lewis and clark had a journal. you, beth-annie, have a diary.

Thursday, November 30, 2006
Sometimes Ava tries out new things.
Like this.
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Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Out and about.
Having a baby certainly does change... well, pretty much everything.  It makes certain things essentially impossible (going to a movie), and most others (going shopping or to church) much more complicated.  With a baby this young especially, who isn't on any kind of schedule yet, the main adventure comes from the unpredictablility of when she'll want to be fed.  Ava is a pretty good baby -- she tends to get cranky and fussy in the evening, but the rest of the time she mostly only cries when she's hungry.  As a result, I have to try to feed her right before any outing and hope she won't get hungry in the middle of a church service or in the middle of Baby Gap and start screaming her head off (uh, yeah, that last one happened on Sunday and was oh so much fun :-P).  This is, of course, made all the more difficult by the fact that we live 20-25 minutes away from most places we go because they're in Madison.

In the month of Ava's life (happy 1-month birthday, Ava, if you're reading this) we've actually taken her out a lot more than I thought we would.  She's been to church four times and mostly slept through them all -- though one of those was only through the constant rocking of her car seat (thank goodness those things rock!).  And after a successful trip to Target weekend before last, this past weekend we took her shopping multiple places over both Saturday and Sunday, to Old Navy, Target, Menards, ShopKo, Kohl's, Babies 'R' Us, and an outdoor outlet mall (thankfully it was unseasonably warm).  With the exception of an "I want food -- now!" interruption in the middle of our Kohl's visit and the aforementioned screaming fit at Baby Gap, she was very good and slept most of the time.  She also was zonked out for our entire meal at Texas Roadhouse, which was awesome, because I wanted their rolls.  And a nice steak.  Yay, Ava, for actually letting us get some non-online Christmas shopping done.  :-)

We also on Thursday took her on her first road trip and drove the three hours to Cedar Falls, IA to my grandfather's.  She met a lot new people there, a bunch of my aunts and uncles and cousins and their spouses, plus her great-grandpa and Aunt Sarah who also met her for the first time.  She was definitely the center of attention, as she's the first great-grandbaby in the family.  She slept the whole way there without even wanting to eat, but about halfway home not eating or a diaper change or the rhythm of the car was very successful at keeping her from crying.  That was a long car ride.  :-P  I think it was a combination of her typical evening fussiness and feeling all alone in the dark -- she did better once I turned the light on and held her hands in mine the rest of the trip.

[with great-grandpa.]

[with aunt sarah.]

[zonked out during dinner.]

Also, as of yesterday: 10 lbs, 4 oz. and 22.5 inches, which puts her at the 50th percentile for both, which is perfect. :-)
11:27 AM || I want to be a comment. Post me!

Friday, November 24, 2006
Picky about grammar?  Who, me?
I've been seeing an ads recently for a new vaccine that's supposed to protect against viruses that can cause cervical cancer in women.  Good for whoever for developing such a thing, but bad for whoever for coming up with an entire ad campaign based on a grammatically incorrect phrase:  "One less."  When one is talking about wholes -- as in whole people, as the campaign does -- the correct phrase is "one fewer."  I get that that isn't quite as catchy as "one less" (after all, the fewer syllables for people to remember, the better, right?), but unless a fraction of a person can get (or not get, as the ads say) cervical cancer, it is so not "one less."

Nothing like taking a pet peeve of mine and making a whole ad campaign of it.  Bah humbug.
2:13 PM    ||    I want to be a comment. Post me!

Wednesday, November 15, 2006
More photos.
Because there's fairly literally nothing else in our lives right now.

[ava's first sponge bath at home.]

[foot right after birth.]

[foot after one week.]

[ava's first trip to the park when it was nice and warm last week.]

[ava's first "real" bath after her umbilical stump fell off.]

[right before she pooped in her towel. :-P]

[asleep on auntie kaly.]

So as my sister posted (along with a few other pictures), Ava is gaining weight well and as of her last appointment on Monday was 8 lbs. 12 oz. She's still having sleep issues -- she likes to be held a little too much, we think, and doesn't like to sleep when she's put down to be on her own -- but things may be slowly getting better on that front (it's too soon to really tell).
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Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Let's all go to the movies.

Tummy time.

Changing time.
3:32 PM || I want to be a comment. Post me!

Monday, November 06, 2006
Ava updates.
Our baby girl is now a whopping nine days old, and grandmA and grandpA and Grandma and Grandpa have come and gone and come and gone.  We took her out for the first time (not counting her first check-up) to church on Sunday, and she did a wonderful job of sleeping through the service and not demanding to be fed.  Yay, Ava!  What she is not doing a wonderful job of, however, is sleeping at night.  She just loves to sleep most of the time during the day and then keep Mommy and Daddy up all night by alternating between very short feedings and short dozing, usually not enough that we can put her down and go to sleep ourselves without her waking up within a matter of minutes and -- surprise, surprise -- wanting more food since she didn't feed for very long.  Some nights have been better than others, with her actually sleeping two or three hours at a time for part of the night at least, but so far that's been more the exception than the rule, which can be very frustrating at times.  Thankfully we know this won't last forever and she'll eventually get on a more regular schedule, one where she'll sleep for longer stretches at a time during the night.  Until then we grin and bear it (and take turns napping during the day) and enjoy her extreme cutie-pie-ness the rest of the time so she doesn't drive us too crazy.  :-)

In other Ava news:

She was born at 6 lbs. 11 oz.  Her hospital discharge weight was 6 lbs. 5 oz.  Her weight at her first checkup on Wednesday was 6 lbs. 14 oz.  That's kind of wow.

Our grandfather clock chimes don't seem to bother her.  We could have silenced them if they had, but I'm glad we don't have to, because I like them.

The ice dispenser on the refrigerator, however, does.  Learned that one the hard way.  :-P  So does the crinkling of plastic bags or crumpling paper if it's close enough to her.

The sound of running water seems to mesmerize her.  So does Mr. Cowie, the jingling and mooing toy from Auntie Kaly and Uncle Paul.

She's already changed a lot, and her newst favorite thing is to stretch her arms way up over her head.  "Touchdown!"  And when she's on her tummy she can also lift her head up and turn it from facing one side to the other.

We'll hopefully be able to get a short video up sometime later today or tomorrow.
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