Tracked Out

Thought I'd start out with a couple of pictures--both were taken on my phone this week. In the first one, Ava is crawling under the end table...she likes to crawl under/behind things now. In the second one she's desperately trying to destroy everything on the coffee table. (Please note: our coffee table is now completely bare.)

Anyhow, as you can tell from the title of the post--we are now on fall track-out! Even though I have a good group of students this year and I do enjoy my job, this track dragged on like never before--I think it's because I look forward the breaks so much because I can spend a lot of time with Ava. I've also needed the rest, physically and mentally...there is a lot going on here. Let's see....

**We are going to be quitting day care. The situation with the new teachers not having any clue how to care for Ava just got worse and worse: they never filled out her paperwork correctly so I never knew if/when she got diaper changes, or when she napped, or how much she ate. On Monday she had an unexplained bruise on her face, they seem to think she fell in or around a crib. That's fine--I expect a lot of bumps and bruises in this pre-walking phase--but to not have any idea what happened and to not have an incident report for me, even though I requested one TWICE, is not acceptable. She has come home with poop still on her from previous diaper changes--three times. She had the wrong diaper on one time (A SIZE ONE!), and an extremely tight diaper when she already had a terrible rash. She's filthy when I pick her up, too. ANYHOW--a former co-worker of mine (I worked with her for four years) now stays at home with her two little kids (including a girl Ava's age) and has offered to baby-sit, so we're going to meet up and work something out over-track out and hopefully Ava will be going there after track-out! It will be such a relief to know she's being well cared for again.

**We've not sold our house, in fact, we showed it today for just the second time since we put it on the market. However, we signed a deal with the realtor that he'll buy our house if it doesn't sell by the time we're ready to close on the one that we are building so that's good!! There are loads of paperwork but hopefully in another week we'll be able to commence with the actual building.

**Ava's 8th tooth poked through her gums this morning--with four on top and four on bottom, her mouth is starting to look a little more normal! No more vampire fangs.

**Our daughter is now completely mobile, crawling around and pulling herself up and walking around furniture like a crazy woman. She likes making monster noises at us---"RARRR! RAAAAAARRRRRRR!!--and has tons of energy, though she still seems to take pretty good naps and sleeps about 9 hours a night. (For some reason though, she slept a solid 11 1/2 last night, awesome!!)

**In less than a week, my mom will be here to visit--yay! We're very excited to see her, and Ava will have a lot of fun with her grandma! This also means that Craig and I will be going out on a real date, the first one since....I don't know. It's been quite some time now. We're going to a nicer restaurant than our last date, which featured lots of other people's screaming children. American Express sent Craig a $50 gift certificate for Ruth's Chris, a really nice steak place (even though I totally don't understand the name)....all he has to do is pay for the meal with the AMEX card. I think they sent it as one of those rewards for being a good cardholder, since he uses it for all of his business expenses. At any rate, we will enjoy a great meal for a discounted price. Can't beat that!!! I'm guessing we'll probably try to catch a movie as well, but we'll have to see what's out.

**I have big plans to read a few books (I have a Koontz, an Evanovich, and at least one Patterson to catch up on), and to work on my scrapbook, over track-out.

That's about it here! We're (mostly) healthy and happy, and now that the day care issue has been all but settled there's little to complain about. :)