This Little Light of Mine

I have fallen wildly in love with Ava.  I am That Mom, officially.  I cannot get enough of her.  I am constantly telling everybody who is within the sound of my voice how marvelous she is. 


LOOK HOW MARVELOUS SHE IS:

I mean really.  

She is, without a doubt, the most phenomenal child ever to walk (or bounce...) upon this earth.

We went to the Zoo, and people watched her watching the animals.  THAT is how fantastic she is.

Even her shadow is interesting and noteworthy.

She lights up the room.

She has a sense of humor about herself, though. 

 I mean, really.

Even when she is holding a flower made out of balloons, she's still the cutest thing in the picture.
 

I've never had so much fun.  Really.  She's a riot.  She says the funniest damn things.  She DOES the funniest damn things.  She doesn't walk; she scampers.  She doesn't laugh like the rest of us mere mortals; she giggles like a bottle of champagne popping open.  She's always in motion, perched on her tiptoes ready to take flight.  

She makes me gush purple prose like a big stupid fountain, and I cannot get enough.  Someday, perhaps, I'll look back at this and read through it shaking my head while I think, "where did that little girl go? and who is this person in her place?" But right now, as much as I love the silence that comes when naptime finally happens (um, new favorite book?  yeah...) I can't help but eagerly listen for the little chirps and songs that mean she's awake and ready for more.

A World of Awesome

OMG, Ava has a playroom.  

Every little girl dreams of having her own wine fridge, right?  Yeah, whatever.  It's a perfect surface for her magnet spinning gear thingies.  The intended purpose of this room is, I believe, for it to be a "breakfast nook".  What?  What the hell kind of waste of space is that?  It's the PERFECT size for a little girl to be able to spread out everything she owns in this world.  Seriously, very happy about this space.  

This is our patio.  It runs the width of the house, and it is loverly.  It faces south, so there's plenty of sunshine.  And it's all fancy and arched, like a villa.  Awesome.

We moved from the northwest part of town to the southwest, so our main views now all face south.  This is the view from our bedroom windows.   Awesome.

This is facing northwest, toward Red Rock Canyon (google it, it's gorgeous).  If we ever get the guest bedroom finished, any guest in residence will see this:

Awesome.

So throughout all this, we've realized that our little tiny baby girl is not so little or tiny.  We put her crib together like so...

..but it's become pretty clear that she's old enough, and ready, to not be confined to a crib.  We think.  We could be wrong.

Hex wrenches are the devil's tools.

And here we are.  Awww.

The comforter was a gift from Auntie Kim and her family, and I'm so happy that we finally get to use it.  Her mom made it for Ava.  It's very warm and soft, and it has butterflies and a ladybug, which are Ava's favorite things in the world.

Just because she's not penned into her bed doesn't mean that we're insane.

She seemed pretty happy when she saw her new bed.

She knew just what to do.

Ava Be Two!

For the sake of posterity:

• Birthday breakfast was homemade blueberry pancakes.  Everyone was late to work and school, and it was totally worth it.
• When you take a box of funfetti cake mix and a tub of lard-based frosting to daycare, they will make and serve cupcakes to the birthday girl and everyone in the class.  WIN.
• Rob's in Portland as of this afternoon, so we went to dinner with Grams&Gramps at Macayo Vegas, where I have eaten my entire life (we actually went to the newest location, not the one at the corner of East Charleston and South Crackho Blvd. where we went when I was a kid...).  Macayo serves Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, so Ava has deemed it an acceptable alternative to dining at home.
• Some presents happened this morning, but the bulk will happen on Saturday, when we will officially observe Ava's birthday (much in the same way the Queen observes her own birthday months later when the weather's nicer).  Family, friends, and classmates will be gathering at the local children's museum, where they do every. single. bit. of party prep and clean-up, which means that everybody (esp. me) wins.

This is what Two looks like at our house:

Happy birthday, boopy.

Insanity Ensues

So, it's become apparent that we are nuts (it's also nuts that we are parents, but that's another posting...).

