Our Feisty Fisks

Raising the female population of Indiana one child at a time

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Saturday, July 29, 2006

Her Continuing Education



Oh the joys of being a parent. You get to see your little girl grow up before your very eyes. You get to see her do things that she has never done before. Recently we have gone WAY past Ava's pacifier hoarding and hiding to, what I think, are deliberate, timed actions.

Doni and I are in a small group at our church that meets every other week on Sunday nights. When we get together we have dinner together and everyone brings something. Doni held Ava while I ate and then we switched so that Doni could eat when I was done. Ava had been acting kind of fussy (she was probably tired) so I tried a trick that I had tried once before.

Days before, Ava had similarly been tired and cranky, but she decided to cry it off instead of sleep it off. I lifted her over my head and placed her on my shoulders so she could see over my head. Having never experienced this position before, Ava quieted down pretty quickly. We walked around the house looking in mirrors and seeing everything from a different perspective. It worked beautifully.

Since it had worked before, I tried the same thing while we were at the dinner table. This time it wasn't working quite as well, but she did quiet down a little. However, after not even being on my shoulders for a solid minute, Ava revealed the next skill she had learned..... Skill #2 - Throwing up on dad's head.

Obviously, there was no way I could see it coming. To tell the truth I didn't even feel it for a few seconds after it happened. The only reason I could tell that anything had happened was because first there were wide-mouthed looks (the kind you get when you see someone about to bite the dust across the room, but there's nothing you can do but watch) followed by riotous laughter. My senses began to sink in as my scalp felt something that reminded me of being pooped on by a bird. Needless to say, we have not tried the tall-baby/shoulder ride lately.

Then there's today.... Ava had been sleeping in her swing quietly for a couple of hours when we opened her eyes. It was getting close to her feeding time, so I picked her up and talked to her for a few minutes.

.....There is a little background info that is pertinent to the rest of this story. When Ava sleeps without a blanket, she gets cold and wakes up. When Ava sleeps with a blanket, she gets a little sweaty, but continues sleeping. It is not abnormal for her back to be sweaty when we pick her up after a nap. Back to the story.....

So, when I picked Ava up, I noticed that she was sweaty, but thought nothing of it. Usually just her back is sweaty, but this time it seemed that she had sweat through the back of her shirt, her shorts, and onto her legs. It didn't strike me at first that this was much more sweat than usual although it probably should have. After a couple of minutes of her sweat not beginning to dissipate like usual, I began to wonder about the character of this moistness. It couldn't be pee, could it? A sniff test confirmed the grim diagnosis. By this time I realized this I had traces of her urine on my hands, arms, and shirt. What's the deal with that? She's in size 2 diapers and I thought they were supposed to hold at least 14 lbs!?! Little did we know that Ava had begun working on her bladder control such that she could drop two gallons of her special blend lemonade in one go. Skill #3 - Tricking Dad into holding a slightly urine-soaked baby against his body.

She also coughed a mouthful of formula in my face today, but since she could have done this accidentally I won't count it as another skill.

It's good being a daddy.

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Saturday, July 22, 2006

She's got skills


Ava's learning curve is making its upward turn. Whether or not these skills are relevant or worthwhile to learn, I'll leave up to you. Regardless, she's learning.

Skill #1 - The covert pacifier toss
Lately we had been noticing that we were running a little low on pacifiers. We had ruled out the possibility of them dissolving in her mouth due to the sheer amount of time spent in her mouth (kinda like old gum), but that still left us with no explanation. On the verge of calling Skully and Mulder, during one recent nap attempt we made a discovery.

You see, Ava has figured out that she has some control over those things with fingers that wave around in front of her face. They are good for more than just self-inflicted eye pokes. This has led to massive amounts of drool while she sucks on her hands, but I digress. She has begun grasping things with some degree of intention. Toys, my chest and under-arm hairs (ouch!), and, more currently relevant, her pacifier.

As Ava lay in her crib, protesting her much needed nap, I was studying for a test in the recliner in her room. Since I was being fairly quiet, I don't think she knew I was in the room. In this moment of inferred privacy, Ava promptly threw her pacifier through the slots on the back of her crib. It bounced off the wall and the crib several times before coming to rest on the floor. Shortly thereafter Doni came in the room to see why her Little Miss Lovely was not content. I told her what Ava had just done with her pacifier, so Doni removed the drawer located under Ava's crib so we could get to the pacifier. Little did we know that we were impromptu treasure hunters, for the booty we found under the crib would have made any Jolly Roger proud. We found, not one, not two, but FIVE PACIFIERS! Ava had been storing up a cache of pacifiers in case there were ever to be a shortage! Better yet, she had been doing it when no one was looking to keep her stash secret!

