My day at home with Ava yesterday was really nice. I do love spending QT with my big girl. After Leah returned home from work, she and Ava spent a little time watching wolf videos on YouTube. Ava’s in a major wolf phase right now. She seemed particularly taken with a video of wolves fishing. It’s so awesome to see the way Ava engages with these images of the natural world. The late-day light streaming through the window on my girls as they watched the wolves was just too much…I had to grab my camera.
As you know, there’s some excitement in our house over this new baby we’re expecting. We’ve each been thinking in abstract terms, mostly, about how things will change when we go from three to four. Things that we’ll lose. Things that we’ll gain. And things we hope won’t change at all. Like the piggy back rides I give you down to the kitchen in the morning. Or the way you turn your head, exposing your neck, so I can give you your “nightly nibbles” before bed. The little rituals and games we have together that we can share when no one else is around. [Read more →]
We walked downtown yesterday morning to get breakfast and go to the coffee shop. As Ava and I were out in the yard waiting for Leah, she grabbed a low-hanging branch from one of the maples in the yard and said, “Dad! Buds!”
I’ve spent some time recently trying to imagine what it’s going to be like having another child in the house. I find myself envisioning a pinball machine, where the actions of one body in motion constantly puts into motion a body previously at rest. So this — finally — is that presumed mythological real-world application of high school physics I always heard so much about. [Read more →]
Your savings could disappear in an instant despite your most earnest efforts to save it wisely. A semi could cross the center line. A train could derail. A gunman could enter the school. A bomb could go off. A disease could strike. A tornado could appear. A flood could flash. Some days, my only consolation is the last smile or hug I got from Ava. If only the tragedy would take me and spare her, somehow. Otherwise, I don’t know what I’d do.
If you haven’t watched this yet, take 18 minutes and do it.
I’m not going to address this directly to you, unborn baby, but you should certainly feel free to read along, if you like.
I was talking with my virtual pal Danny today about the fact that I’ll be almost 40 when this new baby comes into my life. That means nearly 60 when s/he graduates from high school (knock on wood). To paraphrase the inimitable DLR from Hot for Teacher, “I don’t feel 40.” And, unlike my lovely wife, I don’t give a whit whether I look 40, either. I’m in good health. I have a job (for now). And a house (for now). Why, then, should it be that I experienced a moment’s panic the other day at the oddly sudden thought that I’m going to have an infant in my house on my 40th birthday? [Read more →]
You are quite the squirmer! Your mom and I sat on the sofa last night and watched you rolling around under her skin. We tried to figure out which parts of your body we were seeing, but it was kinda difficult to tell. By the time I ran to get my video cam, you’d settled down again. Maybe I’ll catch you in action tonight. If not, we’ll always have Ridley Scott’s depiction:
I was catching five winks on the couch the other day after returning home from Chicago, and Ava came over and hopped on my chest. It my appear in this photo that Ava is sleeping, but I assure you she is not.
Had a nice time in Chicago with Leah over the weekend. Short. Crappy weather. But she got some shopping done, and we had a pretty amazing meal Saturday night at Restaurant Naha. Here’s what I had: [Read more →]
Gramary took Ava for the afternoon yesterday, as Ava’s school was having parent conferences (AGAIN). And, as usual, Gramary took some cute pics of our first born. To whit:
We’re presently experiencing a phase with our beloved daughter in which she’ll only eat the following three items:
Pizza
Macaroni and cheese
Cookies
Well, it’s not really that bad, but it’s pretty close. And if she doesn’t get one of those items when she wants it, look out. She gets ornery. [Read more →]
Unborn baby, it really seems like you’re ready to come out now. You kick and squirm all the time. Your mom is always upset with me that I don’t feel the need to personally witness every single turn you make in the womb. I’m not sure what to tell her. I mean, been there, done that, you know? It’s cool, and all, but I have to admit that it doesn’t produce exactly that same sense of wonder it did with your big sis. There can be only one first time, dig? [Read more →]
Guess what’s back at Ava’s preschool? That’s right. Lice. Dunno who has it, of course, but there’s a report that someone in Ava’s room has a case of the creepy crawlies. I feel bad for whichever family is dealing with this now, but I feel even worse trying to explain to Ava why she shouldn’t be hugging her friends until we tell her it’s all right. You can’t tell her it’s because we don’t know which of them has lice, of course, because I don’t want her refusing a hug from her pal and saying, “You might have lice!”
Oh, and Leah thinks Ava has strep again, too; I’m home with Ava today as she recovers from her fever. How ya like me now?
My dad was over for dinner last night. Just pizza, nothing fancy. Ava was running around, doing her own thing, while my dad and I sat and talked in the living room. [Read more →]
So I’m trying to implement the comments RSS feed on both my blogs, each of which is running the same version of WordPress and using the same theme. I’ve modified code in my header.php file so that the comments RSS link will appear at the top of this page; you should be able to see it up there. For this blog, that link is:
http://nicheplayer.net/avablog/comments/feed/
Now, when I add the same code to the exact same place in the same file over on anonymark, the link looks like this:
which doesn’t appear to work. Any of you geniuses have a clue as to what might be going wrong?
EDIT:: Looks like that anonymark is kicking out a feed after all. I was reading it via a custom RSS/atom feed on friendfeed, which apparently has to be manually updated. Weird. But all’s well that ends well.
I can’t figure out if all our friends had babies or if we started becoming friends with more people who have babies, but whatever the trajectory, I feel like I’m seeing babies everywhere I turn this last year. And they’re all adorable. You hear that? I SAID, THEY’RE ALL ADORABLE! So easy to bruise feelings. [Read more →]
embark on a blog post if you don’t know what you’re going to write. That’s my advice to you, should you ever happen to find yourself with a blog. [Read more →]
