Archive for September, 2009
I picked out the outfit today. Except not really since it was what she wore to daycare anyway. I just added boots and mouse ears.
Despite our ongoing battle as to whether to use flash (J) or not (me) – the pictures turned out much better this time. It was a little earlier in the day so the natural light was better and Ava was having a blast out there.
She posed prettily.
She helped move the props.
Several times.
She spotted a spider.
See the worried look on her face? If I’d been a thinking parent I would have responded calmly when she pointed it out to me. Instead I did a screechy “OMG it’s a spider” and yelled for J to come remove it. This, in turn, caused Ava to completely flip out and to flat refuse to go anywhere near that bush again.
She meandered around a bit…
picking up rocks
and trying to eat them.
Thank goodness she’s easily distracted. Although I sometimes feel like I live with Herve Villechaize (What? Admit it. There’s a slight resemblance with the short stature and dark hair!) due to her ongoing insistence on pointing out every single plane in the sky – it did come in handy by distracting her long enough to keep her from destroying her teeth even before she gets them all (and yes, she is STILL teething).
We had a lot of fun with this photo shoot. Ava was plumb tuckered out by the time we were done – she must have run up and down the road at least 50 times – so we got one last shot and headed home.
It was a nice way to spend an evening with our newly minted 2 1/2 year old!
NaBloPoMo Post Date: 11/5/2009
I think I have to stop with the months soon, don’t I? Up ’til now when people ask me how old Ava is I’ve always answered in months but now that she’s officially hit two and a half it seems a bit odd to continue with that.
J and I couldn’t agree on how we would dress Ava for her monthly birthday photo shoot. He wanted to bust out one of her Halloween costumes whereas I was angling for her Mickey ears. Since he is allllll about Halloween I gave in and let him choose the wardrobe and the location.
But it ended up being a bit of a disaster. The lighting wasn’t right, the camera wasn’t happy, and the kid was terribly uncooperative. She was far more interested in exploring the area (and climbing the trees) than she was in taking pictures. We tried for a while and then just gave up.
Here are some outtakes:
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t think she’s as photogenic (and beautiful) as always. It’s just that nothing quite worked out technically the way I wanted it – mainly because we didn’t get started until dusk so the light was off. On top of that J always wants to shoot with a flash and I never do unless I absolutely have to, so the shots alternated between being overexposed or shadowed with a whole lot of out of focus thrown in for good measure.
I do love this one – despite my seemingly disembodied hand creeping in from out of nowhere to plop the hat on her head once again. (Note to self for next Halloween: Super glue to keep hats and cat ears on so I don’t have to pick them up every 2 seconds.)
And this one is J’s favorite – ’cause he’s creepy like that about Halloween. I do love the look of the trees and sky in the background but I hate the unflattering glare caused by the flash.
NaBloPoMo Post Date: 11/4/2009
Truth in advertising. The shirt says it all.
Despite the mountains of work awaiting us here at the money pit we blew it all off for the second day in a row and took Ava up to her first Howl-O-Scream at our local amusement park. The weather was fantastic, the crowds were thin, and we had a blast. We rode lots of rides (mostly of the preschool variety) and since Ava decided it was a Daddy preferred day J got to handle most of the boring milder rides. Hallelujah, says I. Can’t tell you how tired I am of that flying machine ride so it was nice to get a break from having to take her on it again.
She did surprisingly well with the scarier attractions. She loved Frankenrock, which was a show where performers sang a variety of songs while dressed as various classic style monsters. She was rockin’ out in the aisles and got so bold as to venture about 15 steps away from us and to sass me when I told her to come back – the sassiness lasted only a brief second however since the Werewolf came around the corner at just that opportune moment and frightened her just enough to send her scurrying back into Mama’s arms sans attitude.
Oh yeah, like father – like daughter. I think the kid was born knowing how to do the Time Warp. It’s one of J’s favorite shows/movies and Ava threw herself into that particular dance with all her might. Not half bad at it either!
Wow – and how old must I be since I totally remember getting dressed up and going to the midnight showings of the actual movie loaded up with rice, toast, water guns, and various other items needed for maximum audience participation. (Ah, memories!)
NaBloPoMo Post Date: 11/3/2009
Oh, my girl loves a parade.
We woke up late and decided, kind of on the spur of the moment, that we would head down to the Neptune Festival to watch the parade since Ava enjoyed the ones as Disney so much. The problem with our plan was that we not only had to drive about 45 minutes but we also had to find parking at the oceanfront which easily took twice as long as the drive. The pain was compounded by the fact that we only had about an hour total to get us all presentable, loaded into the car, and drive/park/walk to a decent viewing spot on the parade route.
Probably needless to say that we failed miserably on all counts.
We got stuck in road traffic. We got stuck in parking traffic – waiting 20 minutes for entry into one parking lot only to have it close 3 cars ahead of us – and then having to gallop 19 blocks to the start of the parade route after finally finding a spot in the lot furthest away from ANYthing.
