Month: July 2011

Birthday 4.1

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Since it is difficult to coordinate everybody getting together for Evie’s birthday, this year we decided to split it up. So we celebrated Evie’s birthday on Saturday with Sara’s family.

I have to say, the day was about perfect. I don’t know if Evie would agree, but I think she got exactly the right amount (and right type) of presents! Just a handful of homemade and re-used gifts, and yet, probably some of the best gifts she’s ever gotten.

I hadn’t gotten wind of the fact that Anna was making anything for Evie, so I was quite surprised when she showed up with the most amazing doll I’ve ever seen. It’s perfect! You would never guess it is homemade, but you would definitely know it was handmade, by the quality if nothing else. It is a mermaid, which is perfect, because Evie has a long obsession with the Little Mermaid (the doll was named Ariel immediately) and yet she doesn’t have any other mermaid stuff. Also, Anna customized it with eyes to match Evie’s. It’s so nice that I’m kind of worried about her playing with it. On one hand, what’s the point if she doesn’t get to play with it, on the other hand, it’s the kind of thing you keep and give to your children, and I don’t want it destroyed. So Anna, I think you really hit a home run with that one, so I’ll thank you more thoroughly than an almost-four-year-old can!

And that wasn’t even the only homemade gift. Barb made clothes for both Evie and Oliver, with matching owl pattern. Evie’s dress is cute, but in my opinion, Oliver’s shirt stole the show. It was reminiscent of the tie shirt, except in the shape of an owl, with button eyes. It is adorable. Both Evie and Oliver really liked the clothes, and we couldn’t get them to take them off (not even Oliver, who was wearing a long-sleeve, black shirt in 90 degree weather).

And while I’m on the topic, Barb, I never really got to thank you properly for Oliver’s handmade lion, the way I did for the mermaid above. So hopefully the fact that he sleeps with it every night will demonstrate the proper appreciation! We are very lucky to have crafty family on both sides, and I’d like to think that our recent “gift mandates” have really inspired people to new artistic heights. I can’t even tell you how much we’d rather have one high-quality, homemade doll, then 1,000 factory made, licensed characters.

For our part, we wanted to get her a “big girl” bike, with actual peddles. She was doing so well with the balance bike, that we thought she would be able to ride a regular bike, with no training wheels, no problem. We had planned to buy a new bike, but then we saw and advertisement for a bike that someone was giving away for free. The bike was very used (the lady had gotten it used from someone else, even before her two daughters had used it) and my consumer-culture background made me feel bad for a second about that. However, we definitely made the right decision: Evie couldn’t have cared less, and even insists that the places where the paint has rubbed off were intentionally painted to look like that.

So we got the bike for free, but it needed a little work. In particular, both tires were flat. We bought two new intertubes, and I changed them myself. It was a lot harder than I was anticipating. Don’t you hate when you spend a really long time working on something, only to have it blow up in your face? Literally, in this case, and it took me a few hours to get the hearing back in my right ear. Somehow, when I was inflating it, the tube ruptured with enough force to blow a hole through the thin tires (and it was only inflated to just over half of the recommended psi).

So we ended up taking the bike to a repair shop and getting new tires, and another intertube. All told, we spent about $50 for our “free” bike. At first I felt silly for spending that much on a pretty used and abused bike, when I could have gotten a new one for not a whole lot more. But on the other hand, we did save *some* money, and more importantly, there’s one less bike in the world, and one less piece of junk to end up in a landfill.

As documented, it took Evie about an hour to become a peddle-bike pro.

Evie had very specific requests for her birthday lunch. She wanted, “fruit salad with mangoes, strawberries, and blueberries”, “the apple muffins like Grandma Kathy makes”, “kale chips”, and “chocolate cupcakes with pink frosting and red sprinkles”. This seemed pretty reasonable, so we obliged her. With all the goings on, we didn’t have much time to prepare supper, but both she and Oliver enjoyed our impromptu picnic in the winter garden on the Midway.

All in all, a good birthday weekend for the little miss. She worked it to her full advantage. She got us to sing Happy Birthday to her multiple times, convinced Aunt Anna to take her to the park at 6:10 a.m., and showed off her bike riding skills to everybody she could find. At one point she interrupted a bike-tour-guide’s speech by riding through the middle of the tour singing, “Look at me! Look at me!” She’s all moxie, that one.

Quote Monday gives schnozberries

/ Shane / Leave a comment

::Me hanging Evie upside down::
Evie: “Don’t put a schnozberry on my tummy!”
Me: “Do you mean a raspberry?”
Evie: “Or a schnozberry! I don’t want either!”

We were playing outside and we saw our neighbor in shorts and a tee-shirt. A little while later he came out dressed up.
Evie: “Was that your brother in the red shirt?”