It began just like any other Saturday. Breakfast in jammies, assessment of the day to come, and so on. We'll be needing to wash the Honda; that can be our pre-nap outing. While we're out, Rob said, "why don't we go to Petco so Ava can visit the kitties and the fish?" They evidently did this last weekend while I was swilling martinis in San Francisco with the girls, and it was a big hit. All right then.

Petco has adoption events on Saturdays. Just FYI.

So we look at the kittens, and Ava gets all squealy because she loves kittens. And then we look at the fishies, and Ava gets all squealy because she loves fishies. And then we go over to look at the parakeets and cockawhatevertheyares, and Ava gets all squealy etc. etc. etc.

And then I go into the dog grooming area where the Humane Society has two pens set up, one with big dogs and one with small dogs. I don't look at the small dogs (really, why would I?). But I walk over to the big dogs, and I start reading the flyers they have posted on the gate. There's a bassett/beagle mix, which doesn't tempt me because that equals "howls and digs". And there's a shepherd mix, who is cute, but.... eh.

And then there's this other dog hanging back a bit. She's got a friendly face and a wagging tail. And she looks at me.

And I'm a sucker. And I'm in tears. Because I'm a sucker.

I read her story. "Pebbles is an 8-year-old Rottweiler. She is housetrained, and prefers to be inside. She sleeps on the floor next to the bed. She is good with other dogs, cats, and kids. " And I'm a mess. So I wander over to Rob and Ava (over by the fishies...) and Rob sees me and he KNOWS that Something has Happened.

"There's this dog...," I say. "And she looks so sweet. Go see her."

So now we have a dog. Pebbles, the 8-year-old Rottweiler, to be specific.


She's very happy to be with us. She has had a bath and brushing, and lots of water. And some worming tablets (there was some scooting). She's very calm. She's getting used to being here. She was surrendered by her previous family just a week ago--it's likely that they are one of the thousands in town who have lost their home to foreclosure and were forced to give her up when they moved into an apartment or other non-dog-friendly sort of place. She seems like a very good girl.

Ava loves her. Oh, Ava loves doggies so much, and now we have one in our home. I don't think she remembers much about Gracie (oh, poor Gracie...), but whenever she sees a dog, she wants to pet it and touch it and love it. So she's figuring out how to handle having a big (and rather fat) dog to pet and love at her whim. There have been a couple of wrinkly lip almost-but-not-quite-snarls that were the result of Too Much Love and Not Enough Personal Space. We're keeping a very VERY close eye on Pebbles and Ava both. Without being too Dog Whispery, we are already an established pack, and it's important that Pebbles understand her place in it. We think she will.

She's got some habits that we can already tell we're going to have to help her break. She's used to people food, we think, as she was very.very.very.very. interested in everything we've eaten and she hasn't touched her kibble. That explains the 20 extra pounds she's carrying. She's definitely housetrained, and she even knows to go to the door when It's Time To Go Outside. She knows her name, and that's kind of a bummer, because we're not really the sort of people who would name a dog "Pebbles" but whatever. She can be Pebbles if she wants to. She'll lay down and come when we tell her to. That's really all we need.

Right now, she's asleep in the middle of the living room, and she's very snorty about it. The absolute comfort that can be identified from the snore of a happy dog is something that is wonderful to behold. And really, I hated not having a dog. It's only been 6 months since we lost Gracie, and it's been so quiet (and clean, but mostly quiet) without a dog at all. I feel like we did a really good thing today. We'll give her a good home, and in return, she'll be a good dog.

Four years ago...

... we threw a party. We invited 150 of our closest friends and family, and it was the most wonderful day that we could have imagined.

There was cake...

That's three tiers of buttercream-frosted strawberry cheesecake, people. We don't mess around when it comes to cake.

There were moments when we stopped what we were doing so that we could smile at the camera...
..and moments where nothing else mattered. Not even the cake.

There were so many moments when everybody just laughed.


May 20, 2006, was a day that was so perfect, that it just didn't seem real.


I didn't realize that it would only get better.