There was only one possible explanation for where she could have picked up on this skill.... SPARKY! Sparky has a history of trying to hide bones inside and outside of our house. We've gotten pretty good at catching him when he tries to take things outside, so he's become much more covert about hiding things in the house. We've found bones or rawhides buried in our dirty clothes, under our pillows, and anywhere else you can imagine. Sometimes we've found treats and we can't even begin to remember the last time we had given it to him!

It's good to see that Ava is learning, although we would prefer she pick up things not from her four-legged housemates, but from her biped, intellectually superior ones. Can you imagine if she continued to mold herself after the dogs' behavior and not ours? When Ava got older she would jump on people whenever they came in the house, follow us whenever we walked into another room, and bury herself under blankets when she wanted to take a nap.... Now that I think about it, it would be kinda cute.

I'll get to Ava's other skills as they come along. For now, I've got to stop Ava from scratching at the floor every time she poops.

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Monday, July 17, 2006

Baby tricks

Ava has started doing something lately that makes me think she's smarter than we give her credit for.

When we put her in bed for the night she's usually quiet for a few minutes until her pacifier falls out of her mouth. Oh how I long for the day she can put it back in her mouth by herself. Anyway, we usually let her cry for a while before we go settle her down and start Round 2 of the Bedtime Challenge. We usually end up going through several cycles of this before she concedes/passes out from sheer exhaustion.

Lately she has been altering her technique in a vital way. Don't fool yourself, she still cries like someone's got her toes in a vice-grip. However, as soon as she sees me she immediately stops crying, gets a huge smile on her face, and sometimes even stoops to cooing at me. It's like she has somehow hacked her way into my brain and broke down all of my "bedtime" defenses. My only counter-measure is to make my visit as short as possible. I could probably resort to not looking directly at her big, beautiful smile, but then I think she would just change tactics by adding on an adorable laugh or saying "Daddy".

My own daughter is (already) trying to manipulate me! And if she keeps it up she may just succeed!

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Sunday, July 16, 2006

Ain't no sunshine when they're gone


It's been a LONG weekend if you ask me. Here's a little background.... Every year Doni and four of her college friends get together for an extended weekend of girl stuff (don't ask me what that means, because I don't know). So anyway, on Thursday Doni and Ava went down to, her friend, Nicole's house. On Thursday night I also had plans, but mine didn't involve nearly as much girly laughter and "remember when"s (a little, but not nearly as much). Thursday night was my last shift at the hospital for my OB/GYN rotation. Since we were both going to be out of the house, Doni had to take the dogs with her for a night.

Friday morning, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after a relatively benign night where I got 6 hours of sleep, I drove down to Nicole's house to pick up the dogs and pick up Ava so she wouldn't be corrupted by grown-up girl talk. Well, plans change when reality sinks in to a first-time mother that this would be the first night that she would spend without her child. We decided to reschedule our baby-switch for the next day when I could pick Ava up from Nicole's mom (who was baby-sitting) and Doni wouldn't have to physically hand her off to me. This worked out pretty well.

Saturday evening, after picking up Ava, we went to a cookout that a friend of mine from my MCME (Muncie Center for Medical Education) days was having. A good time was had by all. Even Ava, who got an hour or so of sleep while there, enjoyed seeing some of my old friends. Ava got to bed a little late that night, but how often do a little girl and her daddy get to go out and party while mom is gone?

Well, its Sunday and I have both my ladies back home. I had some good quality guy time watching The Book of Cool on Friday and got some studying done on Saturday, but I sure missed my female counterparts.

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Sunday, July 09, 2006

Date night

Saturday night Doni and I went out for dinner and a movie while Ava stayed with one of Doni's friends. Apparently our dogs aren't the only ones that think Ava is sweet because her puppy wouldn't stop licking Ava's feet and hands. Even when she laid Ava down to sleep in the guest room Bailey (the puppy) would whine outside the door.

Doni and I had a good time. We went to a fairly new restaurant in town that specializes in pizza/calzones/stromboli/etc. Apparently they get a good deal on bulk garlic because I'm pretty sure garlic makes up half of all of their ingredients (by weight of course). Being the garlic lovers that Doni and I are, we enjoyed the food very much. Still, when they bring you bread before your main course with so much garlic butter on it that it burns your tongue.... that's a bit much.

