The Finger

Avery loves her middle finger. It's her favorite finger to use when pointing and touching things. And also when chewing out Daddy.

Outta My Way

Avery is in the expert crawler category now, and it's hilarious. Not only does she crawl at the speed of light, but she will fling items out of her way if they're in her path...and even if they're only sorta kinda in her path. And even if they're not impeding her movement in any way. What can I say, she likes the open road.



I love how she changes her mind and her direction in split seconds. And by the way, she has successfully made it to the dog bowl and really enjoyed splashing around until I got to her moments later. Add her love for the dog bowl to her love for climbing the stairs, and let's just say it's a good thing she's sleeping like a champ these days. The girl runs me ragged!

The Cuteness

Avery, waiting with Alan for me to pull up the car at IKEA. IKEA is practically on the Newark airport runway, and Avery loved watching planes take off. Squeal! Clap! Shrieeeeeek!


If I only had a picture of her in the same situation a couple of days and a couple of IKEA trips later. She was not this happy. And neither was I. Trust me.

To and Fro

Now an unstoppable force, Avery is keeping me very busy. She's a nonstop force of nature, crawling everywhere, climbing me like I'm a jungle gym. Once she got crawling down, all circuits started firing. She started sitting up on her own (I could write 5,000 words on How Sitting Up Interferes With Sleep), clucking her tongue, clapping her hands, waving, and crossing her fingers. All within a matter of days. I was rocking her before a nap the other day and instead of settling down, she used it as time to practice her tongue clucking, with her fingers crossed, while waving at me.

I sometimes make the mistake of calling Avery "Marti" and vice versa. I also sometimes tell Marti to "Leave it," with "it" being Avery. I also tell Avery to "Leave it," with "it" being "most household items and especially electrical outlets and dog toys." I also sometimes throw dog toys so that Avery's cute little bum will scurry after them. You're welcome.



Love this little look of determination as she comes toward me. And the sneaky look she gives me as she decides that yes, she will go ahead and try to go downstairs.

This Old House

When you have a house that was built in 1927, you come to expect surprises when you're doing minor repairs. Jobs are always more involved than you think they'll be, and they always take twice as long as you think they will. Removing wallpaper turns into a discovery of The Plurb and its companion Donkey Party, for instance.


Tiling the kitchen floor turns into labor and delivery. And a recent ceiling paint job turned into the ceiling falling down on our heads and the discovery of a leaking toilet from above:


It started when we rented a 10-yard dumpster. We had a lot of home-project junk to get rid of. We gutted part of the basement (no more Jersey basement party bar!), tearing out all of the paneling and carpet. Leaving us with this:

It's towing the fine line of "better-than-paneling/worse-than-what-we-had-before," but I'm sure we'll have a stellar after, eventually. While we were gutting, we thought we might as well toss the carpet from our office/den, which left us with a moment of hardwood hope before we decided to carpet. We ordered our new carpet and they called a couple of Fridays ago to schedule the install. (Side note: Avery practiced her "da-da"...with the carpet measuring guy. Ha!) In my boundless optimism, I scheduled for next-day installation. I knew we had to finish painting trim, the ceiling and the closet door, but what's a Friday night working on the house? (Answer: Normal.)

Enter a chunk of the ceiling coming down on Alan, a gaping ceiling hole and a mini meltdown from me. (My meltdowns always seems to involve toilets.) Unable to cancel the carpet install without shelling out $130, we instead had to cover our lovely new carpet with plastic and hope that no toilet water made it through.

I've rolled with the house-punches for the most part. But this last one put me over the edge. I mean, are you freaking kidding me? Why can't a simple paint job just be a simple paint job? Have you seen the oh-so-hilarious movie The Money Pit with Tom Hanks? I feel like we're a part of this scene sometimes. Especially the hysterical laughter at the end.



