%2 blogs

during our final days in thunder bay, i commented to several canadians that if we were lucky, ava and i would arrive back in san francisco just in time for the beginning of summer. this earned several quizical glances, but it turns out i was right. san francisco emerged from the summer fog a few days before we arrived, and when we landed the temperature was a roasting 90 F at the airport, and a lovely 75 F in our neighbourhood. we paused at our house briefly, and then headed straight down to the beach. for the first time, we equipped ava in a wetsuit - which markedly increased her desire to actually stand in the water and get sloshed by the waves.

a while ago i posted some performance benchmarks for drupal running on a variety of servers in amazon's elastic compute cloud.

amazon have just released ebs, the final piece of technology that makes their ec2 platform really viable for running lamp stacks stuck as drupal.

ebs, the "elastic block store", provides sophisticated storage for your database instance, with features including:

• high io throughput
• data replication
• large storage capacity
• hot backups using snapshots
• instance type portability e.g. quickly swapping your database hardware for a bigger machine.

ava has a strange aversion to the forested parts of grandma's property - it's really quite difficult to get her to take a step off of the lawn. i haven't really bothered trying to cure her of this paranoia since a) there is plenty of lawn to go around and b) it's kind of nice to know that when i'm not watching, she's not likely to run off into the woods! today though, i managed to lure her into the woods twice. the first time was to "look for raspberries", which i knew very well we weren't going to find. the second time was with grandma, to "pick blueberries", and this time it was a genuine expedition. there aren't many blueberries directly behind grandma's house, but there are a few - we found about 15 blueberry-bearing plants, with about 50 blueberries for ava to munch on. blueberries like to grow in areas where the woods is in transition between being a field, and being a forest. this means lots and lots of knee-to-thigh high undergrowth composed of tall grass and short bushes. ava won't have anything to do with walking through vegetation that's as tall as she is, so i had to airlift her from blueberry plant to blueberry plant. but, by the time we got back on the main path, and were headed home, she had clearly decided that maybe the woods wasn't so scary after all.

grandma took ava on her first canoe ride today. the expedition was led by my mom's friend howie, who is an expert not only in all-things-outdoors, but in dragging along small children for the ride. howie has two grandchildren of his own (7yrs and 4 yrs) and outfitted his kayak with a special "outrigger" kids kayak for his grandkids to ride along in. for canoeing, howie supplies those small fold-up canvas camping chairs for the kids to sit in. genius - i tell you! when i was a kid, i distinctly remember being made to sit on the cold, wet bottom of the canoe, and having my mother continually drip water on me from her paddle.

at first, ava wasn't too keen on her lifejacket. then we discovered that it has a whistle tied on to it, and life was good again (bless you mr. clever lifejacket manufacturer). once we set off in the canoe, ava was great. i thought for sure she'd try to climb out of the canoe, but 95% of the time she sat in her little chair and took in the scenery perfectly peacefully.

when you have a two-year old, it can frequently be difficult to tell whether they are trying to tell you something important / deep . . . or whether they are just spewing their usual stream of consciousness nonsense, and you are just over-interpreting. as i relate ava's summer adventures to john, he's been occasionally accusing me of the latter.

over the summer, ava's had several episodes where i suspected she was trying to communicate the concepts that a) she has another home, in california, and it comes with a daddy and b) she misses them. however, this completely contradicts ava's typical attitude which goes something like : "if you are not standing directly in front of me, i could not possibly care less whether or not you exist". for example : the number of times she mentioned mommy for the 10 days that i was in thunder bay and she was in california with daddy : one.

yesterday, when we pulled up to daycare, ava looked disappointed to see where we wound up and said "i go home!", "i go home!". since she hadn't seemed very sad about leaving grandma's house, i was a little puzzled. this morning, she made her point a little clearer. as we were leaving grandma's house, she said "bye bye grandma" and went outside happily. then she stopped, looked a little sad again and said "i go home! i go home!". we drove to daycare, and when i parked the car she looked really sad again and said "i go home . . . daddy! daddy!".

