Evie Update

Another day, another nursemaid’s elbow

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Evie was having a fit about something or other and she flopped boneless to the floor while Sara was holding her hands. Suddenly, she cried out, clutched her arm to her stomach and yelled, “Noooo! Not again!” Later I found it funny that she remembered clearly enough the sensation of the first one, that she recognized it as the same. It seemed such an adult thing to say. Then she immediately called for a blanket and her teddy bear, for comfort.

Anyway, it was very clear that it was the same thing as before. They told us at the time that once it happened the first time, it was likely to happen again. It was a lot less scary this time having gone through it once. The doctor had showed us how to fix it ourselves, but our memory was not perfect. Sara tried it and it didn’t seem to fix it. We weren’t sure what to do about it, but I was a little suspicious that perhaps Sara had indeed fixed it, even though Sara didn’t think so. Evie had been crying and after Sara tried she stopped crying, even if she was still holding her arm close to her chest.

She said her arm still hurt, but I was still suspicious. I mean, this is the girl who’s still milking her skinned knee from a week ago, and still tells me about her “brave fingers” that got pinched in the closet door months ago. Also, the doctor told us that sometimes it took a little while for it to stop hurting, even after it was fixed. Sure enough, maybe 10 minutes later, Evie was giving us high fives with her bad arm.

So, once again, all’s well that ends well. At least this time it didn’t involve a trip to the emergency room.

In completely unrelated news, I saw the movie Once last night. I had never heard of this movie until the Oscars, when Falling Slowly, the song from the movie, absolutely haunted me and I had to listen to it over and over again.

There are tons and tons of good songs in there, some possibly even better than Falling Slowly, such as If You Want Me and The Hill. I think I’ll be needing this soundtrack for Christmas…

John Denver fan

/ Shane / 7 Comments

This one goes out to any Habitat for Humanity people from high school who read this blog and also Carl Loesch, should he ever find it:

She really kicks it in during the “I belongs”. Allow me to explain that one.

After Evie spent an entire day singing, “I will make you hurt!” I realized I needed to revise my list of songs I played on the guitar. Since I don’t have anything in my repertoire that is kid related except for maybe Tree Hugger from the Juno soundtrack, I’ve been playing some of the simpler songs I first learned on guitar, hence the John Denver. Evie’s favorites are “mountain mama”, a phrase that she finds endlessly hilarious, and “dawn is breaking, it’s early morn” a.k.a Leaving on a Jet Plane:

(I changed the word “die” to “cry” to make it a little more kid friendly)

She also enjoys “baby song” or “baby riding in the car” a.k.a. Last Kiss, as covered by Pearl Jam.

And just for bonus cuteness, here’s quick one of Evie saying a mouthful of a book title:

Shi Shi

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Evie has an imaginary friend that she talks about sometimes, named Shi Shi. Shi Shi doesn’t come up all that often, but I imagine as time goes on she will probably come up more and more.

So, the other day I was laying on the floor in Evie’s room and Evie said to me, “Shi Shi is in the closet. Open the door, she wants to come out.” I was like, “No honey, nobody’s in the closet.” She absolutely insisted that Shi Shi was in there to the point that I actually started to get a little creeped out. Eventually, I slowly cracked the door open, half expecting some alien to jump on my face and suck my brains through my nose, but of course nothing happened. I closed the closet quickly and asked Evie if Shi Shi had come out and she said, “No, she’s still in there.” So I opened the door a second time thinking maybe Shi Shi was the ghost of some murdered child who died in the closet and now lives in our house. “She came out,” said Evie and nonchalantly went back to playing with her barn.

Apparently I had a similar story when I was a kid, in which I insisted with such fervor that my imaginary friend was coming to dinner (Casper the Friendly Ghost in case you were wondering) that my mom started to think maybe someone (something?) really would show up for dinner.

Evie has been cracking us up lately by calling Sara and me “guys”. Like, she’ll say, “Guys? You’re done eating?” Definitely one of the best part of having kids is when they say these very adult things and just crack you up.

Speaking of good things about parenting, I have been very proud lately of Evie’s manners. She is very polite and I even overheard a comment from a stranger at the museum about how well mannered she was. She consistently says “thank you” and “please” (although this one takes some reminding. She mostly only uses it if it looks like you are going to say no) and she’ll say “excuse me” when she wants to get by somebody (I get a kick out of hearing her say, “Excuse me Nala” when Nala is in her way) and she says “no thank you” if you offer he something she doesn’t want. She’s also pretty good about “bless you” for sneezes.

The other day she was rocking in her chair and, thanks to her Richard Scary book, she said, “That’s piggy manners!” (as opposed to kitty manners. It doesn’t hurt that her favorite animal happens to be the one to have good manners)

In other news, we made some lemon oregano drumsticks the other day and they looked so beautiful coming off the grill I actually had to take a picture. And the smell! Oh man, it smelled like some sort of festival or something was going on on our back porch. I actually had two different neighbors comment on the smell! Let me tell you, that is putting your grill to full use, boy howdy.

