ambition

so we are sitting here watching olympic swimming together....and andrew kind of turns to me.  he says,

"i want to be one of those people..."

and i thought he was going to say some lofty character trait, like..someone who only speaks well of other people, or someone who builds others up.... well, no.

"...who watches them touch the wall."

someone who watches the swimmers touch the wall during laps?? my husband is so ambitious.

i've arrived...

it's safe to say that avery is grounded until she is potty trained.

caught her red-handed and it wasn't very ladylike! 

ha ha. in all seriousness, before this event, i thought the "blow outs" that everyone referred to with their babies was when the diaper leaked a little on their clothes.  that was all that had ever happened to us before this.  i was so shocked when i was holding her, and looked down and realized what was all over her, my sheets, and ME.  we burned the sheets and the house was under quarantine for some time :)

there was a time in my life when i was very naive.  a couple summers ago, i was swimming with my nieces, and noticed something dark in one's swimsuit. i pinched her little bum and said, "there must be a lot of sand in her swimsuit!"  needless to say, i don't think i'd fall for that any more ha ha.  in regards to matters of poop and parenthood, i've arrived.  although it's only the beginning of my journey in excrement, i'm gaining credentials.

i know it is very unnecessary to post these pictures....but avery will just appreciate it so much some day. 

almost as much as i appreciated cleaning this up.

a room of her own

we finally started to get avery's room put together...

i guess since we are re-signing our lease in this apartment, it felt like the timing was right (ha, one year later...so slow).

 here is the little lady in her new digs.

these pics really aren't even all that much about her room, since you can only see the one wall, but more about the cute little girl standing on those little chubby legs looking so old already.

i know. pictures of my baby? on this blog? so original.

ps. i wish we could paint these boring walls. i live in a tan box.

avery's first blog post

km gvgf5452vt  gv k m  m,mmmmmmmmmmm m         nnnnm  ,,       ,  nnmmlpnnb

and that's all she has to say about that.



a quick behind-the-scene:

best $10 ever spent...

a while back, we experienced a loss.

andrew's left toe nail got seriously injured during basketball.  i mean we only have 10 of these little nails, and as hard as we tried to keep it, that black and blue nail eventually fell off.  now if any of you have ever had a similar experience, growing a new big toenail is no easy feat, and andrew has had quite the time of it :)

as we were going through this struggle, i kinda gave andrew a scare that he had developed a fungus. (think inception, but on a much larger scale...first i threw the idea out there, casually...he denied it.  then i started googling 'toe fungus' pictures, reading symptoms...etc.) about the time we had andrew rubbing vick's vapor rub on that big toe--has anyone tried this? supposed to be a great home fungus remedy--i knew my comment had gotten to him.  long story short, let's just say i teased his way into the office of a podiatrist within a month.

this story isn't all doom and gloom...there was no fungus!!  but the doctor did offer andrew this handy dandy toe sleeve for the low, low price of $10.  andrew thought he had struck gold until it got all stretched out on day 2.

but the real reason i post this grotesque picture and story about a foot is that it is so characteristic of my husband...if there's a problem, he fixes it right away. (i need a dose of that in my life. instead i just let my knee bother me for months and never figure out the problem.) plus i just think my kids will look back at this picture and laugh at their dad like i do.

(P.S.  if you want to see another basketball-related injury that required a funny apparatus, click here)

double double

i give andrew a hard time about never surprising me, but truth is i'm no better.  i tried really hard this year, because june 17th was both andrew's birthday and first father's day!! talk about pressure.  

i won't go into details, but i kind of botched the weekend...although i did think the actual day-of was pretty good.

i let andrew sleep in (til almost 10am!!) and tiptoed around, keeping avery fed and asleep so he wouldn't wake up.  he woke up to hot waffles and bacon with the works for breakfast.  i had his gifts all wrapped and sitting on the table with confetti around them (i think only i enjoyed this detail...ha)  when he got up, avery was making noise, so i asked him to go get her.  i think he was kind of confused, like "why are you telling me what to do first thing on my birthday?" but he did it anyway, and then found this cute girl....

(this was after the fact, when she had already drooled all the washable marker into a smear on the onesie) but the front said "happy 27th birthday dad!!" and the back said "...and happy father's day dad!"  anyway, it was cute.

and i have to say, avery does have one of the best dads around.  he loves this little girl more than anything (i have to fight to get face time with him, ha) and takes such good care of her. a lot of the time he teaches me ways to keep her happy or get her to sleep, etc. don't know where he gets it, but he's got the touch.  when she's sad, he will often step in and won't let me take her, because he "doesn't want me to be the only one able to soothe her".  he is very involved and i never have to encourage him to put in the time with her. she's a lucky girl to have him.

 i should say we both are. he is the my best friend and partner...actually he is like the conscience i don't have...tries to help me eat healthy (this doesn't work...but he does his best) and keeps me on a cleaning schedule ha ha.  some of our friends joke that he is more of the wife than i am.  he definitely diffuses his fair share of breakdowns and freak outs.  i just tell him that i'm only 22 so hopefully i'll grow out of all these shortcomings and can someday handle the house full of kids that i eventually want. ha ha.

anyway...like the onesie says, happy birthday AND father's day, andrew!