Archive for August, 2005

Bella seems to love Ava more each day. She always looks to see what the problem is when Ava is crying or upset. She also lays right near her when Ava is on the floor playing. We are still very careful though, simply because Bella is so big (90 lbs) and could do a lot of damage without meaning to. I think Bella is secretly plotting for the time when Ava can be a food distributor…she knows that small children usually equates to a trail of food scraps.

Dave has informed me that this is supposed to be a “Dad’s” blog, but I think since I spend my days with Ava that I should also be able to share info with all of you. Of course, that is about to change a bit this week when I head back to work. Maybe this is a little late start…but those of you who know me, know that I am a little techno-challanged. So, I finally got Dave to show me how to post here, and I intend to do it more often. Ava is changing so fast it is amazing! I think if we had time lapse photography we could watch her grow in real time. Of course, I won’t suggest that to Dave because he would probably figure out a way to rig that up, and no one needs THAT many baby photos. I am very nervous about going back to work. I think it is going to be much harder on me than Ava. We couldn’t be luckier because she will be staying with a lovely friend of ours during the day (Kim) four days a week. Kim already has one little boy, so she is a professional baby-whisperer/guru already. I am so thankful that Ava will be able to spend her days with someone we know and trust, who will nurture her and help her grow. I will be home with her one day a week, and Dave will pick up the weekend day. It is the best schedule we could manage for now, and I think it will work out well. Of course, she will have two weeks with her Grandma and Grandpa Sasser before she starts with Kim. I think they will have fun together! Dave will be taking some time off work to help out as well, so there should be plenty of baby back-up when a crisis arises!

During my later teenage years I would sometimes do things I wasn’t supposed to (my Mom may argue that’s an understatement). You know, maybe stay out too late and my folks would get worried…stay up all night then yell at me when I got home, worried sick. “Don’t worry about me, Mom, I can take care of myself.” Her reply would eventually end with something along the lines of, “you just wait until you have kids.” Well, I finally get it, and when I rewind through my teenage years and some of the things I put my family through, I cringe at the thought of my daughter having to repeat some of those mistakes. I know that, just like me and countless other kids, she’s going to have to learn the hard way. The thing is, I love her uncontrollably. Just looking at her laying there, espcially when she’s sleeping, prompts a rush of emotion from the pit of my soul that is absolutely uncontrollable. I want to do everything possible to give her the best chance at life…the best education, the best opportunities, the best stuff. And when it comes right down to it, there are no words to describe that feeling…imagine the purest and most unselfish love you could possibly feel and that doesn’t even scratch the surface. So when Ava gets to her teenage years, I know she’s going to make a few mistakes. She’s going to do dumb things that I’ve done, things that I will warn her will be mistakes, and she will regret them. I will tell her, “trust me, I’ve been there and done that.” But she will think I’m full of it…just an old parent who is out of touch. And I will worry, and I will punish her, and she will learn a lesson. But above all, that love I feel for her will always be on display, front and center. She will know it, and she will feel it even if her mouth speaks words to the contrary. It will nestle inside of her soul somewhere, ready to pour out when she has children of her own. And all will be well.

Chloe is old, there is no question about it. Since she joined our family as a stray, we’re not quite sure about her exact age. Most vet estimates put her around 12-13 years old (seems like she’s been 12 or 13 for a few years now). That means in human years, Chloe is somehwere around 80, which explains why she’s pretty much deaf and isn’t the best at seeing things. But she’s been a wonderful dog, and very much a strong part of this family. During the day, Chloe is good at one thing…sleeping…and as you can see in this photo, she’s putting her talents to good use. Ava had fallen asleep on the couch and Chloe jumped up to snuggle along side of her. In essence, we have the case of the expert sleeper showing the ropes to the newbie. We thought it was a pretty cute scene.

Ava really enjoys visit from friends and family, and here you’ll see she is having a great time being entertained by our good friends Nic and Nikki B. Nic’s got a little bug toy in his hand that Ava really likes. It has little red lights that flash and plays a little tune. It’s amazing what simple things can provide entertainment to a small infant…it just gets so much harder (and a lot more expensive) to entertain us as we get older. I used to say there’s no way we were going to spoil Ava with toys…we were going to get her some pots and pans and a wooden spoon, and that’s it. But I’m pretty excited about all those electronic learning gadgets out there from companies like LeapFrog. I’ve already bought her a LittleTouch LeapPad, as a mater of fact (actually I bought it before she was born)! I think Ava is going to be an excuse to spoil myself. Gee, I wonder if Ava is going to love computers and video games?

I know I talk a lot about putting Ava to sleep, but again, that’s what Kate and I (well, Kate more than me of course) spend most of our time doing. So here it is, the process documented for all to see. Just like the title says, it’s a three stage process. Yep, we’ve LEANED it out as much as we can, no more extraneous steps to remove. Step 1: activity. Step 2: yawn. Step 3: sleep. Pretty simple, though of course you don’t see all the crying and fussing in between step 2 and 3. We tried to LEAN that step out, but Ava justa doesn’t seem to want to cooperate. Anyway, I’m sure you’re as tired of my process management-geekiness as you are of my tech-geekiness, so I’ll stop with the LEAN references. By the way, my folks are coming out next week, and Kate is going back to work, so for a while I’ll be guiding Ava through this process during the day as well as the evening. Wish me luck!

Cliche quote for sure, but fits doesn’t it? If you have a better idea for a caption, why not leave it in the comments section? We could make it a contest!

Ava seems so much happier lately. Not that I ever believed she was unhappy, but she used to cry soooo much after I got home from work in the evening. It was very difficult to get her to sleep. Now when I come home, she smiles and coos at me. It makes my heart melt. As proof of the change in behavior, you’ll notice in this photo that I am holding Ava and she is not screaming! She’s such a wonderful baby! I’m not sure what I did to deserve her, but clearly I’ve been blessed with an angel.

Sorry to get so nerdy with the previous post. I sure didn’t mean to attract so many “tech geeks” like myself to this site, especially since it’s supposed to be about raising our baby daughter. Since the post below was linked to Digg.com last night this site has received thousands of hits. People seem to get so worked up about the video…the point was never to show how the Dell boots faster than the Powerbook. Of course it was going to, it’s a much more powerful machine! The cool thing was seeing something that nobody a month ago would ever imagine happening…a Dell PC booting Mac OS X natively. Seeing it do so along side an Apple just made it cooler. Anyway, from now on if I want to talk about tech stuff, I’ll start up a separate blog.

This is way off topic, but I found this video extremely interesting and exciting. For those of you who aren’t tech geeks like myself and didn’t know this already, Apple announced a while back that it would be switching from the IBM Power PC architecture (G4, G5) to Intel processors starting next year. This was huge news…nobody ever imagined in a million years that Apple would go the Intel route. An even bigger suprise was that Apple has a version of OS X that runs on Intel machines, and has shipped this version to developers along with a development kit based on Intel hardware. This version is supposed to be locked to only run on the development kits, but folks around the world have been working to get the OS booting on any old PC box. So anyway, here is a video of OS X booting on both a Dell Dimension 8250 and a 15″ Powerbook G4. As if the shock of seeing OS X running natively on a Dell PC isn’t enough, you’ll notice that the Dell easily beats the Powerbook to the desktop. Pretty cool stuff if you ask me. I just hope Steve Jobs decides to go head-to-head with Microsoft and release a version of OS X that can be installed on any x86 PC. I’ll be the first in line to fork over my cash.