avablog

My best friend is sitting at home today recovering from a vasectomy. I called him on Sunday to wish him a happy Father’s Day, and he mentioned he was going under the knife. I was a bit surprised, but not terribly. He and his wife have two gorgeous kids, one boy and one girl. They […]

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I’m still getting used to Father’s Day. At least to being on the receiving end of Father’s Day. On Sunday morning I was lazing in bed for a bit while Leah went about putting the finishing touches on my Father’s Day gifts. She came into the room with Ava and set her on the bed […]

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New findings by brain researcher Kelly Lambert, professor and chair of the psychology department at Randolph-Macon College, suggest that fatherhood may change more than just a man’s lifestyle – it may actually cause lasting benefits in his brain. Full story here.  It’s difficult to say whether I’ve noticed any brain change since Ava’s been born.  […]

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There’s an awareness of this concept, and then there’s the full understanding of the reality.  The latter sneaks into your consciousness if you spend any prolonged period of time with a toddler.

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I was biking away from daycare this morning after dropping Ava off, and I had to shake my head at my conceit.  See, Ava had cried and tried to cling to me when I left her.  She did the same thing when I dropped her off the other day, too.  It’s not a fun episode […]

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We had a very nice, albeit a bit cool, weekend in Madison visiting Aunt Rachel and Uncle Kevin.  As usual, we packed each day full of activity.

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No, not that kind. Leah’s become more and more concerned with my health since Ava came along. It’s nice, though I realize the primary concern isn’t really for me. As part of my new health awareness, Leah scheduled me for a skin check at the dermatologist she sees (without checking with me first). No problem. […]

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in science.  And I believe in [E]volution. And I’m trying to come up with another explanation for why I’d throw myself in front of a truck if it would save my daughter’s life. Tell me where is fancy bred Or in the heart, or in the head? How begot, how nourished? Reply, reply. It is […]

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CNN has a brief review today of a new biography of Ava Gardner.  We didn’t name Ava after Gardner, but she did cross our minds as we were coming up with girl names (which, we’ve decided, are much easier to come up with than boy names). Ava Gardner was a real player.  The biography sounds […]

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We were off to sunny Lake Zurich, IL, to visit my friend A.J. and his family over the weekend.  It was a nice trip.  We went to the Brookfield Zoo with the kids on Saturday.  Ava was afraid of the merry-go-round and the dolphin show, but she loved looking at the baboons.  On the drive […]

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I was standing at the kitchen sink at about quarter past 8 last night doing dishes.  It was a beautiful evening, nice and cool(ish) and still.  But it wasn’t particularly quiet.  Leah was in the other room trying to put Ava to sleep, and Ava wasn’t having any of it.  She was tired, but she […]

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Ava slept late this morning.  She was in our bed (which is where she often ends up after waking up in a fuss sometime during the night), and as I was getting ready for work, I stopped for a second to watch her breathe all stretched out on the rumpled sheets. I often wonder if […]

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I was at home with Ava on Tuesday while she got over a little rough patch. We think she’s been teething. In any case, she seems much happier now. It was a gorgeous day, so I’d planned to make some headway on a project I’d come up with for the yard. I bought a new […]

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I’m figuring out (over and over) that parenting can probably best be defined as a state of perpetual inadequacy punctuated by brief episodes of competence.  Some people are more inadequate than others, of course.  Thankfully, despite all my shortcomings, Ava appears to be growing up to be pretty bright.  She’s certainly vivacious, and she knows […]

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I spent a fair amount of time (and sacrificed one or two skin cells in the process) finishing up our vegetable garden this past weekend.  The official roster now stands at tomatoes, jalapenos, green and red peppers, basil, snap peas, beans, “regular” peas, carrots, cukes, and onions.  I think I’ve got four or five different […]

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One well-known method of psychological torture is to slowly build a captive’s expectations of a particular outcome through repeated, similar actions, then to subvert those expections suddenly and without notice.  When coupled with the stress of physical abuse, this process causes a deep mental destabilization that tends to make the subject more reliant on his […]

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Last night our neighbor Q came over with some good news (his name isn’t really Q; it’s shorthand for his last name, which is Cusick. Get it?). He and his girlfriend Shannon are our backyard neighbors. There’s another neighbor whose yard is adjacent to both of ours, and she’s almost never, ever out in her […]

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Some days are worse than others, and today’s one of the bad ones. Honsetly, I don’t always miss her that much when I come to work.  Most days, after I give her a squeeze and a kiss and leave the house for work, my thoughts of her throughout the day are simply musings about what […]

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Today Ava rode in her Burley bike trailer to daycare. She had a great time. I was a little worried about the bumps in the road irritating her as we rode, but she just sat back there and chatted away to herself, granola bar in hand. I need to make some minor adjustments to the […]

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I don’t know why I think being the parent of one 19-month-old child qualifies me to dispense any wisdom on raising kids, but sometimes (after seeing it over and over and not recognizing it), a pattern reveals itself that begins to take the shape of truth. I was thinking yesterday that the only reliable thing […]

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