of course, ten seconds later she hopped out of the car and started chasing a seagull with a big grin on her face saying "chick-chick-chickadee!" (ava's got some inter-species bird identification issues.)

it was very hot today - probably somewhere a little above 90F (32 C), and jill and i took the girls on a great little outing to centennial park. we rode the train, splashed in the water, and slid down the slides. eventually, i got tired and hot. ava wasn't really ready to leave. as i was plopping her in to her car seat, she grabbed the keys. okay, thought i, no problem, anything to keep her quiet for 30 seconds while i do up these buckles. do up buckles. with left hand, shut ava's door, while with right hand, open front door. delay between left hand action and right hand action, approximately 1.5 seconds . . . any guesses what ava did in those 1.5 seconds . . . oh yes, she pushed the magic button to lock herself in the car (did i mention that it was really, really hot)?

before i had even really processed what had just happened she hit the button that opened the trunk. okay . . . good start . . . the back seats fold down, maybe there's a way to trigger that from the trunk? hmmm . . . no such luck . . . okay, "ava push the buttons! push the buttons!" ava obligingly re-locks the car. hmmm . . . re-investigate trunk . . . start contemplating trying to kick down the seats from the trunk . . . hmmm . . . would that be cheaper or more expensive than getting a window replaced? hmmm . . . hmmm . . . "kerthunk!"

god bless her, she pushed the right button!

grandma is still feeling better every day, and this weekend requested that we go on an expedition to the beach at lake mary louise. it turns out that ava is a huge wimp about even slightly cold water, and pretty much refused to do more than dip a toe in. she liked playing around in the sand though, and spent some good lounging time with grandma.

one of the many great things about having a grandpa in action is that he suggests fun activities . . . like taking ava out for an ice cream cone. hmm. . . good idea . . . come to think about it - ava's never had an ice cream cone before! that probably sounds like child abuse to anyone that does not live in san francisco - but the sad truth about ava's home town is that it's very rarely hot enough to desire an ice cream cone. consequently, we're not exactly flush with ice-cream providing establishments.

despite her late entry to the ice-cream eating game, ava tackled her first cone quite professionally. about halfway through, she obviously got full, but was too enamored with the whole idea to let go of the cone. finally, i drew on her puzzling love of putting things in the trash, and we made a little celebration of tossing the remainder of the cone in the garbage.

a note to our canadian readers: yes, of course, san francisco is in california, but NO it's almost never hot. san francisco is an aberrant blip of bad weather surrounded by an entire state that is almost always sunny. in the summer, we typically have about 6 straight weeks where we never see the sun, and instead are buried in horrible freezing fog and wind. and no, you never see this in my pictures, because when it's foggy i instantly become too lazy and depressed to get out the camera. and yes, i'm tired of explaining this.

with grandma out of commission for much of the summer, grandpa stepped up to the plate for many rounds of active grandparenting. ava thought this was just dandy. when grandpa picked her up from a friend's house one day, as soon as she saw him, she sprinted towards him and jumped into his arms. apparently they had alot of fun that day, because the next day, ava stomped around the house sulking and demanding "my grandpa! my grandpa!". on other occasions, we've revisited places most recently visited with grandpa and ava expectantly searches all over for him. even funnier, she went looking for him at the grocery store, because she went to the grocery store with grandpa last time she was in thunder bay!

ava adores grandma's cat, but, of course, has a very special way of expressing this. over the summer, i've found ava :

• lying on top of the cat
• washing the cat with the garden hose
• "brushing" the cat with a plastic rake
• "feeding" the cat dirt and rocks
• trying to put clothes on the cat

today, the cat finally had enough and fought back. ava and the cat were in the living room, and ava came running into the kitchen displaying a small wound on her forearm saying "bite you! bite you!" , "cat did it!". since ava was actually distinctly non-hysterical about the incident, i decided that perhaps there could be a moral to the story. so, i proceeded to explain that the cat was old, and ava needed to be more gentle, etc. ava listened rather solemnly and then said "i'm sorry kitty . . . "

(icing on the cake : over the summer she's picked up a distinctly canadian accent on the word "sOOOOrry"!)

