Evie Update

It feels way too soon to be dealing with this

/ Shane / 3 Comments

We have come into something of a sticky situation regarding Evie’s social interaction. It has become apparent that Evie’s a part of a group at school, and there is another girl that that group doesn’t like.

After some delicate questioning, it seems that there’s really nothing about this girl that Evie doesn’t like, nonetheless, she talks about her in such disparaging tones. I have to believe that this is coming from the circle of friends (not to be a naive father or anything, I’m sure all those girl’s dads are saying the same thing). There really isn’t anybody that Evie doesn’t like (unless she has a really good reason), but it’s the thing to do to make fun of this other girl, so she does it too.

Of course, she’s too young to fully grasp what’s going on here. We’ve seen her play with the girl when her friends aren’t around, and they seem like they get along. Evie tells us she has a good time with the girl, but then later said she told her friends she didn’t have fun playing with her. She told me, “But daddy, I only said I didn’t like her when she wasn’t there!” and really thought that made it okay. I think in the back of her head though something is bothering her about it, because when I said, “Evie, I’m very disappointed in you,” she burst into tears instantly.

I really have no idea what to do about it. I’ve tried asking her how she’d feel if she were in this girl’s place. I’ve tried telling her that she shouldn’t talk about people behind their backs, but instead act as if the girl was always there, listening. I’ve tried reminding her that she does have fun with this girl, and she shouldn’t say she doesn’t like her if it’s not true. I’ve tried just about everything I could think of.

It’s kind of the worst part about childhood, and I’d really rather she didn’t participate in it. Do we just throw our hands up and say, “that’s childhood?” Is this just girls being girls? Aren’t you supposed to be older than 4 before you start getting catty with the other girls? Is this happening younger now then when we were kids?

Quote Monday is growing fast

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Evie: “I must be like an adult now.”
Me: “Why’s that?”
Evie: “Because my clothes are getting too small, and Nala keeps biting me.”

It’s true that Nala bites Sara’s ankles like it’s her job.

Me: “Are these shoes okay? They’re not too small?”
Evie: “Well, they’re not too big, either.”

Evie spontaneously made up a new verse for the old rhyme below. I thought it was pretty good! Making the move from singer to singer/songwriter?

Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened,the birds began to sing;
Wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king?

The king was in his counting house, counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlor, eating bread and honey.
The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes;
When down came a blackbird and snatched off her nose.

***Evie’s new verse***

The cook was in the kitchen, stirring up a brew,
When down came the blackbird and snatched off his too!

Problem Solved?

/ Shane / Leave a comment

For a long time now, Evie has been scared of the basement, particularly of all the monsters that live down there. It seemed somewhat justified; there are scary basement monsters down there! Just kidding, but I bet it was a little frightening to be 3 years old in the basement, all by her lonesome. Not to mention it was sometimes a pain if she woke up in the night to have to go all the way down there. The one nice thing about her being afraid of everything was that, if you put her in her room for relaxing time, she stayed there! Sometimes she would make a break for it, grabbing the largest stuffed animal she could find and sprinting upstairs (and hopefully the gate wasn’t closed when she got to the top of the stairs!), but mostly she stayed put. The whole thing seemed to get worse and worse as time went on, until it got to the point that she would hardly leave the room we were in. She wouldn’t even go to the bathroom next to the kitchen if we were in the kitchen and the door was open, and I maintained eye contact the entire time. Too many monsters.

All of a sudden, the situation reversed itself, without us doing anything. In fact, with us specifically doing nothing: we didn’t want to push the issue and force her, because we sensed that would make it worse. So we literally did nothing. In retrospect, the first signs were that she would sometimes coax Oliver to go into other rooms with her. He couldn’t care less, so he was happy to take her in other rooms, downstairs, etc. But then one day she just decided that it was okay to go in other rooms. Suddenly, she will happily go downstairs by herself to look for a toy she wants, or get an article of clothing. I try to show no reaction, but internally I am always stunned. In fact, she has even started going to the bathroom by herself in the middle of the night. Sometimes we don’t even know she did until she tells us in the morning.

Don’t get me wrong, I am absolutely thrilled with the turn of events. It could be very frustrating sometimes when you asked her to do something (get something for you, go to the bathroom by herself, help you in any way) and she declined because she was “scared”. But I really have no idea what could have changed her mind. I can’t think of a single thing that changed, other than just being older. I guess that’s what it took, I don’t know.

Now if we could only get her to stop answering for Oliver before he gets a chance to speak…

Ice Skating Update

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Finally got my ice skates sharpened and gave them a try. They worked great, but I have a blister on my big toe. We rented Evie one size bigger of ice skates and they seemed to fit much better. They were single blades, they don’t have double blades in that size, but she didn’t seem to mind. In fact, I don’t know if it was because of the different skates or not, but she did fantastic! She was only holding on to my hand with one hand and I think 3 different times we went all the way around without her falling down. She was in a great mood and really enjoyed skating the whole time, even laughing when she fell down. She didn’t want to leave. Too bad next weekend is the last weekend before it closes for the season!

Speling

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Lately, Evie has been doing a lot of writing. Originally she was asking us constantly to spell things for her, but we eventually convinced her to try to figure it out on her own. Since then she has been scribbling away, writing more or less phonetically. She’s actually amazingly good at it, but sometimes it can be very difficult to figure out what she wrote. For example, she might write something like:

Im Sary For Wat Im Sary For Lav Evie Fram Evie

In addition to some questionable spelling, the letters are not always formed in the most clear manner, and she’s not big on putting spaces between words. It’s very adorable, but it is also extremely tricky: if she hands you a note, you must read it correctly, and not let on that it’s not perfect. It absolutely breaks her heart if she’s written it incorrectly. We try to explain to her how much it means to have something written by her, even if it’s wrong, and how it doesn’t really matter if something is spelled correctly, as long as the person who reads it understands it. Doesn’t matter. Poor girl.

The worst part is that she sometimes tricks you into a trap. You’ll end up spelling something to her, only to have her totally flip out when she realizes that’s not how she’s been spelling something. She’s such a perfectionist. Yesterday I accidentally spelled “love”, only to have her immediately break into tears when I didn’t spell it “lav”, the way she has been spelling it.

It would be impossible to keep up the charade forever because she never misses anything. Inevitably, she’s going to learn how to spell everything correctly, no matter what we do. But I hope we can drag it out a little bit longer. It’s just so cute, and I will be sad when its over.