One More Day!!

Bambino's first birthday and party day is in one day!!  I know she's excited.  I can see it in her eyes...and screams...  All the decor I've been busy planning and making are starting to materialize (in other words,  house is a mess).  I will post about the entire party, including decor, cake, DIYs (note to self: need to take lots of pics to document!), but not til after I have a breather after the party is over.

My friend's baby is 6 weeks older than Avi, but she can say so many words already.  It's not that I need Avi to be caught up but I just think it'd be so much nicer than trying to decipher which screams mean what.  So when my friend said she "made" her baby talk, it dawned on me that I just need to "make" Avi talk with some tough love.  First mission, the word "more", as in "more" Cheerios.  After trying to refrain from giving her more of her beloved Cheerios unless she said something along the lines of "mm-mm", she started saying, "mm-mm"!!  It worked after only one eating session!  Now I just have to keep working at it so that she can be consistent.  In the meantime, still lots of screaming and banging hands.

Side note, I think my bambino is the cutest baby ever with the most squishable cheeks.  They are so soft and bouncy to kiss!  I don't think I'm biased at all...lol!

She's growing up fast!

I haven't updated in awhile because I've been busy planning for Avi's big "1"!!  A party that was supposed to be small, of course never ends up small when it involves my family.  Since my last post, Avi had another eye infection that started just 2 days after she finished her first course of oral antibiotics.  It took a week and a half and changing antibiotic ointment and drops twice before it resolved which I'm thinking, it probably would've just resolved on its own.
Things Avi can do now: She can cruise a little bit but prefers to grab a hold of me and walk.  She says "dada" a lot and "mama" sometimes, more often when she's upset.  Yesterday, I called the hubs with the speaker on and told her it was dada and she enthusiastically said "Dadadada!!"  Even though she can't say what she wants yet, I can tell she understands when I say "milk", "water", "more", "Teddy", and "let's go to school".  She just recently can "blow a kiss" which looks more like hand to and from chin while saying "vah!"  Just this morning I was singing, "Miss mary mack mack mack, all dressed in black black black, with silver buttons buttons buttons, all down her back back back" while putting on her new big girl coat  and she sang along "buh buh buh".  It's amazing to see how much information she's absorbing!
She dressed as a monkey for her first halloween!  I thought the costume fit her energy, constantly climbing and moving all over the place!  I may be biased but I think she must be the cutest monkey ever!!
After the last screaming session at Fu Fu's a few months ago, we kinda shied away from eating out with her.  But now that we have a better rhythm with her eating and sleeping, we started exploring eating out for dinner with her again.  Albeit, the timing has to be right and eating out is not like it used to be.  It's tricky trying to ration out her food so that she doesn't run out before we get to eat.
This week at school, she already started transitioning to the next class!  Every morning at 9, she (and her buddy Matthew who is 1 wk younger than her) goes to the next class for about an hour to sit in on their "lesson".  Such a strange concept to me considering she can't walk yet and can barely sit still for a minute.  Today Ms. Le tells me, in vietnamese, "Her voice is so loud!  Her parents speak so nice and softly, but she is so loud!"  Yes, Ms. Le, we've noticed =)