

Earlier today, we were on the phone with my mom...

Me: "Ava, do you want to go to the hospital with Mimi and see where she works?"

Ava: "Yes!"

Mimi: "Do you want to help me take care of the sick kids?"

Ava: "Yes, I want to take their hearts!"

My mom and I were almost crying...I pretty sure she confused listening to their hearts (which she likes to do to people with the stethoscope my mom gave her) with taking their temperatures (something else she enjoys doing)...it's either that or we are going to have to start calling her Hannibal.

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I bought Ava a little mesh bag of chocolate pumpkins today at Fresh Market...

Ava: "Here Mommy, this piece of chocolate is for you!"

Me: (kind of surprised, as Ava isn't into sharing food) "Aww, thank you, honey! What's this for?"

Ava: "It's for doing a good job!"

Not sure what exactly I was doing that was so good, but it was a sweet gesture. And good chocolate. ;o)

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Remember the dead butterfly from a couple of weeks ago? Ava found him again...

Ava: "Look, it's my little butterfly friend! He's feeling better today!"

Me: "Um, no, sorry, he's still dead."

Ava: "Well...he's feeling a little better?"

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Me: "Ava, it says on your weekly report from school that you guys had a veterinarian come in and talk to you! That's so cool! What did they talk about?"

Ava: "Oh, they said I could play with the animals!"

Me: "What kind of animals?"

Ava: "Bears. And lions."

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This actually happened a few months ago but for some reason, it popped into my head today: we were driving somewhere and as usual, the roads were full of idiot drivers...

Me: "Oh. you idiot!!!"

Ava: "Mommy, you shouldn't say that."

Me: "Yeah, you're right, honey, it isn't nice to--"

Ava: "You should say, 'FREAKIN' JERK!"

Me: "Well, no....Mommy shouldn't call anybody any names."

Holy crap....yeah, she got it from me, oops! Lesson learned, the most I do now is say, "Are you kidding me?!" to the idiot drivers...

It's magic!

Ava: "Mommy, I want a magic wand!"

Me: Ava, you have a few already...you have the one that lights up, and you have a couple others."

Ava: (sighs, like she's trying really hard to be patient with me even though I clearly don't get it) "Those are pretend! I need a real magic wand!"

Me: "Oh. Well, okay then. I'll see what I can do about that..."

Ava: "Thank you!"

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Ava: "I want some apple juice."

Me: "Ava, I do not have any in the car. We are not going anywhere that sells it. You will have to wait until we get home."

Ava: (working herself into a near-tantrum) "I WANT APPLE JUICE!!!! I WANT SOME RIGHT NOW!"

Me: "AVA. CALM DOWN. I do not have any apple juice! I can't just magically make some appear!"

Ava: "But I don't want MAGIC apple juice, just REGULAR apple juice!!!!"

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Ava: "Today at school the policeman visited us!"

Me: "Oh that's nice! A man or a woman?"

Ava: "Just a man."

Me: "What did he talk about?"

Ava: "He told us about dangerous things! And he locks up bad guys and puts them in jail. So I told him about Chopper!* And then he told us about his shoot-gun. He uses it to be safe from the animals in the woods."

Me: "Oh, he uses his gun on....animals? In the woods?"

Ava: "Yes. And bugs. There are bugs in the woods....BIG ones."

*Chopper is a mean train or something in one of the Thomas the Tank Engine movies. I'd really like to know what Ava said to the policeman regarding Chopper....or if there was a policeman to begin with. Maybe it was all in her head...

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Ava: "What are hot dogs?"

Me: "I don't know. They're meat or something."

Ava: "MMMMMMM.....MEAT!! I love meat! Can you buy me meat?"


I should point out, Ava doesn't eat meat, other than eggs. Occasionally I can get her to eat my homemade meatballs or some Chick-Fil-A nuggets, but that's it.)

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Ava: "Owwwww! Stop it, CJ!" (She was downstairs on the couch. CJ was taking a nap up in his crib. Unless he has an Ava voodoo doll, I have no idea what was going on.)

