avablog

Ava wanted me to read a book with her this evening.  Lately I’ve been lying down on the floor in her room with her next to me as I read the book, which she seems to enjoy. Tonight she pulled out good ol’ Pat the Bunny, which is a pretty popular children’s book that I […]

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If you’ve taken the time to scroll this page down a bit, you may have noticed the rather prominent male sex organ pictured over in the menu on the right (the art aficionados among you may even recognize it). I’d encourage you to give the image a click (if you can bear to) and see […]

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Ava’s quickly figuring out that there’s very little that’s outside her reach if she’s only willing to crawl to get it.  What started out as an awkard scramble up onto the couch has evolved into a much more deliberate scaling of the dining room chairs.  Next stop, we figure, is the top of the table.  […]

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What a classic.  Kevin’s asked me a couple times what it is I do with the delicious free range chickens I get in bulk from a local organic farmer.  In the winter I’ll typically thaw one out and drop it in the crockpot with a little salt and pepper before I head out the door […]

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I’m pretty sure last night was the last night of Leah’s birthday celebration.  I’ll have to check with her to make sure.  If it was, it was a nice way to end the festivities. We hired a babysitter and went out to dinner and a movie.  We hadn’t made any reservations anywhere, but we figured […]

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I’ve been supplanted!  Replaced!  Thrown over! We’ve been trying to get Ava to use her words for her Aunt Rachel and Uncle Kevin, and she’s starting to catch on.  She’s gotten pretty good at saying “Rashe” for Rachel, which is a good start.  She’s having a little more trouble saying “Uncle Kevin,” which she’s shortened […]

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Ava got her first stomach flu yesterday, which wasn’t fun for anyone involved. She’s much better today, but I stayed with her at home this morning in order to adhere to the daycare’s policy of a 24-hour banishment for anyone who tosses chunks (little known fact: Leah and Rachel are emetophobes). Also, the A620 came […]

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Our season ended last night. At last. It was the first night of the tournament, during which teams play in best-of-five matches to determine who moves on. We played four games in our first match, winning the second one, but we just weren’t strong enough to finish off the other (again, all-male) team. I decided […]

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Ava bit a kid at daycare today. Hard enough to break the skin, apparently. The daycare’s policy is not to name the bitee, so we couldn’t confirm the injury. I guess it’s like some sort of kiddie witness protection program. Anyway, when we got to daycare at 5 to pick up Ava, she was sitting […]

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It’s an honest question. There are some easy, obvious answers to this: Cost. Ease of use. Immediacy. But there are other answers that only become clear as you move through the world. Perhaps the most important one can be illuminated by a recent experience Leah had. When Ava was relatively newer in our lives, Leah […]

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Ladies and gentlemen, I present the Canon S3 IS. Alas, it won’t be available until May, which is a bit longer than I want to wait. Other likely candidates include the SD700 and the A700, both of which are due in March. Decisions, decisions. EDIT: And the winner is…the A620. “What?” you ask? “Why not […]

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I was playing with one of Ava’s new toys this weekend on our trip to Decorah. It’s a magnetic drawing pad, something like an Etch-A-Sketch with a pen attached to it. After Ava took a shine to scribbling all over our hardwood floors with her Crayons, Leah figured it might be a good idea to […]

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If I could just sit inside today and look out the window I might be able to delude myself into thinking that it was a gorgeous day.  And it is sunny.  But the thermometer is reading 1°F outside right now. Yesterday two of the four cars we have here this weekend started, one because it […]

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Last night I was driving down to my favorite Thai place in town to pick up some dinner.  The restaurant is pretty much a straight shot from our house towards downtown.  I’ve probably driven that stretch hundreds of times, and it’s stayed mostly the same over the years.  Until recently. There’s a new, 12-story building […]

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I awoke at six this morning to a tremendous flash of white light that radiated straight through the two sets of shades on the bedroom windows and made the bed look like it was sitting on the end of the runway during the finale of John Galliano’s Fashion Week show. Well, anyway, it was bright.  […]

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It’s been 17 months since Ava showed up, and I haven’t yet figured out how she’s manipulating time the way she does. It’s a difficult thing to try to balance having a job that will provide for your family with having enough time left outside of said job to spend any time with said family.  […]

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This morning my mom stopped by the house for a couple minutes as we were getting ready to go out the door. Ava and Leah made Valentines the other day to hand out to the kids at daycare, and there was a special one for my mom. I was standing in the kitchen as I […]

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Lazy mornings are for lovers. At least, I’ve certainly always thought so. When Mark and I first met, I enjoyed nothing more than cuddling under the down comforter with him ’til late in the morning, when we’d amble over for some grease and coffee at the ‘Burg. However, since Ava’s arrival, our lazy mornings have […]

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Tonight the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show begins in New York. I love this show.  I love it because I really enjoy dogs a lot, and it fascinates me to see the way these animals seem to revel in all the pomp and circumstance surrounding the judging.  I hate to anthropomorphize these great dogs, but […]

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I got Leah subscriptions to People Magazine and US Weekly a while back so she could keep track of all her favorite celebs. I was looking at the cover of one of these rags the other day and noticed a story about Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen’s troubled marriage. The cover of the magazine showed […]

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