Evie Update

Holy (Quarter) Cow!

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Over the weekend we made a quick trip to pick up our quarter of a cow. Sara’s cousins raise a couple of cows every year for butchering. They feed them, etc. until they are ready, and then they end up on the block. This year we got in on the action and purchased a quarter of one of the cows.

We weren’t exactly sure what we were doing. We really don’t eat that much meat and we are certainly no experts on what the different cuts of steak, types of preparation, etc. are. So luckily we had Lisa (Sara’s cousin) there to sort of help guide us a little bit. I’m sure it takes some time until you figure out exactly what you want, and how much you can eat.

If you’re wondering how much beef a quarter of a cow comes out to, ours had a “hanging weight” of 203 lbs. We got a whopping 77 lbs. of ground beef (although it turned into only 55 lbs. because we ordered it lean). When you see it all piled up together, it is quite an impressive sight. I get the meat sweats just thinking about it. Even after trying to clean out our chest freezer and throwing some stuff away, the meat just barely fits. It is absolutely full up to the top (well, to be fair, we do have some other stuff in there besides just beef).

I don’t think we’ll be able to finish all that in a year. I doubt there has ever been a year where I have eaten that much beef. 55 lbs. of hamburger alone seems pretty daunting. That’s more than a pound of hamburger a week! On the other hand, since we have it already, we will probably be eating a lot more beef than we would have otherwise. So if you come to stay at our house, expect to be eating some beef!

In other news, Evie and I have started a parent / child soccer class. So far Evie really loves it. For her age group, they don’t actually play soccer games or anything. It’s more like fun stuff in a soccer context, like kicking bubbles and warming up with races and games of red light / green light. It’s a 12 week class, so hopefully she won’t get bored before the end.

Completely by coincidence, Evie’s jersey is #4. Read into that what you will. I think it means she is destined for soccer greatness, and then ultimately to break my heart.

Pronuciation Guide

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Evie has a certain way of saying things. Some of this is just kid stuff, like saying “w” instead of “L”, as in “I wove you mommy!” Some of it seems to be more based on her personally, not generic kid pronunciation. This isn’t so crazy; we all pronounce things a little differently, whether we have an accent or not. But I would expect that we would be able to trace the way she says things to the way Sara or I pronounce things. That doesn’t always seem to be the case. (Although this isn’t so crazy either, since it has been well documented that I say “both” as if it had a “w” and an “l” in it (bowlth) even though I have no idea where this came from, since I don’t know anybody who says it that way).

So in Evie-speak, any “oo” sound becomes “ew”, such as “smewch” or the way the ghost lights say “bew”. The exception to this rule is when the “oo” is followed by a “th”, which turns into a “v” and the “oo” gets extended. For example, after I shave, my face is “smooove” and Evie and mommy like to drink “smooovies”. The strangest one is that “yeah” becomes “yay-yah” – like Dave Chappelle doing a Lil’ John impression.

In a completely unrelated note, I mentioned that Evie has this thing where she re-writes her memories of events to suit herself, by asking Sara if she did something, when she knows very well Sara did *not* do that thing. The usual example is me putting on Evie’s socks and shoes to get ready to go, even though she wants Sara to do it. So after she cries and fights me, but I finally get them on, she runs tearfully to Sara and says, “Mommy, did you put on my socks and shoes?” and Sara says, “Yes.” As soon as this happens, Evie stops crying and is just as happy as if she had gotten her way in the first place and Sara really had put on her shoes.

So the other day, it was time to put Evie’s shoes and socks on, and Evie informed us that she would like “Daddy to trick [her]” by putting on her socks and shoes, after which mommy would say she did it. We went about the whole charade, complete with fake crying on her part. And after I got her shoes and socks on, she went to Sara (who had stood right there watching the whole thing) and said, “Mommy, did you put my socks and shoes on?” and after Sara said “Yes,” Evie had a big smile on her face. 

Sometimes I wonder who is tricking who.

The next day she took it a step further. This time, I wasn’t even there. She wanted Sara to put her shoes and socks on and then tell her that I was in fact there, and I had tricked her by putting her shoes and socks on and then had Sara tell Evie that it was really Sara who put her shoes on. Except, it really was Sara that put her shoes on! So it was like a secret agent double cross type situation, where she wanted Sara to lie about lying to her and it looped all around again…look, even I can barely keep up with it at this point!

Future Music Star

/ Shane / 7 Comments

There’s nothing Evie likes more than singing songs. If you notice a common theme among her videos, it’s that they tend to be at the table. That’s because we make her sing for her supper. No, actually, I don’t know why she likes to sing at eating time, but that just happens to be when the mood usually takes her. Over Thanksgiving, some of the relatives got treated to the dinner theater we usually deal with.

First up, Rockin in the free world by Neil Young:

My favorite part is when she “messes up” in the beginning.

