Evie Update

Evie’s Chapter Book List

/ Shane / 6 Comments

Speaking of reading, we do go through a decent amount of chapter books with Evie. Although Evie had the patience to sit through a multi-chapter non-picture book before age 2, Oliver really doesn’t. So we mostly only get a chance to read these at relaxing time. In between, though, she gets plenty of shorter books and picture books, with Oliver (although I have been sneaking in longer and longer books at bedtime to sort of ramp up Oliver’s tolerance). We often have two or even three books going concurrently, because usually Sara has one that she reads when she’s taking Evie to relaxing time, and I have one that I read when I’m taking her. Having more than one going doesn’t seem to bother Evie, in fact, the only thing that bothers Evie is when you close the book. She would prefer to listen to you read forever and ever and ever.

Anyway, here is the list of chapter books we have read to Evie as far as I can remember:

  • Alice in Wonderland
  • Through the Looking Glass
  • Winnie-the-Pooh (x infinity)
  • The House at Pooh Corner
  • Little House in the Big Woods (x2)
  • Little House on the Prairie
  • On the Banks of Plum Creek
  • By the Shores of Silver Lake
  • Farmer Boy
  • The Indian in the Cupboard
  • The Enormous Egg
  • The Tale of Desperaux
  • The Door in the Wall <– Not very good
  • Charlotte’s Web
  • Stuart Little
  • The Incredible Journey
  • Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (x2)
  • Comet in Moominland
  • Finn Family Moomintroll
  • Moominsummer Madness
  • Black Beauty
  • Pollyanna
  • A Light in the Attic
  • Where the Sidewalk Ends
  • The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales (Pantheon Edition – we’re talking 864 pages here)
  • My Father’s Dragon (Currently Reading for the second time)
  • The Long Winter (Currently Reading)
  • Caddie Woodlawn (Currently Reading)

In addition to the above, we tried Heidi, but Evie never really got into it, so we quit. We’re waiting on the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe books until she’s a little older. (Also, as Sara pointed out, we want her to discover at least some of the classics and read them on her own)

Some other suggestions we’ve thought of are The Boxcar Children, Because of Winn Dixie, the Ramona books, Bunnicula, or The Little Prince (we already own the last two). We actually have Mr. Popper’s Penguins from the library, but we already have 3 books going, so I hate to start a fourth.

Any other suggestions on good titles to read young children? What are we missing? What were your favorites as a kid? What have you read your children?

Welcome to the World, Sweetheart

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Ah, that magical moment in every little girl’s life, when she first sees a naked homeless man.

We had only recently arrived at a park we don’t normally go to, when Evie insisted that she needed to go to the bathroom. “Why didn’t you go before we left?” I asked. “Because I didn’t have to go then!” replied every child since the dawn of time. Luckily(?), there was a small stone building of the kind that can only mean ‘Outdoor Public Bathroom that is Semi-Occasionally Cleaned’, so I started in that direction, daughter in tow.

As we got closer, I heard the distinctive noise of a shower. “Hmm, that’s kind of weird, they have showers in the park bathroom?” I thought. In retrospect, this was probably ridiculous, but the bathrooms reminded me of nothing so much as the bathrooms at a campground or state park, which do often have showers. So my brain failed to send up the proper warning flags. “Hmm, that’s kind of weird, there’s shoes and socks in the open doorway?” I wondered. But we find all kinds of clothes all over the place all the time in our neighborhood, so that didn’t jump out at me either. There was a bright pink girls shirt that sat in our parking lot for two weeks until I threw it in the dumpster. There used to be a power line down the street with an entire collection of shoes hanging on it. So again my brain failed to send up the proper warning flags.

“Hmm, that’s kind of weird, there’s a naked man standing in the bathroom even though there is clearly no shower in here, and the door which leads outside to the public park is standing wide open where anybody could walk by or even walk right in holding the hand of a 4 year old girl.”