Evie: “The first story is kind of scary, so I might need to hold you.”

We were roughhousing and I had Evie tucked close to my chest. I said something, and it must have been kind of low because Evie said, “I can’t understand you daddy, you sound like an engine!”

Evie’s first bike ride

/ Shane / 4 Comments

It took her about an hour to master the bike. Not too bad for a 3 year old!

Training wheels are for suckers! Thank you balance bike!

Tommy Tutone can save you money

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Sometimes you run into the grocery store and you don’t have your little “money saver” card with you. Or maybe you’re on vacation and you hate to not get the sale price, but you’re not going to sign up for a store card to place you’ll never be again. Well, in that case, just remember Jenny.

In most stores they can look you up by your phone number. So make like Tommy Tutone and use 867-5309. It works every time, because some other ’80’s loser signed up with that number to avoid giving their real phone number. And you’re definitely not going to forget that number. If you think you will, go watch that video a couple more times. It will be burned in your brain forever.

Link via Sara.

Tubes Round 2

/ Shane / 2 Comments

On Tuesday, Evie went in for another round of ear tubes. For Sara and I, this wasn’t nearly the proposition it was last time. Aside from the fact that we have been through it once, she was so young the first time that it was very traumatic to think of her going off with these doctors to be put put under the knife (can you believe she was barely older than Oliver is now?). She just seemed so vulnerable. She doesn’t seem that way anymore! This time she took the hospital by storm.

Of course, nothing can go smoothly. In this case, they forgot to put us on the surgery schedule. So we had to show up at 11:30 and wait for an opening, which didn’t come until quarter till 4. For an adult this wouldn’t have been a big deal, but for a kid it’s a little hard to not have anything to eat since 6 p.m. the night before, and nothing to drink since 9:30.

Evie was such a trooper though. There was no complaining, no whining, no bad behavior. She was just so excited and so patient. Evie got a “She looks like Reese Witherspoon” from the doctor this time, not the Shiloh Pitt that she usually gets…I guess she’s maturing? She was cracking everybody up at the hospital: telling jokes, singing, shaking her booty in her surgery outfit singing, “Look at me! Look at me!”, and finally, skipping down the hall to the operating room. I’m guessing that is not the typical response to being stuck in a hospital all day with no food, leading up to knives in your ears. Nobody could believe that she was so excited, so they kept saying things like, “It’s not going to hurt at all…” Why would you say that?? She’s obviously not thinking it’s going to, but now you’re planting the idea in her head. A girl like her is going to pick up on the fact that everybody keeps telling her it’s not going to hurt and start to wonder why they keep reassuring her.

I will give them this, the child-life specialist gave her a really nice blonde haired, blue eyed “buddy” doll, dressed in a gown/hairnet/face mask that was ‘just like her’. It’s a really nice, high quality doll (way better than all the junk they piled on us later, like the plush Donald Duck). Evie took to it right away, and took it to school the next day to show it off. She really cares for this doll, putting her to bed, reassuring her she’s not going to have any more surgery, etc. which is a lot more than I’ve ever seen her care for any of her other “friends”. It’s like they went through a shared experience together or something. I’m sure by next week it will just be one of the endless parade of stuffed animals.

I had a doctor’s appointment at 4, which seemed like it would be no problem when we expected the surgery to be in the morning, and even after, when we were told to come in at 11:30. As it was, I left immediately after she went down, and didn’t get back until she was already awake in recovery. I had to take Oliver with me, because we weren’t sure he was going to be allowed in the recovery room, and if Sara had him we wouldn’t have had any choice (ultimately, he was allowed in).

By the time I got back there, Evie already had them eating out of the palm of her hand. The nurse said when she woke up she just said, “Hello!” I imagine this was a bit unusual based on some other examples I saw in other recovery rooms of people waking up from anesthesia. Of course, at some point she ended up singing the “State Song” for a packed room of nurses (and by the way, go click that video and watch her singing it when she was only 2 1/2…ADORABLE!). Her performance garnered her $5 (which was $3 more than she got singing it at karaoke the other night). The nurses wanted to know what her youtube page was, so there’s the link.

One of the best parts of surgery is that you get a lot of popsicles. Evie was munching away on them in the recovery room, and poor Oliver couldn’t take it anymore! He just started crying until he got a popsicle too. We had brought some food for Evie to eat when she was done. Her special “after-surgery lunch” that she picked out was pretzels and a peanut butter and jelly bagel. However, when she tried to eat it, she got a little sick from the anesthesia. So she had to wait until she got home to eat anything.

So that was it, she slept a lot at home and was back to her old self in the morning, no worse for the wear. Hopefully we’ll get rid of those ear infections this time!