today, right after nap time ava started throwing up her lunch. she cheered up immediately afterward, so i optimistically assumed that it was a one-time episode and took her to the park to hang out with grandpa. not so. after dinner - same performance. this time she didn't cheer up, and instead collapsed on the couch to watch some little bear. there are several amusing things about these photos

1. notice that she's wearing her shoes. while i tried to strip off her puked soaked clothes and contain the mess - ava went straight into a tantrum about not having her shoes on.
2. this is the first time i have EVER seen ava lying down for more than 5 seconds, except when she's falling asleep. this is also the first time i've ever seen her lie on her stomach.
3. anybody else think the bottom pics look like shiloh jolie pitt? it's not a resemblance i typically see (at all) - it's something about the way the couch is squishing ava's mouth.

ava and i constructed some people out of playdough, and decorated them with buttons. most of the body parts were assembled by mommy - excepting the amusing bits between their legs. i'm not sure what's worse - what they look like - or what ava intended them to be. we all know what they look like . . . but when ava placed them there she declared them to be "poopies".

today is one of the few days of this summer that ava and i were supposed to be in thunder bay. we've had an appointment for a visit to loon lake marked on our calendar for at least six months - and today was the day! this was ava's first chance to meet lucy and izze, daughter's of my friends joan and jill. conveniently, this date was set to coincide with the pinnacle of baby cuteness. lucy is 9 months old and izze is 10 months old - don't blink 'cause they'll be toddlers in two days. today though, they are adorable little chubby-legged, babbling babies.

joan started the day off in style by unveiling the matching sundresses she'd made for all the girls. smart gal that she is, she'd noticed that i take a lot of pictures with ava wearing green, and chose ava's fabric accordingly. we tried to get the girls to pose for a formal portrait, but lucy was none too pleased about sitting on damp grass, and ava just wasn't interested in entering the frame of the picture - period. the closest we got was this

the formal portrait location was close to the lake, and as soon as ava caught a glimpse she insisted on taking off all her clothes. the little ones soon followed. i then proceded to take an awful lot of pictures of babies in their birthday suits. lots more pics here

in my opinion, ava has been "spiritually" two for a few months already, but tomorrow she officially crosses the threshold. ava's second birthday will coincide with the happy occasion of grandma's release from the hospital! however, all the grandma-related chaos made it impossible to pull together her planned birthday bash at grandma's house.

thankfully, the post family came to our rescue, and hosted a lovely party birthday party for ava at their summer cottage on lake superior. moments after ava and i arrived, the wind started howling, rain started pouring down and the thunder and lightning show began. ava had never experienced a thunder storm before, and i thought for sure she'd have a meltdown. thankfully, she just looked sort of puzzled and said "noise!! loud!!" every time there was thunder. twenty minutes or so later, the rain cleared out, the sun came back, and we all went outside to hang out by the lake and roast dogs.

ava opened oodles of presents, seemed very pleased by her birthday cake, and only almost sprinted straight into the bonfire once. lots more birthday pics here

ever since arriving in thunder bay, ava has been on a miraculous good behavior streak. there have only been two exceptions to her default angelic behavior

1. she's been quite the screamer at bedtime.
2. she's become a control freak in the car

ava has always been a fan of (ridiculously lame kids) music in the car. it didn't take long after her first word for her to start piping up "music! music!" from the back seat. in the last few days though, she's crossed another milestone - now she demands specific songs. this is fine - as long as i know what's she's talking about. i've figured out what she means by "baby music" and "tick tock! tick tock!" - but a few other requests have left me sorely baffled ("ducky music!" "girl music!"). and if i can't come up with the right track in 15 seconds or less, there is a terrible meltdown in the back seat.

having figured out that she can (remotely) control the cd player, ava is now attempting to control the rest of the vehicular operation too. she has developed opinions on

1. whether or not the sun visor is up or down
2. at what speed the windshield wipers are wiping
3. who gets to hold the keys

this last item is particularly difficult to negotiate. i swear we had the following conversation today

