Happy First Father's Day Jeremy!

Here's Ava wearing her "Daddy is my hero" onesie in honor of Jeremy's big day.

and here she is "singing" Daddy's praises-

Saturday picnic at the river 6/20/09

Last Saturday we made our first trip to the river with Ava and some good friends Dan and Krystal and their new baby Miles who's two week younger than Ava. The babies snoozed a good deal as they were lulled to sleep by the sound of the waterfall. Kudos to Dan for some fantastic mom-fortifying wraps!
Look what a great Dad Jeremy is for Father's Day weekend!

Updates: Ava and Mommy's Ears

To bring everyone up to speed: my ears feel much better but they're still kind of itchy (which probably means they're healing). I still have a few more days of antibiotics to go which I look forward to finishing since they seem to make Ava pretty fussy. I'm just glad I'm not so sick anymore because it really affected my milk flow in the evenings. Now I just have to wait a month to go to the ENT specialist. That's right, a month! ugh!

Ava is growing and learning every day! She's starting to get thicker but finer light blond hair up front while some of her birth hair seems to be falling out. Her eyes are darkening to a hazel-gray. She's able to stand on her legs when we hold her up - which she likes. Her concentration seems to get longer and better every day. I've been showing her black and white image books from the library and we're about to embark upon a reading program with words printed really large on flash cards.

Our friend Jen Crane came by to help me out with the baby yesterday while I put drops in my ears. She brought her son Bram and nieces Geneva and Audrey. We had a lot of fun and the kids were great with the baby.

Here are the dogs teaching Bram how to jump on the trampoline. Yes, Fisher really loves to jump and BB just doesn't want to miss out on the fun.

Here are Bram and Audrey on the new tire swing Jeremy put up.


Ta-Da!!!

Geneva chatting with the baby.

Saturday morning walk in the woods

Gail is laid up with a double ear infection, and spends a fair amount of each day laying on her side with antibiotic ear drops soaking in. This leaves me with a fair amount of time that I have to entertain Ava. This morning we began a short jaunt using the awesome jogger that Phyllis gave us (3 wheels, air inflated, built Ford tuff) for an excursion. Once we got up the road a piece, Ava decided to match the humidity in the air with some in her diaper. A wet one always upsets her. (Note to self, bring along a diaper when strolling) We had to walk back to the house and get a change. Since she'd preferred being carried against my chest on the way home, I decided to use the mobi wrap when we resumed our walk. It worked out quite well. She was wrapped to my chest, my hands were free to take pictures of mushrooms and brush spiderwebs out of my face. Here's a picture of a happy Daddy with a sleeping baby.


Along the way we saw many exciting things. The one I'd characterize as the most interesting was turtle coitus. See below :-)


Now admittedly this isn't a very good picture. It wasn't that there wasn't plenty of time to take it... However the trouble was that Ava kept flopping forward, as she was beginning to pass out, so I had trouble getting the tripod set up. So this is the best I have to offer. (Email me privately for hot turtle vidz!!!)

It was really a beatiful walk. The baby and I walked along the stream bed and gulleys looking for mushrooms, and the dogs ran around sniffing and eating and rolling in undescribably smelly things. At one point walking along the creek bottom I stopped to take this picture, and thought "Up yours Atlanta".

I love the south, and living in the country.

Here's another pretty picture of a spot on the creek.

I'm almost certain pirates bury their treasure here.

But I didn't stop to dig for it - because the hills were already covered with gold! Golden chanterelles love to live on one side of the brook, with all the recent rain they've sprouted up and down the hillside. Here's a picture of a beautiful fruiting chanterelle. It looks like its drinking in the sunlight and transforming it into golden waves.


I came back to the house with a sleeping floppy baby, two wet and smelly dogs, and a basket full of delicious chantarelles.

The wet and smelly...

BB is not pictured here, when we got back he figured he was wet, but not dirty enough, so he went under the porch to get some more dirt clinging to him. Very thorough of him.

:) and :(

What a week of ups and downs! Really for me personally, Ava's doing quite well thank you except for dinner can be kind of skimpy lately, but I'm jumping ahead. The 8th was Momma Gail's 30th birthday! Yay! And for my birthday weekend we all went to the local pottery sales for me to pick out pottery for Jeremy to give me. Ava was a great sport and fun to show off. Someone said "Wow, how much did that baby cost ya?" on the way out of one sale. Then, on Sunday, we all went to my best friend Gaby's for some incredible Paula Deen-style birthday brunch with she and her husband and my two other best buds. What a spread! Hash brown potatoes, cheese grits, sausage balls, bacon, homemade bread, and my new favorite, pecan crusted french toast casserole! Yummy!

Here's Ava's "Auntie" Kate with her-

Later that day my parents came in to town to celebrate my birthday. We all met up at my sister's at which point Ava decided she'd had enough of the day's activities and decided to get pretty darn fussy. We ended up sending my folks to Five Star Day Cafe in town and picking up some food which they brought back out to the country house so Ava could sleep and we could socialize. Here's Grandpa Don holding Ava for the first time (in between fussy spells)-Three things happened on Monday. One, I turned 30! Woo hoo! Two, Jeremy's folks came up from Douglas to stay a few days and they let us go out for dinner without Ava that night. And three, I got an ear infection. (Boo, hiss) I laughed about it for a while, "speak up sonny, I can't hear ya" but it steadily got worse until Wednesday we went and checked into the ER. Yep, bad ear infection, swollen shut, and then it spread to the other ear on Friday. Well, certainly won't forget this birthday. On Tuesday, before the visit for the ear, we visited the hospital for a happier checkup with the midwives just so they could check to see that I'm healing up well enough, which I am.

Here we are with Angela, the midwife who delivered Ava.


And here we are with Susan, the new director of the midwifery center and the leader of our pregnancy centering group. We REALLY love these two ladies! The midwives are awesome!

-notice Ava explaining to Susan "and this is how I stretched when I got the heck out of there"

I have an appointment with an ENT tomorrow. We'll keep you posted. It's been super painful and hard to be a mom at the same time but Jeremy's been great taking care of me. :)

Cause and Effect

What exciting days we're having! Ava is so smart (or at least her Mommy thinks so)! Ever since our friends the Ruiz family came to visit on Sunday, Ava's been trying to use her legs more and more, so we stand her up on our laps to help build up her strength. Ava also spent two spells of about 20 minutes each lying on her back in her Baby Neptune (undersea themed) play gym and looking at the fish and listening to the lights and music. The biggest development I think though was yesterday when I put her in her stroller for a few minutes in the kitchen so I could heat up some food. When I put her in, I intentionally bopped one of the dangley musical toys that hangs down from the carrier on her car seat (refer to earlier post with picture of Ava in the stroller, see the blue toy?). Well, I turned to the microwave and heard the toy jingle again. I thought "Oh, she must have been flinging her arms around and bopped it" Well, I walked over to look at her and she was intentionally focused on the blue toy AND intentionally throwing her one arm up to try to whack it. When she'd hit it she'd get all excited. She did this about 7 or 8 times before she got disinterested. I was so thrilled. I immediately called Jeremy to brag on her! Her grampa always said she was so smart! : )