To give him credit, he seemed more surprised and embarrassed than we did. I find that odd. I mean, if I were taking a shower in the sink completely naked in a public bathroom with the door open, I would probably be nervous and jumpy, expecting someone to walk in at any minute. On the other hand, maybe the people who frequent this park know better than to go into the bathrooms, so maybe he takes a nice relaxing sink-bath every day with no fear of anybody barging in on him. And anyway, I guess I shouldn’t really try to put myself in his mindset, because probably if I were taking a shower in the public bathroom sink, I would probably just remove my shirt or something, and not get completely naked. But that’s just me.

We beat a hasty retreat and found the women’s bathroom instead. Of course this meant I had to wait outside while Evie went in to take her sweet time. You would think this might be the end of the story, but unfortunately the man quickly put on his shorts and then came outside to chat with me, sans shirt.

“I’m really, really sorry about that.”
“Oh, that’s okay, no problem.”
“Well, did she see anything?”
::please tell me I’m not having this conversation::
“No, I think she’s okay.”
“Well, as long as she didn’t see anything.”
::please oh please oh please let this conversation end::
“I think she’s fine.”

I have no idea if she saw anything or not. And I mean really, what’s the worst case scenario? Her life will not be ruined by seeing a naked man. Her mind will not be shattered. Let’s not forget that for the past three quarters of a year there has been a naked boy running around the house every evening, and she’s been able to cope with that.

Suddenly, the man looked at me with deadly seriousness. “If this were football season, I’d have to have words with you.”

Realization dawned on me that I was wearing a Packer’s shirt and ball cap, and this man did not approve. “Evie, please hurry it up in there, I do not want to be knifed by a homeless man!!”, I thought. I mean, look, he probably wouldn’t have knifed me. He was barely wearing any clothes, so he probably didn’t have his homemade shiv on him at the moment. Besides, the Bears/Packers rivalry is just good natured fun, right? It’s not like we’re in Philly. On the other hand, this is a man who was standing naked in a public place. He probably isn’t the last word on proper behavior.

(Side note, I would think that if you had a place to watch the Bears’ games, you would have a place to take a shower, no?)

I found some excuse to dart into the women’s bathroom on the pretense of helping Evie (“What’s that honey, you need help reaching the soap?”), physically speeding her out of the bathroom. I gave him a nod as I dragged Evie by the arm back to the safety of the playground as fast as I could go and still maintain my “oh yeah, I’m totally cool with chatting with half-naked dudes I don’t know (who a very short while ago used to be completely-naked dudes I don’t know) outside of public bathrooms about our favorite sports teams” nonchalance.

This is one of those parenting moments they don’t teach you about in books.

Evie’s First Ballet Recital

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Over the weekend, Evie had her very first ballet recital. She performed the frog dance.

She had a dress rehearsal on Friday, which meant that I was responsible for hair and makeup that day. Eek! You have no idea how stressed out about that I was. I practiced a little, and I have to say, the ballet bun turned out much better than I expected. I didn’t go full on makeup mode, just stuck to a little blush. All in all, not nearly as scary as I thought it would be!

Evie was very excited about the recital. She didn’t seem nervous at all, and I kept wanting to ask her if she was nervous, but I didn’t want to then make her nervous by bringing it up. It seemed like it hadn’t occurred to her to be nervous. But then again, of course it didn’t, because there’s nothing she loves better than performing for a crowd.

In fact, as I mentioned on facebook, that morning she was lying on the floor crying, “I need some attention!” I said to her, “Evie, in an hour you’re going to be on a stage with a whole audience watching you.” She got this slow, luxurious, evil smile on her face that looked exactly like:

It was almost creepy. My brother saw it too, and he said it put goosebumps on his arms.

Her recital was the day of Baconfest (posts to come next week), so my brother and I wore our Baconfest shirts. I wasn’t sure if I was a little *too* dressed down (hey, the shirt was pink!), so I was nervous, but it ended up being okay. At one point I saw a dad in a Captain America tee shirt sitting in the row behind us and marked his location. Always good to know who you can count on in case trouble goes down.

I saw the costumes at the dress rehearsal, but Evie made Sara promise not to look at the pictures so it would be a surprise the day of. I thought the costumes were pretty awesome.