...and a spare moment presents itself

Rob started traveling for his job last week. He'd gone out of town before, just for a day, I think, to Reno. But last week was the first Big Trip, which we'd all said we'd be OK about. And we were OK. But, damn, it's hard to split up like that. We take for granted the rhythm we develop when we know there's someone else helping keep it together every day. Sure, we have the fabled Routines, and the stuff that we know gets done at a certain time each day. But now we're dealing with a full-on hardcore toddler (srsly) and the routine sometimes falls prey to the whims of someone who cannot yet Use Her Words. Ack.

But we (all of us) survived last week. Rob was gone Sunday night through Friday night. God bless Southwest Airlines, which allows for the easy switching of flights, from, say, one from Portland with a layover in Sacramento that ultimately gets delayed to the point where the connection would be a moo point (anyone watch Friends? you know what I'm saying there...) to a nonstop PDX-LAS that leaves in 45 minutes that you can justbarelymake but it's OK because you bought Business Select (best spent twenty bucks in the travel industry).

He's on his way back to Portland tonight (delayed, actually, but it says it's boarding rightthisminute so that's good) and will be back Tuesday. We'll survive.

So to catch up....

Easter looked like this:


...and it was perfect.

Ava had her FIFTEEN MONTH OMG SHE'S FIFTEEN MONTHS checkup on Friday. She's 30-1/4 inches tall, 23.1 pounds. If childhood physical development had a bell curve (which it totally does...) she would be right smackdab in the middle, at the highest point, where Average resides. Awesome.

She knows so many words. Tonight, she helped me pick up her toys before bedtime. She smiles and giggles and waves and dances and oh, oh how she glares at you when she is displeased. Yikes. The condemnation she can conjure up is quite alarming (no idea where she gets that...).

Things are good. We're scrambling to maintain some semblance of sanity, and I think we succeed most of the time.

I can tell you how to get, how to get to Sesame Street.

We are not those parents who boycott television. We're just not. We will never be those parents, either (unless TV programming is completely taken over by the people who brought us Jersey Shore and even then there will be a movie in the Blu-Ray [yes we've gone to Blu-Ray and it is AWESOME] 24/7/365). We like to think that we're selective about what we watch when Ava's in the room (although some movies, like Animal House or Airplane! or Caddyshack seem to be always on somewhere and we inevitably watch them). With Ava, we have re-discovered Discovery, National Geographic, and Animal Planet. She likes watching them, and we like watching her when she watches them. So everybody wins.

Recently we procured a couple of Sesame Street DVDs--the classic stuff, like counting with Herry Monster and JohnJohn and Rubber Duckie and that one episode that was so early on that Oscar the Grouch was orange. Yeah. So Sesame is on every day (yeah, I know, duh). We DVR it (we are SLAVES to the DVR, see above IN RE: 24/7/365) and watch it with Ava every night during and after dinner.

She loves it. I'd forgotten how much fun Sesame Street is. I like that they still show the old stuff (Super Grover KILLS me) and they have new stuff (Abby Cadabby is so cute!) that we like quite a bit. They teach manners. They teach basic skills. They teach that cookies are good but so are vegetables and they have cool celebrity guest stars (Jason Mraz!).

Ava dances during the songs.



Yeah, that's some kind of cute. Oh and Auntie Beth? That's my favorite outfit on her--thanks for sending pretty clothes for our girl :).

Her other new thing is carrying her purse. I got it free from re-subscribing to Vogue (I have big plans for being able to read magazines someday...). It's too small for me but she carries it around like she's Carrie Bradshaw on the red carpet and it's a Birkin bag.


Such a little girlie-girl! Love it :). Someday, she and I will go shopping together and Nordstrom will proclaim a holiday and name it after us. Can't. Wait.

This Was The Year That Was

Holy crap, what a ride 2009 has been. I find that when I look back each New Year's Eve, there tends to be a theme to the year that may or may not have been apparent while it was happening. This year's theme? 2009: The Quest For Sleep.

When it began, I was sleeping for none and Rob was sleeping for 3. Two weeks later we were both sleeping on eggshells. In the subsequent months, we came to realize that at some point we would need to sleep more than 3 hours at a time (or total) in the night. So we consulted our team of experts and learned how to Train Our Child How To Sleep. It involved a really awful week of being awakened around 1AM, checking to make sure there was Nothing Actually Wrong, and letting her learn how to get herself back to sleep, all the while checking on her in 2 minutes, then 5 minutes, then 10, then 20, then 40, then (one awful, exhausting night) another 40. The theory is that the baby will figure out that it's OK to go back to sleep. And after a few days, it worked.