• ava : my keys! my keys!
• cailin : i need the keys to drive the car. if i give you the keys we can't go anywhere.
• ava : i'll give them back!
• cailin : i can't give you the keys because the car will stop
• ava : stop! . . . a minute . . . stop!

today was ava's first full day at her new daycare. she has been adjusting to her new settings extremely well, but unsurprisingly she did not take a nap on her first full day. combined with a lengthy post-daycare visit to the hospital, and the poor little muffin was plain tuckered out. she kept trying to fall asleep on the car ride home and i kept tweaking her toes to keep her awake - she was so out of it she couldn't even scream in protest. by the time we got home, i felt bad for her, so we indulged in a very rare treat : dinner with ducky in front of the television.

unfortunately, ava's grandma is very ill. fortunately, she's getting better every day. to help her along the way, ava and i have unexpectedly relocated ourselves to thunder bay until the end of august. although the whole situation is obviously quite unfortunate, and we both miss daddy very much, there are few places as nice as thunder bay to be in late summer.

things i have appreciated about my home town (and the people in it) on this visit include :

1. local friends started calling me in san francisco with offers of assistance within an hour of me finding out that my mother was sick. (small town = efficient gossip network)
2. it took me all of 10 minutes with a phone book to locate a daycare for ava for the summer. added bonus : it's the nicest daycare i've ever dreamed of.
3. when ava and i arrived at grandma's house, there was a baby pool waiting for us on the back deck. (seriously, how cool is my mom's neighbour!)

in addition to serving as a grandma entertainment device, i've been trying to make sure that ava gets to spend some time experiencing summer the way it's meant to be enjoyed : naked and with water (if you're two that is!). ava's been having a grand old time romping around the backyard, blowing bubbles, hopping in and out of her pool and squishing the poor cat.

i'm currently working on re-engineering many of the development processes at digg. we're adopting a number of practices from the agile world that complement the type of development that we do. these practices include: build automation, automated deployment, daily scrums, short releasable time-boxed iterations, simple design, refactoring, and just-in-time specification.

we've decided to be agile about our adoption of our new agile processes, introducing them incrementally, measuring the results along the way and iterating as necessary.

as we worked through the cascading dependencies of our adoption path, it quickly became clear that automated testing had to be a cornerstone practice if we were going to make a success of the others.

recently i posted a couple of introductory articles on jmeter, a great apache open-source tool that allows you to measure the performance and scalability of a wide variety of services, especially web-applications.

i wrote these articles because although the online documentation provides reasonable reference material, it doesn't serve well as a jmeter introduction or tutorial.

things have changed a bit since then. the uk-based publishing house packt publishing were kind enough to send me a copy of emily halili's newly published book on jmeter, which is as far as i can tell, is the first book dedicated to the subject.

i have very few (okay, exactly one) direct friends with children who live in the bay area. however, the number of "one degree of separation" friends-of-friends who have children born within six months of ava is quite high. now that they are all mobile, talking and fun to hang around with, shannon, arantxa and i having been trying to organize some sort of multi-baby outing for awhile now. we finally succeeded today, taking a trip to the discovery museum with evan (five weeks younger than ava) and his mom kelley, and ronan (six weeks younger than ava).

ronan is the son of shannon's neighbours, and a last minute addition to the festivities. shannon wandered by her neighbours 5 minutes before departure and asked to borrow ronan for the morning. wise parents that they are, they responded "hell - yeah", packed him a diaper bag and buckled him in to kelly's car. ronan experienced such high anxiety about this situation that he drifted off to sleep for the drive over. when he woke up, he initially looked a little dazed and confused, but got more and more enthusiastic throughout the trip.

ava is typically very opinionated about where exactly she's going to go, so getting her to follow along with a group can be challenging. we did very well on this expedition though, by bribing her around with "crunchies". "crunchies" , in ava's world, means "snack food with a high fat and/or salt content that mean mommy won't give me very often. i have better luck with daddy." in this particular case, it meant an organic, baked and much healthier version of "cheetos" that kelley happened to bring along. ava was a big fan, and consequently was a docile little angel the whole morning. see full, annotated gallery here.

