Now With 25% More Chomping Strength!

News item #1:
No longer satisfied with 8 teeth, Ava grew a couple more. Now, you would think that her teeth would grow one-by-one from the center out. You would be wrong. So far that had been the case until she skipped her canines and grew molars on both sides of her lower jaw. Can you imagine what it would be like chewing with just your front teeth? No crushing and tearing of food; just cutting.

News item #2:
Ava has been pretty grouchy, fussy, and generally unpleasant the last week. We attributed it to her not being happy with having to carry around a cast all the time. On top of that, she got another cold and was coughing frequently. A couple days ago we took her to the doctor to make sure that her cold wasn't progressing into a bronchitis as she was coughing up a good amount of phlegm. Turns out she has an ear infection. Way to pick up that diagnosis Dr. Dad. It didn't even occur to me to check her ears! However, in a clinic setting, it is something I check on nearly every child. No wonder doctors aren't supposed to treat themselves or their families!

News item #3:
We have baskets under our coffee table that Ava feels an obligation to fill. We will regularly find missing toys in them. After laying her down for bed tonight, Doni was looking for something and checked in one of the baskets. I bet you can't guess what she found..... A SIPPY CUP WITH MILK STILL IN IT! We picked our brains and couldn't come up with when she would have put it in the basket. It could have been there for days or even weeks! We decided that it was not worth opening and cleaning to save the cup. There are some things that you just don't want to smell. Room temperature milk of undetermined age is high on my list.

Fall Down, Go Boom

On Sunday we completed our second trip to the emergency department as parents (see Hell Week for the first). I only remember going to the ED once as a kid, so Ava already has me beat! Here's how it went down...

While I was on-call at the hospital, Doni took Ava to school with her to get some things ready for the next week. Ava busied herself with the myriad of toys in her mom's new kindergarten classroom while Doni did some work. Eventually Ava started playing with the drinking fountain. The drinking fountain had been installed at kindergartener height, but Ava's toddler height just wasn't cutting it. Already a problem-solver, she put to use a nearby step stool that was 6-8 inches tall. No sooner had she stood up than she fell down. As would be expected, she cried, but no more than she normally does after falling down when sleepy. Doni picked her up and called it a day. When she got home she laid Ava down for her nap without a fuss.

After a couple hours (the normal length of her naps) Ava started crying hysterically. This was the first time she had put any weight on her legs since falling. Doni rushed in to find her unwilling to bear weight on her left leg. Doni got a hold of me at the hospital and we decided it was best to take her to the emergency department to make sure there wasn't anything wrong. We figured it wasn't likely to be anything worse than a bruise since it was such a short fall, but the fact that she wouldn't bear weight on it was concerning.

Doni took her to the hospital and I left to meet her there (unfortunately I wasn't at the hospital Doni and Ava would be going to). When I got there my ladies were already in a room. The ED staff had not yet seen Ava, so I did a quick little exam. She seemed to be most bothered when moving her hip. A physician's assistant then examined her with findings similar to mine. It turns out we were both wrong. Her hip was fine, but she had a fracture in the tibia (shin bone) of her left leg. They put Ava's leg in a splint and told us to follow up with our family doctor or an orthopedist to get her leg casted.


I took the following day off school to take Ava to see our family doctor. It turns out our family doctor was on vacation, so we went to see one of his partners instead. He called and asked an orthopedic doctor to review the x-ray to determine whether a cast would be needed or if she could remain in a splint since it was a small fracture. The orthopedist called back and said that he would like to follow Ava since it was an uncommon fracture.

Doni took the next day off work and took her to the appointment. It turns out she does need a cast, but she will only need it for three weeks. We were even able to upgrade to a water-proof cast for an extra $15 out of pocket. I didn't even know those existed! We decided to pass on the optional spinners and hydraulics (kidding).


Ava is doing well with her new cast. She is still reluctant to put any weight on it, but has returned to the crawling that she was so speedy at previously. We've even had our first bath with it on. It just drips dry! How cool is that?

