avablog

While I wasn’t there, I’m told Ava’s appointment went very well today.  She’s not 20 pounds yet, which is the bad news.  The good news is that she’s moving up the height charts, which helps explain why she isn’t packing on the pounds.    I’m glad to hear it.  I’m 6’1″, and Leah’s 5’3″ when she […]

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How crazy are we to truck our 17-month-old out to Colorado in the family wagon?  I guess we’re going to find out.  We’re breaking up the trip into two days, which I’ve never done before.  I think if we can get Ava out of the car relatively frequently to run around a bit, we’ll all […]

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No, not one of those afternoons; it’s one where everything goes right. I finally got VNC set up on my mom’s wireless iBook, which was a test run for our friend Jude’s computer when she gets her new MacBook Pro next month.  It took some doing and some help from Greg (as usual), but it’s […]

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I rarely do any big blowout recipes anymore.  There just isn’t time. When I do, it’s almost never a dessert recipe.  Leah and I were invited to a chocolate party last month that required us to make a dish to share.  Leah came up with this recipe for peanut butter chocolate buckeyes. The recipe itself […]

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That’s how Ava pronounces her name. Today’s a big day for me.  I’ve been trying to get Ava to say her name for a while now, and this evening was the first time I’ve heard her do it. That it’s taken so long is our fault.  Leah and I have been calling her “baby” for […]

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Our neighbors two doors down got a dog from the pound a couple months ago.  His name is Sampson.  Like a lot of dogs with neglect in their past, Sampson starts barking steadily if he’s left outside too long.  He’s part Rottweiler and part something else, so he has a fairly substantial bark. Which is […]

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Ava loves to stand up on the couch in our living room and look out the window.  She watches the cars drive by and people walking dogs.  It’s big fun. The problem, until recently, was that Ava couldn’t get up on the couch by herself.  When she wanted to look out the window, she’d stand […]

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