Evie Update

Evie’s First Race

/ Shane / 3 Comments

In what has become an annual event, Sara once again ran the Comer Classic 5k conveniently located in our neighborhood. However, this year there was an additional participant in the kid’s portion of the race.

We were really prepared for the worst, since the weather called for thunderstorms all day. However, the weather held all morning until just after we got home, it was unseasonably warm, and everybody had a great day. Sara even beat her previous time by an impressive 2 minutes and 11 seconds.

This year, there was again face painting, and the kids took full advantage. I am always stunned by how awesome people are at face paining these days. When I was a kid, you got a rainbow on the side of your face and called it a day.

Evie asked to be an angel:

and Ollie asked to be a “blue monster”. I’d say he fit the bill:

Oliver has never had his face painted before. I wish I would have had a video of him when the lady held up the mirror for him to see his face. Despite feeling her applying makeup all over his face, he was somehow completely unprepared for what he looked like. A slow smile spread across his face, and his eyes positively lit up. He spent most of the day baring his teeth. I’m perhaps a little biased, but he was far and away the cutest monster running around that day.

Finally, came the big moment: Evie’s race.

Evie has been looking forward to this for a year, no kidding. She was so excited to do a race. Just picking out her running clothes that morning was a whole thing. She could hardly wait until all the adult stuff was over to get to her part.

It was a little disorganized, but they finally got underway. Evie was in the youngest age group, and I really don’t think anybody else was quite as determined to give it their all the way she was. As she came whizzing past me, just the look of determination on her face, with just the faintest hint of a smile, told me that it was that perfect moment when you were a kid and you suddenly got everything you wanted.

It was a great moment while it lasted.

Afterwards, Evie was almost in tears. “I’m not even proud of this medal,” she said. It was a heartbreaking moment. I was worried perhaps she was upset that she didn’t “win”, which was something we had discussed before the race. “Why not, honey?” “The race was too short!” she lamented.

Evie has been training for this race, and taking it very seriously. Unfortunately, the race organizers did not take the 4-5 year olds quite as seriously, and just set up a little dash from one side of the field to the other. It wasn’t a real race, any more than someone saying, “I’ll race you to that tree! Go!” is a real race, and Evie knew it.

It was a sad moment, and my heart went out to her. She was right, but nonetheless I wish she could have held on to that one shining moment where she was flying over the grass and her fondest desire was achieved. So sad to see that ruined.

Oh well, I guess that’s life kid. Get used to it.

That’s got to be the most embarrassing way to break your nose

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Evie traditionally does not like to put her face in the water. She gets this from Sara, who also doesn’t like putting her face in the water. I love to swim and put my head under the water, so I don’t really understand it, but there you go.

In order to help Evie get better in the water, we signed her up for swimming lessons. Swim class was a constant in my life for many years, conversely, Sara never had swimming lessons. So we thought maybe this could explain our differences of opinion when it comes to water. In any case, just having more opportunity to be in the water is probably the biggest help to becoming more comfortable in the water. And swimming is certainly a more useful survival skill for a kid to learn than ballet or music.

Evie has made remarkable progress in terms of her comfort level with having her face in the water, but it is probably due more to the fact that we make her practice her swim class “homework” of putting her face in the bath twice a night. As this is something that she doesn’t like to do, it sometimes takes a little encouraging in the form of Sara and I sticking our face in the bathwater.

It quickly became obvious that I couldn’t care less about putting my face in the water, since I often held it under for much longer than necessary, blowing bubbles and goofing around, while Sara was not super thrilled about it. You can guess from which of us Evie demands quid pro quo.

The other night, in an effort to spend as little time as possible under water, Sara decided to just dunk her face in as quick as possible. Unfortunately, she…shall we say, misjudged the depth of the pool. She slammed her face down hard and fast, eliciting a loud *CRACK* from her nose when it struck the bottom of the tub.

Almost immediately, the bridge of her nose swelled red and purple and started to bleed.

Right away, Sara thought her nose was broken. There was much speculation on whether the nose was crooked, or just lopsidedly swollen. She had swelling and a persistent headache for about three days, and continued to bleed from the pores on the top of her nose. She now maintains it was never broken, but I’m not 100% convinced. Her breathing was never impaired, so whether or not it was actually broken is sort of academic, since there’s not much a doctor could have done for it anyway.

Nose breaking aside, Evie has really developed a love/hate relationship with swim class. She gets so excited about going to class, practically vibrating with it as we approach Friday. At the same time she makes bold proclamations like, “I HATE swim class” or “Friday is the worst day of the week because of swimming”, even while she’s dancing around in anticipation (specifically, “It’s fun to swim at the Y!MCA!”).