We appreciate your prayers for a quick recovery.

Ohio - Show me what ya' got (Part 3)

On Thursday we continued our trip with a drive up to Cleveland. As we made our way through downtown en route to the Great Lakes Science Center, we took in the sights of massive, decorated electric guitars lining the streets (Cleveland is home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after all). After a couple wrong turns, we got back on track and parked in the underground parking garage for the next-door Cleveland Browns stadium.

Unfortunately, the Great Lakes Science Center was a disappointment. Part of it, I'm sure, is that Ava is not the right age for something like that. The other part is, neither are Doni and I! Granted, if Ava were older and was able to interact with the exhibits we could have all had fun through her. Instead we went from exhibit to exhibit looking for something that adults could do without having to defend ourselves against the many pushy, sugar-fueled kids. We didn't have much more planned for Cleveland so we went to lunch and made our way to the hotel for a swim in the pool.

The next morning we left for what turned out to be, in my opinion, the best day of our trip. We started making our way west of Cleveland to the African Safari Wildlife Park, essentially a drive-through zoo. Since this was all we had planned for the day, we stopped at a Holiday Inn in Sandusky to sample the brochures in their lobby for ideas of other things to do. This ended up being a very good idea. More on this later...

The drive-through zoo was quite the experience. First, the cup of food that we were given at the entrance was quickly wrenched from my hands and a good portion of its contents fell on the floormats of our CR-V. I was comforted by the fact that this was fairly commonplace as we were surrounded by a food-cup graveyard. Despite being without bait, we were able to entice animals to the car just by rolling down the windows. Like Pavlov-ian dogs, they would stick their faces into the car searching for food. This is fun and enjoyable when the face is a deer or antelope, but when a buffalo sticks his massive head 3/4 of the way into your vehicle you get a little more antsy.

Halfway through we bought some carrots to feed the animals as they all looked so disappointed when they left our car with nothing but their drool in their mouths. The park definitely saved the best animals for last. After feeding the zebras we opened up the sunroof for the giraffes. I can testify first-hand that giraffes have massively LONG tongues. Doni nearly got a wet-willy that she would not soon forget.


Thanks to our brochure pit-stop, we decided to take a ferry to Put in bay on South Bass Island. After a 20 minutes ferry ride, we started what we thought was a less than a 0.5 mile walk to Perry's cave. About 2.5 miles later we arrived to the thanks of both my feet and my flip-flops. We did a little spelunking and later walked through a nearby butterfly house that surprisingly had more interesting butterflies than the Indianapolis Zoo & White River Gardens.


We later took a short walk through downtown Put in bay, a bus ride back to the ferry dock (the best $6 we've ever spent), and a ferry ride back to our CR-V. We drove to our hotel while Ava took a much needed nap. That day was a great end to a great vacation. I count myself lucky for being able to spend it with my two favorite ladies.

Ohio - Show me what ya' got (Part 2)

As it was nearly mid-day by the time we got to Columbus, we finished out the day with a couple factory tours. The first stop was the Anthony Thomas Candy Factory. Our tour guide took us out on an enclosed catwalk over the production floor. The best part of the tour was when we found out we could buy "factory seconds" for half-price! Cha-Ching!


Our second stop was Graeter's Ice Cream. This tour was less interesting as it was self-directed and we had to read signs explaining what was going on. I'm on vacation! I don't want to have to read! Worse, we weren't offered discounts. They did, however, have some mighty tasty ice cream.


The next day we were planning to visit the Columbus Zoo, but were faced with the forecast of a 50% chance of rain. As we had our ponchos in the back of the car from when we were rained on at the Milwaukee Zoo, we laughed in the face of a poor forecast. Besides, we might get to see Jack Hanna! The rain held off and the sun even came out in the afternoon. Can't beat that. I will admit that, after spending a day walking around that massive zoo, the three of us were beat. We all hit the bed hard that night.