So now we gauge how we're all doing by whether or not Ava sleeps through the night. Whenever something is up, she evidently needs our undivided attention, which is most easily accessible between the hours of 1 and 4:30AM. This is when we learn about teeth, fevers, rashes, and various other potential unpleasantries. We find that the helplessness we feel at not knowing what to do about whatever is going on is compounded nicely by not being able to call anyone for help because it's the middle of the night.

Sleep begets sleep, we've found. When she has a good nap during the day, there's better sleep at night for all of us. And that's our year.

Happy New Year from Las Vegas. We won't make it to midnight--Ava's down by 9:00, and we'll wear out long before the tape-delayed ball drops on the west coast. But that's OK. Because a good night's sleep beats the crap out of Ryan Seacrest and the Black-Eyed Peas.

Christmas Wrap-up (Get it? Christmas? Wrap? That's a joke, son)

So it wasn't too crazy.  I think she's still too young to really lose her mind over Christmas.  We're still at the point where everything is still so we can get pictures of her doing stuff rather than her being aware of what's happening.  But it was awesome.  There was no wistful wishing for what comes next, no drama, nothing that took the focus away from Ava's First Christmas.  It was magical.

We had Christmas Eve with Grams&Gramps, and Ava got her first baby doll (awww...).

And then Christmas Day we were at home.  And we had the perfect Christmas morning.  Seriously.  I was sitting there, watching her surrounded by her new toys...

...in her monkey pajamas, thinking that this? is perfect.

We did learn a few things for next year:

1. Take the stupid presents out of the stupid packaging before you wrap them.  This was OK for her this year, but next year when she KNOWS that it's HER PRESENT, I doubt she'll be very patient about waiting for Mama and Daddy to untwist 17 twisties so as to release each component of a 43 piece set.
2. There is no drive too long to go see a cool Christmas Lights display.  Sometimes the search for a house we've heard about that has amazing lights and music is part of the fun, and it's always worth it.  
   
3. Grams's loaner Christmas tree is pre-lit, and fits perfectly on the table.  Festive?  Check.  Lovely?  Check.  Entirely out of reach from small grabby hands?  CHECK.

So it was wonderful.  And our friends had wonderful Christmases too.  There's a lot of joy in this world right now, and we're very thankful to be a part of it.

Baby's First Christmas

Merry Christmas from Rob, Kristie and Ava!

She had quite a haul, pictures and film will be up shortly.  We're watching Christmas movies and dinner is already in the oven (ribs YUM).  Best. Christmas. Ever.

Thanksgiving 2009

We had a wonderful time in San Diego with Rob's family. AJ, UK, and BA made sure that Ava's first Thanksgiving was just magical. They even put up a Christmas tree and had a present ready for her (thank-you note is forthcoming...).


Such a fuss! They went all out, as they usually do, and we can't thank them enough for spending so much time with us throughout the week.

I'd also like to give up a shout-out to Hampton Inn for their almost entirely childproof rooms and the fact that the coffee table is the exact length of the distance between the bed and the dresser. We had a little Ava Corral that helped us all keep our sanity :)

We also had a little fun with giggling.



Surprisingly, this was after a Night Of No Sleep and a Day of No Naps. OMG we were exhausted, all of us. I think part of the laughter is just out of delirium.
Friday we went to Birch Aquarium at Scripps in La Jolla. Ava likes watching fish when they're on Discovery Channel, so we figured she'd really be into watching actual fish. She loved it! Even though it was crowded, we had a great time watching her watch everything else.

She got eaten by a shark...

And she giggled quite a bit more...


We have so much to be thankful for. It sounds kind of cliche', but Ava has made our lives amazing. Every day is an adventure that we are thrilled to share with our families and friends. We're SO excited for Christmas, and we're starting to plan a birthday party (shhhh..... don't tell her! It's a surprise!).