Watching her at class is both heartwarming, and heartbreaking. There are other kids who are better at swimming, but nobody that tries harder. Evie doggedly puts her face in the water time and time again, even without being told, despite body language that clearly indicates she would rather be doing about anything else in the world (such as slamming her face on the bottom of a bathtub). Whenever she gets done with her turn in the water, she immediately turns toward the windows for a little encouragement from me, even as she’s spluttering and wiping the hated water out of her eyes and looking like she’s about to break into tears. But she’s gone from refusing to put her face in the water at all, to holding it under for 6 mississippis in the bathtub.

She might never enjoy swimming, but I have no doubt that at some point she’ll do it anyway.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Lately, Oliver has been picking up some bad habits from his sister.

Just in general, Ollie is always echoing what Evie says. I don’t think that is specific to him, but more just what two year olds do in general. Usually this is a good thing, because he’s learning about language and socialization. But going through the terrible twos is a lot different when you have an older sister to teach you everything, including how to misbehave.

Evie has a certain way of dealing with situations where she doesn’t get what she wants, where she sort of raises her eyebrows and gets this nonchalant tone of voice, agrees with what you’re saying, but exaggerates it to some ridiculous conclusion as if to say, “Okay, we’ll do it your way, do you see what’s going to happen?”. Something like, “Fine. Fine. I guess I’m just never going to wear clothes ever again.” It’s actually pretty hilarious; it’s petulant, but it seems like grown up petulant, not 5 year old petulant.

And now Oliver is doing it too. He doesn’t get extra rice like he wants? “Then I’m not going to eat it then.” He just absolutely matches the tone and posture and facial expression *perfectly*, that there’s no doubt where he got it from (and, unfortunately, I think they both ultimately get it more from me than Sara, which is sort of an uncomfortable realization).

There’s a couple of other bad habits he’s picked up from her, mostly about being afraid of things. He won’t go into the basement anymore, or even the living room if we’re at the other end of the house. Sometimes if you leave him alone (and he thinks of it), he’ll come running out screaming, “I’m scared, I’m scared!” I’ve asked him some questions, and I don’t even think he knows what he’s scared of, or even what “being scared” means. He just knows that’s what Evie would do, so he does it too.

Oh well, at least this way we know what to expect…

Anyway, it’s not all bad. It does my heart good to see him gaze at her with adoring eyes and just try to do everything he can to be like his big sis. He copies her because he thinks she’s the most amazing person in the whole wide world. For now, she doesn’t mind too much. It will be sad when she gets old enough to not want her little brother copying her all the time, or when he gets old enough to do it out of a desire to annoy rather than love.

For now, though, it’s actually pretty sweet.

Mischievious Fairies

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Evie and my mom have been perfecting a new game they like to call, “Mischievious Fairies”.

The game goes like this: mom and Evie (well, mostly Evie) dress up like fairies, complete with wings, wands, and fancy dresses, and fly about the house causing mischief. Later, when someone discovers some of the mischief, Evie shouts out, “Mischievious Fairies!” For our part, we just have to go around finding mischief and saying things like, “Hmm, I guess some mischievious fairies must have been here!”

Evie is very anxious that we find all of the mischief, checking every few minutes to see if we’ve found everything yet. In fact, this time they left little calling cards that said, “Mischievious Fairies” next to each piece of mischief they were responsible for.

I have to tell you, I love this game. It seems counter-intuitive to enjoy a mischief causing game, but the mischief is surprisingly low-grade stuff like tying shoes together, hiding pajamas, moving the bed out a couple of inches from the wall, putting little toys inside of shoes, putting objects in unexpected places, etc.

In fact, I suspect that is the part of the game that is fun for my mom: how many different little pieces of mischief can they come up with while also not really doing anything that will cause real trouble? I am constantly amazed at the amount of mischief the fairies can get up to in a short time, and how my mom manages to keep Evie from causing any actual mischief. For example, we’ve never had any hidden car keys or damaged items. Every once in a while Evie will tell me, “Oh, I wanted to do X, but grandma wouldn’t let me.”

Let no one think that this is not a game of skill!

This is why you never, ever give your kids the keys

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Sara has been letting Evie use the keys to unlock the door. It seemed like a good idea (Evie likes to do it, and it’s one more skill to learn) until the other day.

Quickly, before Sara could react, Evie and Ollie slipped inside and locked the door behind them. Sara was stuck pounding on the door while the kids danced and yelled, “Kids party!!” for a full three minutes. Her threats and bribes were no use, until she finally came up with, “If you don’t open this door right now, I’m not going to share my birthday cake with you!” Suddenly, the door was opened.

Moral of the story, never give your 5 year old and 2 year old the run of the house, but if they manage it anyway, birthday cake is your nuclear option.