Smiling at Three Days Old
Oh my gawd, I love this little face so much.
Ava's home now and getting settled into her routine. She has met all the animals (one dog, two cats), and everyone is getting along well. The animals quickly satisfied their curiosity and are mostly disinterested.
My mother is insisting that babies this young can't smile, but I don't know how you can look at these pictures and claim she
isn't smiling?
Look at the expression she's making when she looks at her daddy. (I strongly recommend you click on the images to enlarge them.) Is it a frown? No. Is it a scowl? No. Is it a smile? Yes. Yes, it is. And as you can see, Ruby is a very sweet and gentle good girl with the baby.
Ava Lauren, Day Two
Don't worry, I won't do this every day. Indulge me just a while longer because I just can't get enough of this sweet little face. Baby Ava looks almost exactly like her mother, especially in the eyes. She has really round cheeks with dimples when she grins which she gets from her maternal grandmother.
She loves going to town on her pacifier and being swaddled.
Updated baby slide show remains
here.
(Note the baby mohawk.)
Interesting side note. They have the babies LoJacked at the hospital; they wear a sensor around their ankles. It's kind of sad that we're a society that has to do that, but let's face it... we're a society that has to do that.
Speaking of grandmothers, my mother finally passed her kidney stone today after
six long days.
Cheers!
Daddy's Girl
Here's my brother with his new little baby girl, Ava. She was born today, 6/24/2008. She weighs 7 pounds and is 20 inches long (or "1 foot 8," so says her daddy). She has brown eyes and wavy brown hair that the nurse combed into a baby mohawk after her first bath. I held her when she was about an hour old, and it was the most fantastic feeling ever. I'm seriously in love. If you want to see more pictures, click
here.
It's Show Time
Am on my way to the hospital to become a first-time auntie!
BB King
No, BB isn't code for baby. No baby yet. I'm trying to take a mental break from the anticipation that's killing me.
I shot this with my cell at the local drug store parking lot a few months ago and completely forgot about it. I have no idea if B.B. King drives a little black Mercedes, and I have no idea if he was shopping at my local Rite-Aid or what the back story is on these plates, but there it is.
Listening to two new CDs this week, recommend them both, though maybe not to the same people.
Sam Phillips' new one is called
Don't Do Anything, and
The Offspring's latest is called
Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace. Check 'em out.
Stay cool, Angelenos. It's scorching.
Wrong Family Member in the Hospital
My sister-in-law has "dropped," is six days away from her due date, and everything is ready, so when the phone rang today, I was sure it was time for my little baby niece to enter the world. Alas, my mom went to the hospital instead. It's kind of serendipitious, actually, because she's passing a kidney stone. She's in way too much pain to see the irony of that, so please, keep good thoughts for her. She's 2500 miles away and was really suffering when I talked to her today. With any luck, by the time she's feeling better, she'll have a granddaughter to celebrate.
Baby Watch
There's no sign of my niece yet. The official due date is still two weeks away, and my sister-in-law's doctor told her this week he thinks she'll be going to full term
or later!
Later? WTF? No one consulted me on that!
I can assure you that I can't wait one day past her due date or I will surely (I typed surly at first... not a bad slip... I am getting surly) die of anticipation.
About a week ago, my SIL was having those Braxton Hicks contractions (false labor) which my brother promptly renamed Taylor Hicks contractions, painful and nothing satisfying to show for it. /rimshot
I had jury duty today. For the first time in a long time, I had to report to the court house (I usually get call-in service and never have to actually show up anywhere). At any rate, I was summoned down to superior court which is where they try the big felonies, and that always makes me nervous. The only time I've served in the past was about 15 years ago. It was a civil case, neither the defendant nor the plaintiff was a particularly sympathetic character, and so it was extremely easy to apply the law. We found for the defendant because the plaintiff failed to meet the burden of proof.
Today I came very close to being an alternate on a case, but at the last minute, one of the attorneys thanked me for my service and dismissed me. I was disappointed because it was the perfect case for me. The defendant was charged with a few misdemeanors, and the attorneys wanted to ensure that the potential jurors wouldn't be so offended by "cussing and inflammatory language" that it would cloud their ability to be fair and impartial jurors. I gotta admit, I'm both immature and bold enough to admit that cussing and inflammatory language in open court is
exactly the kind of environment I would happily embrace.
Reading the
new David Sedaris, highly recommend. He describes Normandy as "basically just like West Virginia but without the possums." Gold.
Oh my gawd, I love this little face so much. 