Karma

As usual, I've been running around like a crazy person and haven't updated, thus forgetting more of Ava's recent humorous moments than I remember...but here's what I've got...

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Ava sometimes gets angry at me and will lash out and hit/pinch/bite (in response to CJ getting "too much" attention, like when I'm feeding him). Occasionally she'll try to hurt me and inadvertently hurt herself, so I--being a mature adult--have sometimes reacted by saying, "Oooooh! Karma!" So now Ava uses that word, but doesn't quite understand it: for example, she'll trip and fall (not trying to attack me, just walking or playing) and then she'll yell, "KARMA!" Or she'll randomly leap at me and yell it.

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Me: "Ava, tomorrow my friend is coming over and she's bringing her little boy over to play with you!"

Ava: "Oh, that's WONDERFUL! He's my best friend!"

Me: "You haven't met him yet, sweetie."

Ava: "But he's my best buddy! He's a little boy, just like me!"

Me: "Yeah, you're not a boy."

Ava: "Oh. Haha! I'm a girl! (pause) Does he have feet like me?"

Me: "Um, yes, I'm quite certain he has feet."

Ava: "And hands? And a face?"

Me: "Yes, I'm positive he has hands and a face."

Ava; "Oh, okay!"

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Ava: "I'm going to step on a squirrel!"

Me: "Why?"

Ava: "TO MAKE HIM DEAD!"

(She doesn't know what that means, I think she just thinks it means injured. Kind of disturbing either way...)

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speaking of dead...

Me: "Ooooh, Ava! Look at this little butterfly on the driveway! He's so cute!" (too late I realize it's dead) "Aw, nevermind honey. He's dead. Let's put him over here in the plant."

Ava: "I'm going to share my Popsicle with the butterfly! He's my little butterfly friend!"

Me: "Oh, he is? What's his name?"

Ava: "Little Butterfly Friend."

(A few minutes later)

Ava: "I'm going to talk to my butterfly friend for ten minutes! Then he's going back into the woods!"

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Ava: (talking to her brother) "CJ, I love you, you cute little boy! You can stay with us forever!"

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Ava: (mad at me for scolding her for not cooperating at bedtime) "Fine! I'm not sharing my cupcakes with you! You can't have any cupcakes OR any water! Hmph!"

Me: "Where are you going to get the cupcakes?"

Ava: "From the store!"

Me: "Really? Who's going to get them for you?"

Ava: "You are!"

Me: "So...I'm going to have to go to the store and get the cupcakes, and then you won't give me any?"

Ava: "YES!"

Me: "Alrighty then."

I forgot to put this one on yesterday's post...

Ava: (throws her sippy cup of milk to the floor) "THERE WILL BE NO MILK AT DINNER TONIGHT!!"


Yes, she was disciplined because throwing things, especially milk at dinner, is not acceptable. But the way she dramatically made that declaration, like she was starting a revolution, was HILARIOUS.

Ava must have been having some insane dreams last night: when I walked into her room this morning to see if she was awake, she woke up and said to me:

"Mommy, look at the rainbow on my foot! I caught it, I caught it with my foot!"

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Me: "Ava, let's go downstairs and have breakfast and get ready for school. Your teachers said that today you are going to get a folder to decorate!"

Ava: "What? No! We can't do that!"

Me: "Um, why not?"

Ava: "We can't decorate that, it's a big rock!"

Me: "What on earth are you talking about?!"

Ava: "We can't decorate a boulder!"

Me: "Folder, Ava. FOLDER. Not boulder..."

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Ava: (Sees a fire truck idling in an otherwise empty parking lot) "What is that fire truck doing?"

Me: "I don't know. Nothing. Just chilling out, I guess."

Ava: "Are they waiting for some people to catch on fire?"

Me: "Maybe...?"

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"Mommy, you were right! Chick-fil-A does help me poop!"


(I never, ever said Chick-fil-A food would help her poop. I have absolutely no idea where on earth she got that from. But she was pretty happy about the apparent laxative effect of her lunch. Okay then.)