I don't know why I worry, though. A note on my husband: This man is not afraid of tackling any projects. Where I see a path to destruction, he sees the road to renovation. He's gone from someone who wouldn't fix the toilet to someone who could install one with his eyes closed. When I sometimes wish we'd just call in a pro, he shows no fear and always manages to figure it out on his own and do a damn good job. From built-in bookcases...


...to the kitchen floor...

...to what I'm sure will be an amazing "after" shot of the basement.* For now though, once Ceiling-Toilet Disaster of 2011 is finished (just some sanding and that painting yet to do) we are taking a reno break. It seems like at least one room of our house has been a disaster zone or been completely displaced since we moved in, so for awhile I just want to turn off the HGTV, spend money somewhere other than Home Depot and live with an unfinished basement. Maybe do something really crazy like get some art on the walls or curtains hung. Or maybe just relax.

P.S. We have backyard invaders. A groundhog perhaps? (Check him out climbing the fence at the back, to the left of our garage.)


Marti seriously strikes fear in no one.



*Clicking back on these earlier house links reminds me that I really need to show off some "after" pictures of our house. Ch-ch-ch-changes!

Inching Her Way Around the World

Avery is 10 months old today! Milestones to report: She's officially crawling. I guess. But she won't be winning the Nobel Prize for Crawling any time soon. Because while she is definitely mobile, her crawl is not the most efficient. She'll get up on her knees and occasionally "real crawl" but mostly she'll go from her knees to her stomach and repeat until she gets where she wants to be. I call it "inch-worming." And don't worry, we make fun of her for it.

Off in a flash. Just kidding.


Making her way to the clothes hamper.


Success!


An upper tooth popped through, so now she's got three teeth. And maybe more, but I'm afraid to check. She may look cute, but she bites (and reads Time).


And yes, in the picture above you'll notice I didn't button her shirt. That's because it's not worth the battle. Diaper and clothing changes are now wrestling matches (alligator wrestling matches), and guess what? I lose.

Just checking her messages.


Post-bath, hearkening back to her old spike days.


Bathtime, like diaper changes, involves superhuman strength to get the job done. It's funny how I used to hold my breath waiting for her to roll over. Now I do my damnedest to get her to stop. freaking. rolling. over.

Things have improved greatly on the sleep front. Thank God. You can read about that here and here.

She graduated from nonstop "nananananana" (practicing for the "no" of toddlerhood?) to "dadadada." And will occasionally "mamamamama." But mostly "dadadadada." She calls everything "dada." From a jug of iced tea to the man measuring for carpet. And of course, her dada.


Her little personality is shining through more every day, and if you could bottle her laugh, I'm pretty sure you will have found the way to world peace. Love this kiddo.

Babies Heart Danger

Did you know? Babies totally heart danger.

All of a sudden, we went from having a baby who could be placed on her playmat and left alone for several minutes to having a baby who cannot be trusted. Who turns her playmat upside down and/or can be found trying to get into the attic.

Ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but for someone who isn't quite yet crawling, girlfriend is on the move and keeping me on my toes. If it's something off limits, she wants it. BlackBerry? Gimme. Electric cords? Gimme. Marti's tail? Gimme gimme gimme.

She's also moving so much that we never know how we're going to find her when she wakes up from a nap. Putting her on her back to sleep is futile. She flips over within seconds. And she's usually found sideways in her crib with limbs peeking through the rails.


We've started swim classes, which are super fun. Avery seems to like it, or at least doesn't hate it. And she does a great job at the underwater swims. It turns out that babies are hilarious when they get dunked. She even picked out her own swimsuit.


She's also got three teeth now, and she's drooling buckets, so I'm pretty sure that top tooth No.4 is about to pop through.


And she does not like you messing with her teeth, MOM.


This puzzle mat? Good and cute in theory. In reality: It will get taken apart tout de suite.


Bit of Avery trivia: She's asymmetrically roly. She's got five rolls on her left arm and only four on her right. Also, she's damn cute.