The Arte of the Tantrum

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Oh, the tantrums we’ve been witnessing lately. Full blown, purple, mottled face, choking on the anger type tantrums. There are a lot of things about parenting that make you think about your own parents and what they went through, but with the tantrums lately I’ve really been thinking, “I did that to my parents?” It’s pretty brutal.

So I asked Evie if she had any advice for the other toddlers out there who read my blog and she came up with a couple of hard and fast rules for tantruming:

  1. The Tantrum Shall Be Out of Proportion – It is a must to pick something really small and trivial to go off over, such as not getting the correct flavor yogurt, or daddy getting you the stuffed animal you want instead of mommy.
  2. The Tantrum Shall Be Capricious – To keep them guessing, make sure you have tantrums arbitrarily; something that is okay one day should set you off the next. Pick something that seems innocuous, like “that is a nice dress.” That is what I chose to go off on this morning. This is important because you don’t want to become predictable.
  3. The Tantrum Shall Be Sustainable – Make sure you keep that puppy going for as long as possible. This usually means switching from one topic to the next as they come up. For example, you might want to start off complaining about the color of your spoon, but when someone tries to get you a new spoon, this is an opportunity to switch over to tantruming about which person got the spoon for you. Using this technique, you can keep a tantrum going for over an hour, easily.
  4. The Tantrum Shall Be Total War – Make sure to hit them where it hurts. Total war is not all kicking and biting; sometimes you should go for the psychological warfare. One good technique is to offer to do things they have wanted you to do in the past, such as getting dressed or going to the potty. These will really hurt because you know these items are important to them. Of course if they do try to take you up on your offer you don’t actually have to do it. This can actually play nicely into point 3. Also, if possible, make sure other people are around as this will embarrass everyone.
  5. The Tantrum Shall Be Victorious – If you absolutely must end a tantrum, never go out on their terms. Always make sure to get some kind of concession. For example, if you realize that they are going to out-wait you and you are eventually going to have to brush your teeth, at least make sure the brushing takes place at a location of your choosing.

Hand, Foot and Mouth

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Some friends came to visit over the weekend and, unfortunately, Evie wasn’t feeling very well. On Sunday, Evie woke up at 4:15 (Happy Father’s day!) and proceeded to have an absolute fit until maybe 6. It was a doozy and I was very embarrassed to have her behaving as such with company over. It’s one thing for us to wake up at 4:15, but quite another for the entire building to wake up then.

We soon realized she was sick with a cough, a runny nose and a slight fever. She’s pretty much always sick though, so we decided to proceed with our plans anyway. We hit up the Pirate Exhibit at the Field Museum…so maybe it was a successful Father’s Day after all! She had a good time at the museum, but on the way home she was clearly exhausted.

Sara had noticed that she had a rash on her hands and was a little suspicious, but later when Evie fell asleep and Sara took off her socks and shoes to get her into bed easier without waking her up, she confirmed her suspicions when she saw a rash on Evie’s feet. It was not surprising, therefore, when we noticed some sores on Evie’s tongue: she had hand, foot and mouth disease. I will save you from seeing some of the awful results that show up in an image search, but if you’re a glutton for punishment it is quite disgusting.

We confirmed with the doctor that there is really nothing we can do except ride out the virus. Our friends wisely ducked out once it became obvious that “irritability” and “tiredness” (which are more or less the same thing) were actual side effects, not just the idle threats.

So we had a couple of rough days, although she seems like she is on the mend now. She can’t bring her plague to daycare this week, so her grandparents are staying with her.

I feel really bad for her because she was probably as miserable as she has ever been in her short life. One of the things we did to help her feel better was allow her to watch a movie. Now keep in mind this is only the second time we’ve ever let her watch T.V. The first was an Elmo potty video. And you can tell she doesn’t see much T.V. because when the movie started and Tinkerbell came out and painted the Disney logo, Evie said, “That was great!” and jumped down from her seat and made to leave.

The height of movie technology

The height of movie technology

She enjoyed the movie, especially the songs, but she got bored before the end. One of the best parts for me is when she went over to our cat and said, “Nala, I’m watching a movie about you. You’re big now.”

(Note to grandparents, this does not mean she’s allowed to watch T.V. whenever!:) )

Another funny thing that happened this weekend, obviously we were taking her temperature a lot due to her illness and, as usual, she replicates what she sees. Therefore there was a very awkward moment for both Sara and I independently when she pretended to take our temperature…let’s just say we don’t take her temperature orally.

In completely other news, the other night I had a dream that I was in Wisconsin and I got a fine for not having a moustache.