Sticky Tape and Special Treats

For anyone out there who's debating about whether or not to have children, one thing to add to the pros is built-in entertainment. At some point during everyday Ava says something or does something that makes us laugh or at least gets a smile. Today was no exception....I was in the shower this morning and Ava was watching one of her Dora the Explorer videos (if you do not know who Dora is you will if you ever have children). In this particular episode Dora uses "sticky tape" to fix different broken things, patch up holes, and help her climb over a slippery rock. So a few hours later Ava and I were playing in the dining room, I mean toy room, and she took a step on the hardwood floor and slipped. It only took about 2 seconds for her to realize what Dora would do. She then ran to the kitchen got the masking tape and asked me to wrap up her feet so she wouldn't slip....I complied knowing this would be entertaining. Once her feet were wrapped up she was surprised to find that when she tried to walk she could not! Her feet were stuck to the floor and her little legs were not strong enough to lift them up. She shouted "I'm stuck mom, I'm stuck....I can't walk, my feet are stuck to the sticky tape." By this point I was laughing out loud....she then said "mommy will help me walk." I helped her take a few steps and it wasn't long before the tape had some lint and dust on it and wasn't as sticky. She spent the rest of the morning with tape around her feet and only took it off for nap time because I promised she could have new fresh sticky tape after her nap!

Hopefully the story sounds as funny as it was in person.....I'm still chuckling.
Something else I wanted to share was Ava's love of "Special Treats." This could mean anything from a marshmallow or m&m to ice cream or a sucker. There are a lot of experts our there who are against bribery as a tactic used to get kids to eat their meat or veggies, but it works great for us! On this particular evening Ava had to eat all her green beans and chicken in exchange for some ice cream. We usually feed her the ice cream to prevent a big mess, but she was already a mess from yogurt and it was bath night so who cares about a little ice cream...right?
Needless to say she was in heaven! She smiled with her ice cream for the camera...I then mentioned she smiled with her eyes closed....
we then got this picture. Here she is "smiling" with her eyes open.

This was after demonstrating 'open eyes'...she wasn't quite following.

Brain freeze!!

I jumped in to start the clean up process...at first just wiping up the excess ice cream from the chair.

Then once realizing ice cream time was over....someone wasn't happy!

Such big tears for such a little girl!

We went straight up stairs for a big bubble bath, which cheered her right up. She proceeded to stay up a little late that night....that's the price we pay for those "special treats."