it was a typical fourth of july in san francisco. i awoke to the pitter patter of accumulated fog dripping off the trees. i expected this though, and had a fog-free adventure planned for ava and grandma. we started the outing with a visit to a lovely little neighborhood playground in belvedere. belvedere is a tiny little city on an island across the golden gate bridge with an entry level housing price of around $2.5 million dollars (i just got curious and looked that up). the trickle down effect of all that property tax revenue is a very nice playground with immaculately groomed lawns and playground-owned cars and kettler trikes scattered about for anybody to use. i think we might just come back.

after that we continued our journey north towards the sun, to the marin county fair. the big hit for ava was the "great american petting zoo", which featured some standard petting zoo characters like goats and sheep. and then some unexpected entries like a wallabee and a llama. we wandered around the rest of the barnyard, watched the chinese dragon dancers and then headed home for naptime. next year we'll come back and try out the rides!

today was ava's fifth swimming lesson at la petite baleen, and her behavior has improved to the point where i am willing to talk about it. there are many things i really like about la petite baleen. the first is the location - right on the bay, in the presidio, at the end of crissy field. see view from the parking lot to the right. not bad. the second thing is that they are pretty hardcore. these folks believe in the swimming version of "cry it out" - this means that no little bodies escape from the pool for the duration of their 30 minute lesson - no matter what. however, this very strict rule is balanced by a huge amount of compassion, patience and good humor from the instructors. ava's instructor said to me on the first day : "if we let them do what they want, then they learn to manipulate us, see?". hmmm . . . yup . . . got it. okay, you seem to know what you're talking about - we'll give this a shot, your way.

the first class ava screamed at the top of her lungs the entire time, while trying to climb my body to get out of the water. picture her hanging on to my ears for dear life. the second class, she was much improved, and only screamed during the "boat" part of the program. the third class was just plain bad luck. it was an unusually cold day, and therefore daycare was running on a slightly altered schedule. ava wasn't playing outside where she usually was, and we wound up leaving daycare through the "wrong" door. omg. meltdown. must never vary from the routine. never, ever, ever. i never really got her calmed down from the door episode, so she just carried on with the meltdown all the way through her swimming lesson too.

ava cheered up quite a bit for lesson number four though, so much so that her instructor was pretty much jumping up and down for joy. lesson number five was another incremental improvement. still objecting to the "boats", but she's lowered her objection to a dull moan, rather than an ear piercing scream. and, cracking some smiles now and again too. at today's lesson we were also fortunate enough to have grandma along to snap some pics. more pics here.

grandma has arrived for a mid-summer visit, just in time for our worst period of summer fog, combined with a lovely smoky haze from the numerous wildfires burning in california. we're going to try and escape at least the foggy part a few times this week, and began that goal with a trip to hidden valley farm in los altos.

i couldn't find much information online about hidden valley, so didn't really know what to expect. it turned out to be a sprawling complex of gardens and barns, full of veggies, fruit, flower and animals. really nice even in our current period of drought, and must be extra-ordinary in winter / spring when the multiple creeks are flowing with water.

ava still has a cold, and isn't quite herself, but we still had a good time. highlights (from ava's perspective)

• the "grape vine house" in the organic garden
• the cat in the organic garden
• the baby goat that kissed me
• eating fresh blackberries

low points :

• when stupid mommy tried to take my long-sleeved shirt off. who cares if its 85 F in the shade? i like my whale shirt!!!
• smacking my head really hard on the fence trying to pet the baby goat
• when stupid mommy tried to trick me into putting on shorts after my diaper change. it's just not proper for a young lady not to cover her knees!

more pics

today we took a trip to central park in san mateo, for ayan's annual photoshoot. i think ava really enjoyed not being the center of photographic attention, and i enjoyed not being the baby wrangler. we both puttered around and watched the madness, and i took a few shots and videos of "life behind the scenes". here's my favourite pic from the shoot, see the full gallery here

click read more (below) for live video footage of the photographer in action.

ava's had a cold all week. as baby illnesses go, it hasn't really been remarkable, or even particularly annoying. it has had a weird side effect though - ava is a little more cantakerous than usual and has suddenly decided that she hates taking a bath! i think tomorrow we might try the shower instead.

