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

Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Two diaper sizes down...
No doctor's appointment this month, but we tried our best to measure Ava's growth ourselves (i.e. standing on the scale with and without her and using a measuring tape to probably inaccurately take the length of the squirmy girl).  Our rudimentary results: around 13 lbs 12 oz and about 24 inches.

And I'm very happy to say she has been sleeping through the night consistently and now without Mommy and Daddy in the room with her and without the white noise CD.

Also, Benji's not the only one who can talk.  :-)
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Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Why our Christmas tree is still up.
Okay, not really.  If I couldn't do anything else while watching TV I'd get very little done.  :-P  We're just procrastinators.  And have a baby.  Yeah... yeah, that's it!  It's all Ava's fault.

Anyway, this is the time of year when new shows drop into the schedule at random, so here are my thoughts on a few of them.

"MY BOYS" (tbs tuesdays) reminds me a bit of "Ed," though less quirky and a half hour shorter.  The sports-as-metaphor-for-life voiceovers should really be benched in my opinion (see, I can do it, too!), but otherwise I find it enjoyable and amusing.  The fact that the main character works for the Cubs doesn't hurt any -- nor does the presence of Jim Gaffigan, who steals the show.

Speaking of my beloved "Ed," its creators are behind "THE KNIGHTS OF PROSPERITY" (abc wednesdays), and I can just smell their fingerprints all over it (you know, if you could, um, smell fingerprints).  It's not a perfect show, but it hits more than it misses, and sometimes out of the park (help me, I'm still doing it!).  I've been keeping an eye on the ratings and... well, let's just say I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.  Oh, and I still say "Let's Rob Mick Jagger" was a better title.

Ed Begley, Jr. has shown up in recurring roles on some of the best TV shows out there ("Arrested Development," "Veronica Mars," "7th Heav..." uh, moving on...), and now he has his own show, one that makes that line from "Friends" all those years ago about "Ed Begley, Jr. and his stupid electric car" finally make sense to me.  "LIVING WITH ED" (hgtv, sundays) documents how he lives as environmentally-friendly-y as he can, with barrels to collect rainwater and an exercise bike that generates power (and, yes, that stupid electric car) and how he drives his more normal-like wife crazy with all his projects and contraptions.

Now on to the bad:  "IN CASE OF EMERGENCY" (airs after "Knights" on abc) is hardly worth mentioning.  So I won't.  Any more than I already have, that is.  And "DIRT" (fx tuesdays)... let us just say after watching it I, fittingly, I suppose, felt a great need to shower.  I can deal with dark shows -- if I couldn't I woudn't be able to watch "Battlestar Galactica" or "24" -- but there's a difference between "dark" and just plain "ick."

In other TV news, I was interested to discover that four Nora Roberts novels have been adapted to movies that will be airing on Lifetime in February, two I'd already read and two that I've since checked out from the library and read.  I'm a bit wary of some of the casting choices (Heather Locklear?), but am reserving judgement until I actually see them.  Though movies like this rarely live up to their original book form, partially because they have to cut so much out and because they're never quite how you saw things in your mind (I repeat: Heather Locklear?).  Still, I'm curious.

I'm also curious to finally be able to see the Canadian show "Slings & Arrows," which our library system just got (I thought we'd have to get a Netflix free trial to be able to see it).  I've heard a lot of good things about it and have been anxious to see it, so now we just have to wait through a few people on the hold list and it's ours (you know, temporarily).  We've also been periodically checking to see if "Corner Gas" has been scheduled on WGN yet, but so far no news on that front.
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Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Things I've Learned Since Becoming a Parent, #422.
Vaseline, while a useful treatment for cradle cap, does not wash out of hair very well. Or, you know, really at all. Even with Dawn dish soap. Thusly, if you must use this treatment, it is perhaps wise to choose a time that is not the night before your baby will meet numerous relatives for the first time at your cousin's wedding.
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Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Golden Globe thoughts:  few but, oh, so profound.
Hugh Laurie should be a professional acceptance speech giverer.

Monster House, nominated in the animation category, is overrated.  I found it strange, and not in that good, compelling kind of way.  I don't get it.

"Ugly Betty" is also overrated.  It's not that it isn't a cute show.  I just don't get all the goo-goo-ga-ga-ing over it that so many critics (even very level-headed ones like Matt Roush) and average people alike do.  I can see giving an award to America Fererra, but not the show itself.  Once again, I don't quite get it.

And just for Opie:  was Jennifer Lopez's gown not stunningly gorgeous?
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Monday, January 15, 2007
Aibohphobia is the fear of palindromes. Seriously.
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Wednesday, January 10, 2007
"When I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story."
Okay that quote has nothing to do with anything, it's just way funny.  Thanks, Barney.  (The suit-clad Neil Patrick Harris character from "How I Met Your Mother," not the big annoying purple dinosaur.)

We had quite a holiday stretch around here, with as many as thirteen people in our house at once, for family Christmases and Ava's baptism.  Pictures to come in the next post; they're too much work for right now.  But I can give you -- you guessed it -- an Ava update!

So she slept seven straight hours Christmas night, then did it again on the 31st.  Since then, sleeping through the night has actually been the rule rather than the exception, though always with us sleeping on an air mattress in the nursery.  Two nights ago we tried sleeping in our own room again, and after 2 1/2 hours she woke up crying, after which I slept in the nursery again.  It wasn't too successful as a first try, but seeing as all three of us have colds right now and hers has affected her sleeping again, we're not sure if she woke up because we weren't in the room with her or if she would have anyway.  Last night it took a few tries to put her down initially, but eventually she slept (or at least stayed quiet) for a good eight hours, albeit with us back sleeping on the nursery floor.  Not sure what we'll do tonight, but I'm confident we'll soon be back sleeping in our own bed on a regular basis, though we may have to wait out her cold first.

She doesn't like a lot of the things she used to when she was younger.  She used to be calmed best by bouncing, now rocking or swinging does the trick more; she used to love to be cradled in someone's arms, now she greatly prefers being upright on someone's shoulder or sitting facing out where she can look at things (just looking around is one of her favorite things), and just downright won't tolerate being cradled sometimes; and while she used to not be happy unless she was in someone's arms, now she likes to spend a lot of time just laying on her back kicking and moving around as much as she can.  She became exceptionally smiley around the time all our company was here, and especially likes to smile when she's on her back and we talk to her or play with her.  I'm not sure why she doesn't smile much when she's upright.

She's been sucking on her hands a lot recently -- that's become a pretty reliable signal that she's hungry -- and more and more we've noticed just her thumb working its way into her mouth, enough so that it might not be quite as accidental as it once was.  She still doesn't reach for things much, but on Monday she grabbed her little butterfly rattle when I held it out to her and held on to it, all by herself.

Oh, and we bought a jogging stroller on clearance at Target for $69.99 this weekend, so we can take Ava disc golfing come spring.  Yay!
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