After dinner we went to a movie by ourselves for the first time since Ava's birth. It was pretty nice to just have it be the two of us for a little while. This was only the second time that we've left Ava with a sitter and I think we're adjusting pretty well. I'm not sure whether or not I should say this, but here goes..... Most of the night we didn't even miss her! Ava- If ten or so years from now you're reading this and think we were annoyed by you, that was not the case. We love you more than we can imagine, but it was nice for your mother and I to have a couple hours to ourselves. (I'll call that my PDFE statement.... Prophylactic Defense of Female Emotions.) As we returned to pick Ava up from her sitter's I think we both realized that we had missed her even though she hadn't been on the forefront of our minds. My little BabyCakes is just too amazing to leave without missing.

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Saturday, July 08, 2006

Howdy!


I've uploaded a lot of photos recently, so be sure to to check them out.

On Monday of this past week we went for Ava's two month check-up. Luckily, I was able to go with my ladies (Doni and Ava that is) because I would be at the hospital that night instead of during the day. Ava just keeps growing and growing. Her stats are:

22 3/4 in long
13 lbs 9 oz

The downside of this specific appointment was that Ava was going to have to get FOUR shots! That's like getting hit by a shotgun full of needles! Ava did suprisingly well considering. I don't think that she quite understands yet that if she experiences pain, in some instances she could lessen that pain by moving her limbs (like stepping on a nail). This wouldn't have helped in her specific situation, but it was kind of surprising that, with each shot in her thighs, she would let out a wail but not really fight me trying to move her legs. I'm sure this luxury won't last for too many more immunizations. Thankfully, we won't have to go back for any more shots until Ava's four months old.


We've been trying to have Ava spend more time on her belly in the hopes that she will learn to roll over sooner. You see, Ava typically doesn't like laying on her belly because she feels obligated to lift her big 'ol head up in the air. Not being used to this, she can only hold it up for a minute or so before her back muscles start to fatigue. Her head ends up bobbing like a chicken eating chicken feed. She has been getting stronger recently though and can act like her normal cheery-o self for a couple minutes before her alter persona - Angry Ava - rears her little head. We don't leave her like this for long, but we hope her dislike for having to hold her heavy head up will encourage her to roll over to her much-preferred back position.


I'll try to get on soon to post some more later, but for now we've gotta get going!

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Monday, July 03, 2006

Two months one week and counting


We have a picture frame that has a 4x6" slot for a picture at the top and then 12 2x2" slots for monthly pictures of Ava so we can see how she's changed throughout the first year. This has led to two realizations:

1. It's already been two months!?!?! She's 1/6th of a year old!
2. She is changing very fast! Seeing her everyday, of course, we don't notice, but when you put her 1 month picture next to her 2 month picture in the frame its amazing. Her cheeks have filled out, she's smiling much more often, her eyes have stayed blue like her daddy's (YES!). Even though we have though since the day that she was born that she was the most beautiful, perfect baby ever, she just keeps getting more and more so everyday.

Last night I pulled a brilliant move while I half-awake-half-asleep-ly prepared Ava's bottle at 3:50 AM. To review a bottle's anatomy, there is the actual bottle, a screw-top that holds the nipple, and a cap that covers the nipple that you just push onto the screw-top. Since Ava has been eating slightly more lately (especially at night), we've just been preparing 8 oz bottles of formula for her feedings instead of the 4 oz'ers. So anyway, I take Ava's bottle out of the microwave and swish it around since it doesn't heat evenly in the microwave. When I went to put the screw-top on, the part of my brain that reminds me that I have to actually SCREW it on and not just PUSH it on (like the cover) must have still been sleeping. Consequently, I pushed it on and began only holding the bottle by the screw-top. I can attest to the fact that the laws of physics still apply at 3:50 in the morning. The bottle fell in slow motion (or was my brain just working slowly?). I'm not sure I even realized quite what happened until I saw that my hand was holding only the screw-top and not the 8 oz of formula that were now on the kitchen floor. Needless to say, I ended up staying up a little longer than I had hoped.

I think Ava may be trying to make me look bad. The other day she was laying on her playmat on the floor and I was laying next to her talking to her about how she should watch out for boys because I was young boy before and I know what boys think about. I digress. Anyway, she's happily cooing and waving her arms around when suddenly she lands a right thumb jab into her own right eye! For some reason this was uncomfortable for her and she started wailing like we had told her that Sparky doesn't love her anymore or that she could no longer suck on a pacifier. Doni stuck her head out of the kitchen and lovingly asked, "What'd you do to her!?!?!" I explained what happened and then counseled my little snuggle-muffin on the dangers of waving her arms around while she still lacks the understanding that her arms are under her control and she should not harm herself with them. It was a good father-daughter moment.

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