avablog

L and I recently had a row about photography. She didn’t want me to sell my nicer DSLR, claiming my circa 2005 model didn’t take as nice a photo. To which I reply:

Oh, and:

I was sitting with Emmett in the living room the other day, listening to Ava cry about something or other out in the kitchen, when I looked into this face and said, “Emmett, why don’t you go give Ava a hug?”
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I had six (more) moles removed last week, all on my back. Within five minutes of walking through the door at home after the appointment, Ava piped up and told me she could help take care of my stitches, reminding me she’d done the same for her mom in the past. I was thrilled.
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Ava,

You made my day today. Really, you made my life — again — but that’s what you always do.
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Turns out Ava has a thing for weaving. She mentioned the other day that she wanted to try knitting. When I thought of her trying to handle two big needles with her little brother running all over the place, I suggested she might have more fun with one of these loop-n-loom dealies. Long ago, my brother and I used this same contraption to make hot pads for my parents and grandparents. I bet my dad still has at least one, somewhere. Here’s Ava, talking to her Aunt Rachel on speakerphone, as she “weaves:”

I love it when Emmett looks out the window. Which he does a lot, especially now that he’s developed a passion for vehicles of all kinds (end especially tractors). In this shot, I don’t think he was looking at anything in particular, but then sometimes it’s difficult to tell with him.

Dear Emmett:

You turned 17 months old yesterday, and I couldn’t help but think of your life’s very first moments, as I watched you running down the sidewalk–dragging a pumpkin on the ground–last night. As you tottered from house to house in your tooth costume, I was thinking about your big blue eyes and dark lashes, your tiny face, and your small hiccups. Where did the time go, my sweet baby? I looked away for just a moment, and you became a toddler!

No, your RSS reader isn’t messing with you. This is a new post! I wanted to put up what turns out to be the closest I could get to a shot of Ava and Emmett together in their tooth-themed Halloween costumes:

Emmett had a great time at our office Halloween parade last evening, and he didn’t even eat a single piece of candy (though he did carry around a Snickers the entire time)! Here’s a shot of him in his tooth costume.

Seems momentous. Of course, she’ll look back on this someday and think, “Gawd. E-mail?”

from ava palmberg
to palmberg@gmail.com
date Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 4:28 PM
subject daddy
mailed-by gmail.com
signed-by gmail.com
hide details 4:28 PM
LOVE YOU LOTS
LOVE AVA DADDY.

I got an e-mail from G.G. the other day, reminding me that we’ve not been posting to this blog enough. She’s a master of the obvious. So I thought I’d take this rare opportunity to tell a little story I think will make G.G.’s day.
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Ava as she left the house this morning. So much horse, so little time….

The papers were on the table when we walked in from work last night. “Read, read, every day. Read, read, to fly away.” That was the “poem” on one of the signs, next to a marker drawing of my stick-figure daughter in her peach-colored shirt and leggings.

In this picture, she is a teacher. And the sign is an advertisement for one of the “teacher workshops” she plans to hold at our house this week–and every week. Somehow, Ava has decided that she wants to be a teacher, and she has gotten it into her head that she must–URGENTLY must–practice this skill, with the neighborhood children as her pupils and her bedroom as the classroom.
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L asked AGP to make this card for a friend at work (who shall remain nameless; I hope she doesn’t read this blog, or at least not before she gets to work tomorrow and receives her surprise) who collects Hello Kitty. I hope she likes it! This isn’t the finished product, but I can assure you, AGP knocked this one out of the park. And I’m not saying that just because I’m her dad. Partly, but not just.

Went out to Wilson’s Orchard on the weekend to see what we could see. Saw lots of apple trees and not so many apples (we weren’t picking anyway). Had lunch and ran into some friends. Got some pictures (no, seriously!). Overall, a nice time.

Ava, who busied herself yesterday afternoon by drawing a number of really cool pictures, including one in which she reproduced the butterfly stitched on her shirt.

I was changing Emmett’s diaper two days ago when I looked down to see him smiling at me and sticking the tip of his tongue out of his mouth. “That’s a really funny, cute thing to do,” I thought to myself. Then I went right back to changing him.
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Emmett, I apologize. I’m sorry that the posts here haven’t been filled with the flowery paeans we lavished on your big sis when she was little. If it’s any consolation, the time we would’ve used to write those posts has been spent getting to know you (also, there haven’t been any recent posts about Ava, either; everybody hurts).
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Ava’s still having a bit of a difficult time making the leap from Willowwind to Hoover, but I believe she’s getting the hang of things. This Friday is school picture day, which is also Ava’s birthday, so there’s some light at the end of the tunnel which has been this week; she loves getting dressed up, and there’s even been talk of braids for Friday.

Who knows where he gets it?