The day of the recital, Sara took care of the makeup and hair preparation, and (not surprisingly) she did a much better job than me. I’m not sure how I feel about requiring makeup for 4 year olds. I know it is part of performing, and part of what makes the whole thing feel special, but it had me feeling a little “Toddlers and Tiaras“, you know?

I was pretty excited to see her, but then something strange happened. Almost immediately, as soon as the first performance began, I started to get a lump in my throat (frog in my throat?). It was very strange, and unexpected. I mean, in retrospect it makes a lot of sense I guess, but it really had never occurred to me that I would get choked up. And it wasn’t even Evie performing yet, the girls on stage were like 15. Next up was a group 3 year olds and I totally lost it. I was taken completely by surprise! I looked over at Sara and she was wiping tears from her eyes too. “Are you crying?” I mouthed. Sara nodded. “Me too,” I said. The extra funny part was that I apparently got it all out of my system, because I didn’t get choked up during Evie’s actual performance.

I was pretty impressed that, through the entire performance, none of the kids freaked out or froze. Considering parents aren’t even allowed to sit in during practice, I thought an entire auditorium full might throw at least the 3 year olds. Not so. Kudos to the dance teachers!

Oliver was so proud of his big sis. He’s really excited to do ballet when he gets old enough. Evie was really on cloud nine afterwards. I bought her a flower from the farmer’s market, and she got another from her teacher. She seemed so old, with her flowers and congratulatory hugs and pictures with her friends. All in all, it was pretty awesome, and I’m glad she did an activity that she really enjoyed. It really seemed like the performance was one of the highlights in her life thus far.

Vaudeville, here we come!

/ Shane / Leave a comment

 

Oh my god, they’re just so cute I could die. I can’t stop watching these over and over again!

We originally recorded these videos to upload them to the Jokes4Miles website. Basically, a Chicago comedian is trying to collect 5,000 jokes to help his son through his chemotherapy. Unfortunately, when I went to upload the videos, we found out there is a certain format we needed to follow (state your name, location, etc.). So I’m not sure if I want to go back and re-record them or not. But in the meantime, you guys get to enjoy them!

Memory

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I have seen Evie play memory with adults, and she usually wins. However, I never really could tell if they were letting her win, or how hard they were really trying.

Well folks, I played against her, and it’s no hoax.

The first game we played, she whipped me pretty good. The final score was 19-7, but believe me, it wasn’t as close as that sounds. 3 of my pairs were because I had control at the end, and I just mopped up the final pairs. About halfway through the game, I just started laughing hysterically and couldn’t stop. It just seemed like a magic trick; she would turn over a card and then just immediately turn over the match, when I didn’t even remember seeing that card before. I was trying as hard as I could, and she just absolutely crushed me.

Me: “Do you know why I’m laughing? Because it seems like magic.”
Evie: “You don’t remember, so it seems like magic to you.”

Well put, little lady.

Of course this might have been a fluke, so I played her two more times, determined to get a win. Both of these games seemed much more competitive, with me having a lead several times. And technically they were more competitive, since she only beat me 16-10 in both of those games. Go me!

After the third game it was pretty clear that I had no chance to beat her. She was so clearly better than me that she was simply playing on another level. Now, to be fair, my memory is not very good. So perhaps I am not the poster child for Memory Champion of the World. But an adult should be able to beat a 4 year old, no?

Me: “Evie, this isn’t even fair, I have a bad memory and you have a really good memory.”
Evie: “Well, that’s just the way life goes.”

Indeed.

She’s not perfect. There were a few times when I remembered one that she didn’t. But those occurrences were pretty rare. In fact, the few times she turned over a card that was not what she expected (like if she turned over the one to the right of the one she wanted), you could register the shock on her face. It was like, “How did that happen? Did someone move the cards around on me?” And believe me, I considered moving them around when she wasn’t looking too.

I’m thinking of using her new party trick to hustle people on the street for money. There’s no way they’d expect this girl to be so good. She doesn’t even seem to pay that much attention when you’re playing!

So…anybody up for a game?