Evie Update

Why not go for 3 Evie centric posts in a row?

/ Shane / 1 Comment

“Cee Cee said I’m fat.”

Yikes, I’ve always heard it can be tough to be a girl, but I didn’t know they got catty so early.

The other night Sara was sitting on the couch and Evie noticed that, even though it was night, Sara was not wearing her pajamas. This was quite out of character for Sara, since she usually puts her pajamas on as early as possible in the evening. So this break in routine was very disturbing to Evie and she just started bawling, tears streaming down her face, “Mommy’s not wearing her jammas!”

She’s really been into puzzles lately (since she got that puzzle from you Anna) and she is getting really good at them. It is funny to watch her do them because it really gives you insight into how her mind works. She is good at looking for pictures to put together, like she understands that if you find two kite pieces, they go together. Sometimes she gets stuck though, because she can see, for example, that there are two pieces that are clouds, so they ought to go together. If they are two separate clouds that don’t go together, she can get frustrated. Also, she does puzzles so differently than you or I. She doesn’t pay any attention to the shapes of the pieces, she is only focused on the picture. So she will try to put an edge piece dead center of the puzzle, if the colors match up.

Sara: “I don’t feel good.”
Evie: “I don’t feel well.”

Holy grammar police. I told you she would be a blogger.

“Mommy, I wrote this in my blog”

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Today’s post is from a very special guest blogger.

evie's blog

Evie drew this picture and then said, “Mommy, I wrote this in my blog!” Ah, a chip off the old block. And if you’re wondering what sort of blog she would write, “the red things are creatures”.

Weekend with old friends

/ Shane / 2 Comments

What a weekend.

We were visited by some friends from college who we hadn’t seen in a long time. We hadn’t seen them for so long that we’ve had a kid since then and they’ve had two. It was great to finally meet Ayla and Jackson, and Evie had an absolute blast. Obviously she’s played with kids her age before, but the last time someone her age came to our house, she was too young to really appreciate it, or remember.

She was such a good girl sharing all her toys and things without complaint. It was adorable to watch her playing with Ayla and trying to hold her hand. I wasn’t exactly sure how she would react, but she was a perfect angel. I think she’ll probably sleep for a week. I guess it was fun to see Alexis and Gregory too. 😛

Mostly we just stayed around the house, but we did walk over to the garden and the farmer’s market. We took the train downtown to the aquarium, which was Ayla and Jackson’s first time on the train, and we (well everyone but me) hit up the jazz festival. I think we could have confined ourself in a padded cell and Evie would have still had a blast, but seeing the dolphin show was still pretty exciting.

Another highlight was when Jackson peed on my leg. I mean, I’ve been peed on (or worse) before, but it has been awhile (and it’s probably something you never quite get used to). I had seen him pick up a water-squirting bath toy moments before, so when I first felt the stream I didn’t even look over at him. That reminds me though of another one of Evie’s favorite parts, which was taking a bath with everybody. Every day she asked if they could take a bath with her again that night. Ayla and Jackson are much more rambunctious in the bath than Evie, who mostly just sits there and hates to get her face wet. I think Jackson in particular was quite a surprise to her.

The weekend definitely wore me out though. Alexis and Gregory are blessed by kids who sleep late in the morning, so staying up until midnight isn’t quite the hit to them! Evie hasn’t really been sad since they left, but she has mentioned that she wants to, “call Ayla and tell her I miss her”. She also said that when they leave, “I won’t be sad. I’ll just close the door and sit on my yellow chair and be lonely.”

So, all in all, a really great weekend and we all had a blast. We need to do it again soon. I really enjoyed having you guys over and actually hanging out with friends (something we never do!) I just wish you guys lived a little closer!

I think my all time favorite part of the weekend though, was when we got off the train at the stop right next to our house (you can see our place from the platform actually) and the conductor said, “Are you folks from out of town?” I said, “Some of us are, but we live here.” He replied, “Are you sure you want to get off here? This is kind of a rough neighborhood…”

Nothing like getting told your block is too rough for you.

It’s like a sign just for Evie

/ Shane / 2 Comments

This sign might seem strange to a lot of people, but not to me. Evie has been eating babies for a long time.

Link via FailBlog.

Misc.

/ Shane / 4 Comments

I just have a lot of random miscellany to update on, so here you go, in no particular order:

Some Norwegians came to visit. Meg, I really appreciate the effort you put into keeping in touch with me. I can’t count the number of friends that I’ve regrettably lost contact with since college. And giving me bacon / cheese popcorn doesn’t hurt either (although it wasn’t all that bacony, mostly just tasted like cheese popcorn).

Evie finally learned how to jump on Friday. She’s a little behind schedule on that one, so I was working on it with her. I’d like to think that my excellent advice to “put your feet together, bend your knees, and push with your toes” are what put her over the top. She’s going through a bit of a trying phase at the moment, so, after our initial giggling and hugging fit, the fact that we wanted her to jump again pretty much guaranteed she wouldn’t. She did jump some more on Sunday though.

Everyone was sick, back to back. It took each of us about 4 days to shake it, so we had a rough patch for about 12 days.

American History X, good movie!  Really good! Has anyone seen it? Oh yeah, Sara and I were the last people on earth who hadn’t.

We finally checked out the Harry Potter exhibit at the MSI. It was pretty cool, and well done, but not exactly what I expected. It’s pretty much a tour through a bunch of movie props. Since it was in the museum of SCIENCE and INDUSTRY, I kind of thought it would be like explaining about the special effects, or like “real life invisibility” exhibits or something. Not just, “Here’s the clothes Ron wore in this scene…” Also, our scheduled time was before the museum opened, which was pretty confusing to begin with, but they had a lot of trouble getting people lined up for the right times and stuff. You’d think for the money they’re pulling down, they could have invested in a couple of signs or something. Still, it was fun. I can’t say if it was worth the price of admission or not, since it was free for us.

Football is officially underway, and what better way to start the season than to beat the Bears? And the best part? I get the double win in the morning when I get to ride to work and listen to Chicago sports talk radio rehash the game!

We had fun at the 57th Street Children’s Book Festival over the weekend. Every year that we go, Evie enjoys it a little bit more as she gets old enough to appreciate the events. We listened to a story teller, made a crown, dug for pirate treasure, attended a music class, watched a dance troupe, painted and glued a paper box, and danced to some music (including jumping on some bubble wrap). Side note, Sara said, “Jeeze, there sure are a lot of pirate themed things here.” When will people realize, it is not me who is obsessed with pirates, but rather all rational human beings who are obsessed with pirates when confronted with their awesomeness.

Finally, the other day I opened the back door to discover an enormous spider web over the opening, trapping us inside. Right in the middle of the web, directly at eye level, sat Lillith the spider queen, bigger’n a quarter. I quickly slammed the door shut before she could spray venom in my eyes. Now I ask you, what could that mean with the web directly across the door opening like that, other than this enormous spider was trying to catch humans? Finally I took it out with a broom, shrieking and cursing the whole time. The spider sat for a while on the porch, memorizing my face before slowly sauntering under a potted plant. I could have squished her with the broom (at least so I told myself…that was a big spider) but do I really need the wrath of all the spiders in the world for killing their queen? No sir, I do not. So I let her go and the next day she had spun her human trap over Evie’s chair on the porch. That’s right, I put a little fear into her and she decided to try for smaller prey. Me 1, spider queen 0.