Part of the reason I have this blog is to write things down that I would otherwise forget. Pursuant to that, I find myself wanting to capture just how adorable Evie is so that in 30 years, when she is grown, (or in 15 years when I forget she was EVER a little girl) we can look back and remember. However, it is very difficult to capture in words the essence of who she is. Video would probably suffice, but she gets shy around the camera and won’t do the cute things I’m trying to capture.

It’s the way she uses a word correctly when you didn’t even know she knew that word. Like when she looked out the window at the doctor’s office and saw the mosque across the street and said, “Castle!” Or when she got off the phone with grandpa and grandma and everybody said “See you later!” and when the phone was closed she added, “alligator.”

It’s the way you can tell what she is singing by rhythm and inflection, even though she’s not saying real words, and the way she says, “Good job Evie!” to herself when she does something she’s proud of and you didn’t say it, or to let you know she’s done with something.

It’s the way she loves to play hide and seek and giggles hysterically even though she has you help her hide and then she comes out before you’re done counting. And the way she then has to grab your finger and show you where she was hiding.

It’s the way she tells me stories about her day and what she did, like recounting to Sara our hide and seek adventures: “Under the bed?  Noooooo! Closet!”

It’s watching her figure things out for herself, like the way she figured out she could get things on the kitchen table that she can’t reach by ramming her place mat under them and then pulling them in. And the way she wants to do things herself, like this morning when she was having a crying / stomping fit because she couldn’t unzip her pajamas, but then running away from me when I tried to help her.

And it is the way she says “Whole wide world mommy!” before she goes to bed which is her shortened version of “I love you more than the whole wide world.”