avablog

Here’s Ava decked out in her swim/sunwear for our Mexico trip in January. After this shot was taken, she bounded upstairs (at least as much as she’s able to bound at her size) and hopped into the tub, pausing only to remove her hat. These duds are supposed to provide UV protection. Leah ordered them […]

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It’s only 8:30, and I’ve had enough bad luck already to fill an entire day. Maybe two days. First, Ava kicked me in the face bright and early at 5:30 this morning. Rise and shine! Then I got downstairs and discovered that a DVD rip I’d started before bed had hung up and had been […]

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I debated posting this, because a blogger pal does such a better job covering this show, but Leah and I just about wet our pants last night watching Project Runway. It’s the same kind of laughter you get from watching merry mishaps in which someone ends up rolling down a steep embankment in a shopping […]

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I’m so blissfully unaware of the tough times ahead as I help raise a daughter in the U.S. I know I should be more thankful that I don’t yet have to worry about what Ava wears (or doesn’t wear) when she leaves the house. Maybe I never will have to worry about it. What the […]

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One of my only successful lobbying efforts as a parent thus far was my effort to let Ava have a little more autonomy at bedtime. For a long time, Leah had been lying with Ava in bed, telling her stories and rubbing her back until Ava (and often Leah) drifted off. Then Leah had to […]

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Actually, it’s just my curse, I’m sure. I only ever get good (subjective, I know) ideas for posts when I’m nowhere near a computer. And it’s rare for me to be nowhere near a computer. So I end up writing posts about how I always fail to write down my good blog post ideas. Riveting. […]

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I was giving Ava a bath last night when, out of the blue, she stuck her hand out toward me and said, “Pull my finger!” I obliged, and the moment I gave it a tug, a little “pflup!” reverberated off the bottom of the tub, its accompanying trail of bubbles wiggling to the water’s surface […]

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Ava got a lot of painting done while we were in Madison. I don’t know if any of it is ready for the Met yet, but she sure seemed to have a lot of fun splashing color around. We did end up leaving Madison on Saturday, at Rachel’s gentle prodding. The drive home was much […]

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I wanted to post one of the pictures I took yesterday of Ava and her aunt Rachel. I wish I could have natural light with me wherever I was. Sounds like Rachel’s actually thinking about braving the mall today with Leah and Kevin’s mom. I wish them all the luck in the world.

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Yes, I’m blogging on Thanksgiving. We’re done with dinner and first round cleanup and are waiting for pie. I thought I’d drop a quick image of what we had waiting for us when we walked outside this morning. Ava was thrilled. But man, is it cold. And windy. And it’s supposed to be colder tomorrow […]

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OK, so the name isn’t the best. Granted. But my front-runner for tastiest tech bauble of 2007 was reviewed today by Walt Mossberg’s protege Katherine Boehret. Originally only available in an SD version, my friend Andy alerted me last week to the news that the Eye-Fi now comes in a CF version, too. It’d be […]

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I’m in a real pickle (heh) about shopping for Ava’s Christmas gifts this year. For Pete’s sake, the kid’s only 3, and she already has rooms full of toys. She hasn’t touched some of these things in months, so I’m disinclined to add more to the heap. That said, I think this looks fun. Ava […]

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Now that it’s widely available here in town, I thought I’d mention that I recently had a couple pictures selected for the annual Friends of Hickory Hill Park calendar. They are July and August, and the images are, respectively: and… Leah and I were married about 20 yards from where I took these shots, so […]

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We went to a colleague’s for a party after work on Friday. The host’s teenage daughter was nice enough to sit with a couple of the younger kids while the adults chatted and drank champagne. Sophie, the sitter, was competent and sweet, but she wasn’t fast enough to keep Ava from running across the basement […]

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Flickr says I took this picture (with my beloved A70) on November 13th. I used to carry Ava around like this all the time. She was so tiny. She’s still pretty tiny, though she seems to be growing. It’s weird to look back on this image and try to impose her current personality — what […]

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We’re having a tailgate party here at work today, which is something we do every Friday there’s a home game. For each event, a couple departments hook up and bring food for the entire building, and we all meet up downstairs about 10 o’clock and eat. It’s nice. So, it’s my department’s turn today, and […]

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I don’t know if I almost never have dreams, or if I simply never remember the dreams I have. Seems like the latter is more likely. When I do manage to remember one, it feels like a special event, even when the dream is stupid, like the one I had last night. While every other […]

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A colleague sent me this image and accompanying headline earlier today. They’re from Yahoo! Perfection fantasies to avoid Could you be setting expectations so high that your partner can’t live up to them? General consensus is that this fellow is a ringer for me. The closest comparison I could find is this: Leah points out […]

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Back-to-back MOCs! How on Earth do you people get so lucky? We were hanging out in the kitchen the other day when Ava got interested in doing some art. Typically, she’ll just freehand and go off in whatever direction her imagination takes her. For this session, I thought it might be interesting to see what […]

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Seems like a good time for one of these. I took this the other day as Ava sat in front of the TV, again. It’s actually a great time to get portraits of her, as the afternoon light really pours through the windows in our little TV room, and especially now that the leaves are […]

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