aside from the beach, the most popular father-daughter activity in our home is biking. on father's day, john took it up a notch, by popping ava into her bike seat and biking her half-way up mt tamalpais, to the west point inn. unfortunately, that was a solo (adult) expedition, so there were no photos. fortunately, they both had so much fun, that they repeated it the next weekend, with jonathan along for the ride as well.

the trail in question is called "railroad grade", and did, in fact, used to host railroad tracks. it's a very mellow dirt road, that gently switchbacks up the mountain with a technical difficulty rating of about 1/10. it's popular both with lazy hikers, and mountain bikers from age 7-70.

on this second trip, they finished off with a trip to the pelican inn, which has a lawn on which you are simultaneously allowed to a) park your bike, b) have a beer and c) play with your dog child (see video).

click "read more", below to see the video.

as ava gets older, she and daddy are developing more and more common interests. one of those is ocean beach. okay, ava's not exactly up for surfing just yet, but she does love to go hang out on a sunny day and watch the waves. ava loves all aspects of beach trips with daddy, starting with a treasured ride in the van, but especially the part where she gets as sandy as possible.

on this particular trip, ava reached an important milestone : she finally managed to get both feet off the ground simulaneously, in an action vaguely resembling "jumping". (see video at bottom). now, i think hope that her vertical leap will improve somewhat over time, but this may be one (of many) areas in which she is somewhat genetically doomed. john and i are both slow-twitch muscle dominated, and are loaded with endurance, but low on attributes like "spring".

john and i share a few more attributes. for example, we were both born with an innate ability to derive the correct answer on a graduate level math / physics/ chemistry exam - regardless of whether or not we actually have any idea what exactly it is we're doing. and, we're both hypnotized by bad television, although john prefers "reality tv" (deadliest catch, etc.) while i prefer "other wordly soap operas" (lost, battlestar galactica). it's a very good thing that we don't actually own any television reception devices.

so . . . how does ava stack up against her parents? perhaps it's time for our second genetics showdown . . .

john	cailin	ava
blue yes	brown eyes	pond-scum eyes
salt-with-a-few-shakes-of-pepper hair	brown hair	blonde hair???
medium-tall	mini	giant
mellow	OCD	OCD
flexible	stubborn	beyond stubborn
single-threaded	multi-tasker	has been spotted simultaneously watching tv and reading a book
meditates daily	last time sat down at home and did nothing for more than five minutes = highschool?	has yet to sit down and do nothing for five minutes

well, so far it looks like physically ava is just headed in her own weird direction, while behaviorally she matches mommy. of course, most traits shared with mommy are also shared with most toddlers. hmm . . . what exactly does that say about me?

click read more (below) to see live action of ava at the beach.

well, it's officially an unusual summer here in san francisco, as we have now had three summer heat waves. the first was around may 14-16, temps climbed to the triple digits, and we had a pool party. the second was around june 9-12, and in our neighbourhood it was more of a "warm wave". i don't think the temperature topped 80 F, but it was still an unexpected break in the fog. this week, the heat hit a third time, peaking at 95 F in downtown on san francisco the afternoon of friday, june 20th. we, of course, took every opportunity to let ava frolic in the back garden in both her "ghetto pool" (empty storage bin) or her "padding pool" (the nice blue pool), depending on how motivated we were feeling. we're quite positive that we've used our back garden more in the past 30 days, than in the last 3 years combined.

watching ava frolic naked in her pool while alternately hugging and devouring her frog , i was struck by three thoughts. 1) that kid is crazy. 2) why must she drink her bath water. 3) who stuck this long shapely leg on my baby girl?

as ava nears her second birthday, she's definitely developing many of the traits commonly associated with the "terrible twos". i can't even write a blog about her latest round of swimming lessons just yet, as i have yet to achieve enough "distance" on her behavior to consider it to be humorous. rather than rant about all the little annoying things that ava does, i thought it might be more fun to celebrate the many common toddler tricks that ava does not . . . (at least, not yet!)