And then, of course, she had to potty so we had to hoof it even further in until we could get to a public toilet.
No matter. Once the potty situation was taken care of she climbed up on J’s shoulders to watch the last 4 minutes of the parade.
Bit of a strange parade, too. Or maybe it’s just they just stuck all the uncategorized groups at the end – like the two people who glued huge paper dove wings onto their Prius and walked beside it flashing the peace sign at everyone. Or the random Celtic cross in the back of a pickup. Or the JROTC group who had a mom walking beside them tossing in water bottles and blotting foreheads with a towel – necessary since it was about 12 degrees outside and they were walking ever so quickly at about 2 miles per hour for 20 or so blocks.
No matter. Ava still thought it was the coolest thing ever.
She happily waved at everyone who even slightly looked her way.
And then nearly took J’s head off when a real live fireman walked the crowd handing out safety coloring books. The kid was hell bent and determined she was getting one of those and attempted to dive off and crowd surf her way to get it. J finally shoved his way through and scored one for her.
But all of that paled when the marching band showed up.
She hooted. She hollered. She clapped. And I think we just may have a band nerd on our hands here. (Totally okay with that, by the way.)
Once the parade was done the immediate course of action was to buy me a sweatshirt (reference the 12 degree weather remark above). While that may be a slight exaggeration it was pretty darn chilly with the breeze off the water so I was forced to pay an obscene amount of money for a Neptune fest sweatshirt despite the fact that there was a perfectly good jacket in my car (reference the 19+ blocks away comment above).
The next course of action was food. Since we’d pre-planned not at all and had zero cash on hand we opted for a real restaurant – Waterman’s Surfside Grill which was a previous Best of the Beach Gold winner – where for some unknown reason I thought sitting outside would be a good idea. Yeah, sitting in the midst of a frigid sandblaster was fun. Or not. Especially since we were totally ignored by the wait staff for a solid 15 minutes while Ava screeched for “milk please, Mama.”
The food? J made the mistake of letting me taste his cheeseburger topped with crab meat. We swapped lunches soon thereafter and he happily ate whatever it was that I ordered. The burger was lovely. The fries were amazing. But they totally blew it on the kids meal by charging an unseemly amount of money for reheated Kraft mac-n-cheese and by having a completely inattentive staff – from the hostess (waited 10 minutes for her to show up to seat us initially) – as well as our waiter who was far more interested in the table of ladies who lunch who were also liberally sampling from the bar thereby upping his tip. Little did he know that I, since kid, am an amazing tipper when warranted. I pay by the pieces of food on the floor, you know.
Ava was a trooper. Even though she was nearly falling asleep in her lunch she held it together long enough to allow us to meander by the sand sculptures before crashing the very second her tush hit the car seat. This one was my favorite – note all the little sand stars scattered throughout.
And our own little star. Blessedly down for the count.
We thought.
After a suppressed giggle or two from the back seat I looked over my shoulder to see this:
(Thought you were done with Disney, right? Not so much.)
Remember the gazillion Disney stickers she swiped from the kindly one sticker-offering employee? Unbeknownst to me, J had tucked them into a pocket on her backpack. Which she could reach from her carseat.
And then she stuck them EVERYwhere!
You ever tried to pull stickers off somebody’s eyes without performing an inadvertent enucleation? And doing it while in a moving car whilst remaining seat belted in? Yes, I am that good.
NaBloPoMo Post Date: 11/2/2009
Subtitled: A Girl and her the Neighborhood Dog
Ahh, the Disney weight gain – yes, I did manage to bring home some souvenir pounds from Disney despite the walking of approximately 8 billion miles, which is yet another reason NOT to opt for the Disney dining plan. I mean, really, who eats a dessert at every single meal normally? But hey, because we’d already paid for and it and because supposedly calories consumed on vacation don’t count and because they have the most AMAZING desserts ever…
Well, let’s just say I didn’t say no very often.
Anyhow, we immediately resumed our after dinner walk habit as soon as we returned. J was tasked with getting the stroller since we’ve learned that Ava thinks walking is fun for about half a mile and then it’s just not. Ava’s job was to grab her hat and sunglasses.
Ummmm. yeah. She did. Looking on the bright side I can at least say she did what I asked with no whining.
However, I should clearly begin instructing her on the finer points of mixing patterns and explaining that a blend of, oh I don’t know, let’s say 75% solids and 25% patterns might be a bit less likely to land you on “What N*t T0 Wear.”
But hey, what do I know. She was clearly styling.
Well, she was after she figured out that the sunglasses stay on MUCH better if the earpieces go around the ears.
After hanging out down near the water for a bit…
and giving Daddy at least 15 high fives…
we finally headed home.
On the way back she met a friend.
At which point she turned ’round, looked at us and said, “See you mamo (tomorrow),” and headed off while having a chat with her girlfriend, Lucy.
Not to worry. The stroller was eventually put to use. I think she made it about as far as the mailbox this time.