Hit The Road, Jack!

So we went to San Diego last weekend. We left on Friday after work, and we'd had two nights of not-great sleep. I had some real anxiety about leaving town. I knew we'd be OK, but when we were almost to Barstow and the sun was going down, I felt completely out of my element. But the drive wasn't bad--Ava slept most of the way and we were going against traffic so it was pretty easy on all of us.

A video summary of the trip:



Saturday morning we went to Coronado and had lunch at the Del. It was a little rainy, but we did get to walk outside. They had an art exhibit on their courtyard--Dr. Seuss characters cast in bronze. Ava experienced her first Green Eggs and Ham :)


We went to the Padres game, and it was great until the Padres scored a couple of runs. We were sitting in the outfield bleachers, so when 40,000 people cheered, they were yelling directly at us.


We stayed until the top of the fourth. Ava had a good time until the screaming (she yelled right back at all those people...).

Sunday we had a great, relaxing day. We met one of my friends and her family for brunch at Wings & Things (YUM--beer & wings !) and then we went to Aunt Janice's for a Father's Day barbeque with Rob's family.

Monday, we had our Griswold moment. The San Diego County Fair is going on, and Rob really wanted to take us. I've never been to a big fair, but I know they have food so I'm a big fan of such things. We were pretty excited. So we plan our day around it, and we head towards the fairgrounds and there's no traffic. Cool! And we turn into the parking lot and it's nearly empty! Cool! We can park right up front!


And then we realize that maybe it's a little too empty. And then we see the sign:


They were closed. Sadly, there was no moose out front to tell us the news; we had to figure it out on our own. I thought it was pretty funny--Rob? Not so much.

So we went up the road to the beach, and I introduced Ava to the ocean.


She loved it. She likes to watch things that move (like the ceiling fan and the television) so this was a lot of fun!


It was a great trip! We have decided that we need to allow more time after we get back in order to recover--we drove back to town on Tuesday, and that was a really long day. We got home about 6:00 and we were all just exhausted. So there's our lesson.

Next weekend we're going up to Utah to see Grams & Gramps at the cabin. I spent a lot of time there when I was growing up, and while I didn't always love it up there (picture it: I'm 14 and all of my friends are having fun with each other all summer and I get to spend 3 month with no electricity and no phone and nobody to talk to except for my sister) I now see the value of having a place to go that's far enough away to be a vacation but close enough to be an easy run for a weekend.

Just a Fly-by

We had a great time in San Diego--more on that later when there's time to sort thru pics and video. We actually did have a Griswold moment :).

Daycare Lady just emailed me this picture of Ava that she took yesterday.


I KNOW. If there's anything more precious in this world than this child, I can't imagine what it could be.

The Swing Gets a Reprieve

Seriously, I was about to consign the damn thing. It's a perfectly good swing, but we don't have the space to just hang on to stuff that we aren't using. Ava has hated it almost without exception since the first time she was in it. So it lives in her closet and we have to climb around it to get to the stuff that lives behind it and it's a pain and I had just about had it. HAD IT.

This morning, however, it redeemed itself.




Ava had not yet had a nap this morning. On a normal day, she would have had 2 by now--one on the way to daycare, and one after her second bottle. But today? Nope. Usually when she's awake, she's happy. But today? Nope. It was kind of a long morning. In a moment of desperation, I pulled the swing out of the closet and put her in it, which she hates because it has a 5-point harness (I guess in case another swing gets up under her bumper and flips her over?) and so that was an extra burst of unhappiness. But then she got into it. She spent a good 30 minutes in the swing, much of it asleep, before she woke up, scored a fresh diaper and a bottle and then immediately went right back to sleep. She is currently sound asleep in her crib and all is right with the world.

The swing shall remain in our Repertoire of Desperate Acts In Times Of Shrieking, at least until she exceeds the weight limit.

Today is Rob's birthday. We're keeping it pretty low-key. We had a special dinner last night (Roberto's Taco Shop, featured frequently in the local Health Department weekly report of repeat offenders). We'll have family dinner and dessert today--Dad & Florence will come over, officially to celebrate the birthday but they're not fooling anybody and we all know that they really just want to see Ava all dressed up.

Next weekend is our first Big Road Trip. We're going to San Diego and I am SO EXCITED. I haven't been out of the city limits since freaking LABOR DAY and as fabulous as Fabulous Las Vegas is, I'm dying to leave it behind for a few days. We're driving down Friday after work and will be back on Tuesday. We're a little antsy about a 6 hour (with stops--anyone who knows me knows I could make it in 4 if it were just me...) road trip with a baby. I'm hoping it will be fantastic like when the Brady Bunch went to Hawaii (without the freaky cursed tiki thing that caused Greg to lose the surfing contest) and not a comedy of errors like the Griswolds. We'll see. If we land somewhere between Bradys and Griswolds, I'll be happy. We've got a lot planned--Ava's going to meet Great Aunt Janice and Uncle Ken, and she'll go to her first baseball game (I hear it's free hat night, so everybody wins even if the Padres don't), and we'll go to the beach and I think there will be quite a bit of aimlessly futzing around San Diego with no plan at all. Awesome.

Where's That Doggie?

Be sure to catch the action at the end. No animals were harmed in the filming of this picture.



Have a good weekend.

So what's Ava like, really?

Really? She's happy. She's a happy girl. She likes to look out windows and see the world and what people are doing. She doesn't sleep in the car as much as she used to, because she likes to look outside and talk to me and babble while we drive. She's a lot like this:




All the time.

She likes to sit up. She reaches for the things that look interesting to her, and she ignores the things that don't. She likes people and she looks them in the eye and she holds her gaze until somebody smiles (somebody always does) and then she smiles back with her whole face and the world lights up.

She's starting to laugh. Not full on baby giggles, but we're close. She has a very tickly belly, and when we tickle her she grunts and smiles and every now and then a little bubbly giggle comes out for just a moment.

She's growing so quickly. Clothes are sized by weight, and she's in the 3-6 month size, but she'll likely be out of them before she's 6 months old. She has tiny hands and feet--size 1 shoes are too big so she just doesn't wear shoes (much like the how the British Royals keep their heirs barefoot until they walk--we're just like them, only fewer tiaras are involved in our daily operations).

Ava has been in daycare for almost 8 weeks, and we made the right choice about them. Oh, they're wonderful. They take such good care of her. She has little friends and they smile when they see each other each morning. She's learning baby sign language--just the basics, no Unbearable Lightness of Being in our futures, but at some point before she talks, she may be able to tell us if she wants more of something (what if she wants less? I don't know. Hmm.). There are a few other signs that they said she'll learn and naturally I forgot what they are so hopefully they'll do a tutorial for parents. If not, please look for a video where she's gesturing madly and rolling her eyes at how her parents already don't understand her.

Rob and I are doing all right. Both our jobs occasionally (frequently...) tend to suck our souls so we're very happy about Ava's tendency to sleep through the night (YAY!) almost every night (still 11PM until 6:30AM God bless her) and her willingness to have a regular feeding schedule around which we can plan our own meals. We're unbelievably happy and lucky and not terribly tired and we try to stay in the moment while anxiously anticipating what's next.