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"So Mommy, how are your eyebrows doing today?"

Target Tantrum

Today, we went to the mall and then to Target...it was somewhat rainy and we needed to get out of the house for sanity's sake and to give Craig some peace and quiet so he could get work done. Both kids held up pretty well until the end of the Target trip...I would not let Ava out of the cart (she likes to look at the little toys they put on display in the checkout line--JERKS--but then she won't get back in the cart and usually ends up running around like a lunatic). Anyhow, she started to have a huge fit just as we hit the parking lot...she was screaming and crying because I wouldn't let her out. This conversation occurred as I was wrangling her into her car seat:

Ava: "LET ME OUT!!! I WANT TO RUN AWAY FROM HERE! I DON'T WANT TO STAY WITH YOU ANYMORE!"

Me: (trying to pin her down and strap her into the car seat) "No, I am not letting you run around in the parking lot. Too bad."

Ava: (struggling, screaming, and crying) "I WANT TO RUN AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Me: "I have too many groceries in the car...my ice cream is going to melt. I'll tell you what: let's go home so I can put away the groceries, and then I'll bring you back up here and you can run away from me then."

Ava: (calms down considerably) "Okay. We can do that."

Me: "So that's okay then? We can take the groceries home and then you can run away?"

Ava: "Okay!"


Well. Glad we found a solution we could agree upon. (Obviously I did NOT bring her back to Target so she could run away from home, she forgot all about it. She also forgot about her plan to sleep outside on the porch tonight, which she talked about the whole way home and was apparently part of the original plan to run away.)

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Me: "Ava, can you (insert what I am asking her to do here) please?"

Ava: "Yes, your Majesty!"

I blame the Disney princess movies...she's not being sarcastic, which is the funny part.

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Me: (playing with CJ, making him "dance," which always makes him smile and laugh)

Ava: "Mommy! Make CJ raise the roof!"

Ava has been very into using the word "father" lately. She's keeps saying things like, "Where is my father?" and, "I'm going to upstairs to see my father!"

Today she said to me, "Mommy, I am NOT your father!"

Um...thanks for the news flash, Darth Vader...

Actually, come to think of it, she is into using all of the proper family names: father, mother, son, and daughter. Only she uses "son" and "daughter" interchangeably, and she has informed me on several occasions that she is my son. We're working on it.

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Ava: "Mommy, let's talk."

Me: "Okay, what do you want to talk about?"

Ava: "About how CJ got out of your tummy."

Me: (I pause, considering how much information a 3-year-old needs/can understand) "The doctors took him out."

Ava: "Oh, okay!"

By Popular Request

Everybody always says I should write a book about the funny things my 3-year-old daughter says. They may have been humoring me, but be careful what you ask for...I done did it now! ;o) Okay, not a book, but a blog...even if Ava isn't nearly as amusing to others as she is to me (for heaven's sake, I'm her MOM...don't we all think our kids are hilarious?), I decided I wanted to record all of these little Ava-isms so I can look back on them later. Enjoy!


Me: (while making breakfast with Ava): "Ava, you'll need to get out a bigger bowl for mixing the pancakes."

Ava: "Aye aye, Captain!"

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Me: Removing Ava's shirt before dinner so she doesn't stain it with spaghetti sauce

Ava: "MOMMY! COVER UP MY BOOBS!"

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Me: "Ava! What did I tell you about unraveling the toilet paper?! Look at the mess you made!"

Ava: "I did NOT do that. That toilet paper did that to ITSELF." Muttering under her breath: "Rolling around all over the place..."

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Ava: "Mommy! You put on some panties! Good job!"

(Please note: I ALWAYS wear panties. Apparently Ava is proud of me for being able to dress myself.)

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Me: (after fixing myself up for the day): "Ava, how do I look?"

Ava: (looks me over) "You need to put on some more makeup."

Me: (pretending to put some on with a makeup brush) "Okay, how's that?"

Ava: "Oh, you look BEAUTIFUL!"