1. bite, push, kick, scratch

or otherwise exhibit any sort of aggression towards people, animals, plants or even inanimate objects. she went through a very brief biting phase shortly after her first birthday, but it was clear that she thought she was being funny.

ava is the opposite of "pushy" around other kids. it's quite humorous watching her try to dance around the other children on the playground to get up the stairs to the slide. when faced with inevitable physical contact, ava just turns around and picks something else to do.

2. express much opinion about her wardrobe

she is a nutcase about her shoes. her new thing is to fling off her shoes and socks, take two steps, declare "feet hurt", "feet hurt" and then demand that they be put back on again. she also went through about two weeks where she wanted to wear her rainboots all the time. otherwise though, she is mercifully immune to her clothing, and has yet to pick a favorite color or outfit.

this is a good thing as mommy deeply enjoys the "dress up" aspect of parenting.

3. paw through the cupboards

our house is really rather lightly baby-proofed. we've got all the obvious safety precautions in place (outlet covers, gate on stairs, lock on the cleaning fluid cupboard), but that's really about it. we even have one floor level cabinet in our dining room that is unlocked and contains nothing but a mess of wires and cables that connect all the complicate electronics in our house. there's nothing particularly dangerous in there, but oh man - if anything in that mess got unplugged, i think john's head would explode.

the reason for our incomplete baby locking, is that ava just isn't a meddler. we told her that the wire cupboard was "daddy's cuboard" and she seems okay with that. she doesn't even bother with the cupboards that i haven't told her to stay out of. for example, she's never once thought it might be fun to drag out the pots and pans and have a good banging session. which brings us to :

4. enjoy loud noises

praise the lord, for my daughter has never once emitted one of those horrible, girly, high pitched screams - in either excitement or frustration. a few months ago she did finally learn how to yell (sigh), but it's not at all high pitched.

ava will play her various musical toys gently, but she just doesn't get a kick out of banging, stomping or shouting. i think if you played the lower octaves of our piano too loudly, she would probably sit down and cry.

5. break things

ava will occasionally go into hysterics if she accidentally rips a piece of paper that she was feeling attached too. to date she has yet to a) rip a single page in a book, b) tear an appendage off a stuffed animal or c) smash a toy.

similarly, ava never throws dishware or cutlery off her high chair. don't get me wrong, she'll take huge handfuls of blueberries and chuck them on the floor (sigh), but for some reason she leaves the bowl itself alone. in fact, i realized when i sat down to write this that 99% of the time ava eats out of a relatively fragile, glass desert bowl. she did throw a bowl overboard once, which caused all observers to say someting along the lines of "hmmm . .. maybe we shouldn't give the baby the glass bowls" and then we all forgot about it two days later. that was about 6 months ago, and she hasn't repeated this trick yet.

6. disrupt anyone's sleep schedule

ava arrived in the world, took a look around, had a good cry about the unattractive and squished state of her skull, and then promptly went back to sleep. and slept the large majority of the next six weeks, at which point she began her "11 hours a night minimum" sleep schedule. she combined her lengthy night time snoozes with a generous amount of daytime napping. yes, i was actually one of the 10 mothers in this country who spent some time searching the internet to see if it was possible for a baby to sleep too much. (yeah, yeah, don't kill me.)

the daytime napping has dropped considerably, but ava is still a champion sleeper. when you tell her it's bedtime, she now says "no no no no" and starts running around the house as fast as she can go. once you trap the rascal and get her in the crib though, she's all happy about snuggling down for yet another blissful night of uninterrupted snoozing.

just a quick update for any ava fan's out there who might be worried that by now she is suffering from dehydration and / or sleep deprivation. fear not. the situation is under control.

ava mourned the loss of her binky with great passion and volume for three nights, but has now returned to her more typical "i love my crib more than my mommy" self. it seems like it takes her longer to go to sleep now (we hear chattering and singing for at least a half an hour), but i'm wondering if her nighttime serenades are just louder now that there isn't something stuffed in her mouth.

and (thankfully) she's back to her morning and evening milk-guzzling self, tipping back that sippy cup like she'd never known anything different.

phew.