Archive for August, 2005

I know I haven’t kept up the posting as much as I’d promised, but as you all know, having a baby at home doesn’t leave much chance for extracurricular activity. Fortunately I’ve been able to make a few changes to ease things up a bit. For example, I now leave work at around 4PM so I can get home early enough to spend time with Ava. But this means I come in to work at 7AM, so I need to get up at 5AM, therefore I need to go to bed by 9PM if I want to get enough sleep so I don’t go off the road on the way to work (blah, blah, blah). But my point is, that leaves about 4 hours or so in the middle to cook dinner, eat dinner, calm Ava, and go to sleep. And sometimes the only thing there is time for is calming Ava. Actually, Ava is getting much better about going to sleep. Kate has changed her diet up a bit (cut out dairy and caffeine) and it seems to be working. She is far less fussy in the evening and more willing to sleep. She’d always been fine during the day, taking regular naps with no problem, but it seemed like as soon as I would get home she’d get cranky (maybe it’s me?!). But seriously, the last few days have been much easier, and I think the Kate’s diet changes are finally kicking in. As far as getting up at 5AM, it’s actually turning out to be a great thing. I did this once before when I had a job with long hours back in New Mexico. It takes a while to get used to, but once you get the internal clock reset, being a morning person is very productive. It’s nice to get to work an hour before everyone else (choice parking spots!), plus the day just seems to go by much quicker for some reason. My favorite is the weekends (yes, it’s very important to keep up the schedule if you’re not normally a morning person, which means getting up around the same time even on the weekends). By the time it feels like the day is over, the clock shows it’s really only noon and the day isn’t even half over. There’s plenty more day ahead and you’ve already gotten so much done! It’s a pretty crazy phenomenon. So yes, for now, I am a morning person.

Last week, Amanda learned that it’s best to keep a diaper on ava at all times. Today, Ginny learned that sometimes noseplugs can be helpful when actually replacing said diaper. You’ll notice in this photo that Ava is displaying her enjoyment in having a variety of other folks changing her…mom and dad, day in and day out, can get pretty boring and routine. The truth is, Ava is a little down this morning because Ginny had to go home so soon. That’s the breaks of having to go to work on Monday and living 6 hours away. We sure hope Ginny can come back again soon!

Ginny came to visit this weekend! Ginny is Kate’s sister and lives not too far away in West Reading, Pennsylvania (just outside of Philly). In fact, it’s really only about a 6 hour drive so hopefully Ginny can come by more often. In case you’re curious, she just moved to West Reading in June to start a job with a small chemical company (she graduated from UT Austin this year as a Chemical Engineer…go Ginny!). As the first of many Aunts to meet Ava, the little bundle of joy was sure excited to meet her! She can’t wait to meet the rest of the family (Grandma and Grandpa Sasser are coming at the end of this month…yay!)

Last week I put up a photo of Amanda with Ava, and now look who’s feeding her…none other than the infamous Nic Kin, second-half of Amanda and budding marathon champion! Seriously, like I said in that earlier post, Amanda and Nic were kind enough to watch Ava Thursday while Kate and I went to the Ben Folds concert at PromoWest Pavillion. An amazing show as usual…if you haven’t seen Ben Folds live you’re missing an unbelievably amazing musician and a true entertainer. A funny story to share, by the way: Ava has been a little fussy lately, and when Amanda was changing her diaper she noticed that Ava would quit crying while the diaper was removed. So Amanda had a better idea…hold Ava and rock her for a while with the diaper off. I’ll spare you the details on what happened next (poo all over Amanda and everything else), but needless to say she has a renewed appreciation for babies with their diapers on.

For those of you following this blog on a (fairly) regular basis, I’m terribly sorry there hasn’t been an update in a few days. It’s just that I happen to be in Norfolk, VA on a business trip right now and I don’t have any new photos to post. I’ll tell you what, though…boy do I miss Ava! It’s amazing that even though it means minimal sleep and no free time, I’d much rather be home with my wife and little girl than away on this trip. But we are getting some important work done, so it’s a good thing. Either way, I’m back home tomorrow night so I don’t have to go through too much withdrawl. I promise to get some new photos up before the end of the week.