Yes, that song contains such fantastic toddler lyrics as, “Don’t feel like Satan, but I am to them” and “she puts the kid away and she’s gone to get a hit”, but don’t worry: the next video will prove that she has no idea what words she is singing. And besides, she self edited that line to “she’s gone to get ahead”.

Hakuna Matata from the Lion King:

Alice

/ Shane / 4 Comments

Evie has recently become obsessed with Alice in Wonderland. She has 2 slightly different versions of the Little Golden Book summary of the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland. (Kind of like a game of telephone, isn’t it? A translation of a translation.) It’s not all that surprising that she’s into it, considering it stars a little girl, a cat, and a rabbit; probably Evie’s three favorite things to hear stories about.

Imagine her delight when she found a copy of the original Lewis Carrol book on my nightstand.

I bought it at a used book sale some time ago, meaning to read it, but never quite getting around to it. Evie, however, was desperate to read it immediately. Sara and I figured that she was probably ready for chapter books and, though it’s probably not the one I would have chosen, it would do. So I started reading it to Evie before bed.

I’m not sure why Evie liked the book so much. She mostly seemed bored while we were reading it and asked for more pictures. Alice is quite a precocious little girl and most (if not all) of the story went right over Evie’s head. After we finished reading she would ask me what happened and I would try to summarize it in a way that would be more interesting to her. But every night she would demand that book, even when I tried to get her to read something else.

Now it so happens that around this time we stumbled across an Alice in Wonderland play being put on by the Chicago Kids Company. The timing was too perfect, so we had to go (in fact, Evie and I finished the last page of the book the morning of the show).

Tickets were pretty cheap, and, the day of, Evie and I were pretty excited about it. It was definitely designed for kids and was very interactive. There was yelling, counting, and even a dance section. During the dancing Evie mimicked Alice exactly, move for move. Because most of the theater was full of school kids, Evie and I ended up in the very front row. This was pretty cool, but maybe a little scary for Evie. At one point, the White Rabbit ran through the row right behind us and then down the stairs next to Evie and she about clawed my leg off trying to get into my lap away from him! Evie had insisted on bringing her stuffed bunny to the show, and, whenever the White Rabbit was on stage, she would hold her bunny up so he could “see”. Afterwards, the characters all waited out front to say hi to the kids. Evie was a little nervous, so she wouldn’t get too close, but she did show her bunny to the White Rabbit. He said that it looked like one of his cousins, and I think that was a highpoint for Evie.

I asked her what her favorite part was and she said the singing (it was a musical). She liked seeing all the characters she expected to see. The play was about an hour, and there was no question about Evie sitting still for it. She was enthralled and probably could have gone another hour, no problem. Huge attention span on that girl. (Side note: the theater company must have been a little leery about the Queen of Heart’s famous “Off with their heads!” line, because when it came time to deliver it, they decided to go with, “Off to the dungeon!” instead)

Since Evie’s main exposure to Alice was from the book and not the Disney movie (which she’s never seen), I imagine her perspective on the show was a little different than the average audience member. She kept asking for obscure characters like the Griffin, the Duchess and the Mock Turtle. Her favorite character in the book is the Griffin, which she knows has a “birdie face and lion legs”. She has decided in particular that the Griffin in Alice in Wonderland’s face is red, like a cardinal. She was not quite sure what to make of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. I seem to remember them being a big part of the movie, but they aren’t in the book at all.

Anyway, it was a great day and I’m sure Evie will be talking about it for a long time. Already she keeps talking about “when we go back” and who we will see (she’s hoping for the Duchess). She told me, “When I grow up and become a mommy, I’ll take you to see Alice in Wonderland!” Unfortunately, I forgot the camera and didn’t buy a shirt, so memories are all we’ll have.

The Redirect

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Evie has been practicing a new trick lately, which I will dub “The Redirect”. Basically, it works like this: when she suspects she’s pushed an issue too far, she turns it around on you. So, instead of saying what you think she’s going to say, she says something she knows you want instead. I’ll give you an example:

“Can I have some candy?”
“No.”
“But, can I have some candy?”
“No.”
“But, can I have some…”
::raise eyebrows::
::impish grin:: “…smooches?”

As if that is what she was going to ask for the whole time.

I really love if when she does this. First off, I get smooches, or some other similar thing she knows I want (for her to drink her milk, etc.). Second off, for her to do this, shows such an adult awareness of things. She understands that I’m getting annoyed with her questions. She understands that continuing to ask the question is not going to get her anywhere. She understands what sorts of things an adult wants from her. And she understands that subtle art of buttering someone up.

As always, Evie amazes me with her ability to grasp complicated, contextual situations and behave in ways that I would have said were far beyond a 2 year old. Kids are so much smarter than they are given credit for!