baby things.

the thing that is so awesome about babies is that everyone loves them.  not that everyone loves your child, but that everyone loves the idea of babies.  this was something i really never got until after avery was born.  frankly i thought it was weird when people wanted to talk to me about her, probably partially because i'm from d.c. and we don't make small talk or like strangers.  i was also a little freaked out because we had a baby born in the middle of the winter, in a state where a lot of people don't vaccinate their children, and every night there was something on the news about a pertussis outbreak.  but eventually i got it, people like babies for two reasons: 1. it reminds them of the days when they themselves had a newborn and never slept more than 3 hours at a time and 2. even if they've never had babies themselves they get that this is probably one of the sweetest times in someone's life.  anyway, as a result of all of this people are really nice and make things for your unborn baby.  we have piles and piles of baby blankets that were knit/crocheted for us.  i'm not kidding.  i have a drawer and an entire shelf full of handmade baby blankets.  

however, i don't have any quilts if anyone is reading and feels inspired to make avery a quilt please be my guest.  she likes pink and aqua.

one of my favorite handmade gifts that i got for avery was a hat.  my parents each made avery a hat which i blogged about here.  and she lived in the hat that my dad made her all winter long.  seriously, that hat was awesome and we got so many compliments on it.  guys especially, which is funny to me, would go out of their way to say how cool it was and ask where we got it.  that hat is now, sadly, too small for her.  the hat she's trying so hard to take off in these pictures was from a co-worker.

dad, you should know that avery's still waiting for her hat for this winter.  no pressure or anything.

anyway, i think the whole point of this is that babies are pretty cool in the way that they seem to bring out the nice in people.  it's taken me a while to figure that out, when avery cries in a restaurant or screeches at the top of her lungs for no reason i always look around ready to make a mad dash out of there or at least offer an apology but people don't seem to mind and usually use it as an opening to talk about her or their own babies or grandbabies.  i have a feeling that we're closely nearing the end of the time when being loud in public is still cute and not considered a lapse in parenting on our parts so i should probably enjoy it while it still lasts.  but it's been nice and it's definitely made me more empathetic to other parents.