Evie Update

Evie’s Catalog

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Evie has unveiled a whole host of new tricks lately.  She said “Ma ma” for the second time (or “mom mom”).  She sort of took her first step on 7/7.  We’re not counting it as walking exactly, it was more of one step and then a fall.  But the intention was there.  She’s done that a few times since then. Today she started to sign “book” but she has a little trouble differentiating that from “all done.”  She has started saying “No” but I don’t think she knows what that means yet.  She has been saying banana (or “na na”) or at least repeating it back when you ask her if she wants some.  She says “Daddy” more consistently, like sometimes when she is handing me things.  She has definitely gotten the sign for “milk” down and she uses that one spontaneously.  She rocks and dances on command.  She will stick out her tongue when asked and, for you 4th of July campers, she now sticks her tongue out when you tell her to be “silly”. She likes to “meow” when she sees cats or pictures of cats, and if you sing “Play the drum” from her music class she will find her drum (an empty coffee can) and start to play. Her favorite thing to do is to walk pushing something that is about the right height, such as a laundry basket or her music table thing, but especially the step stool. She sometimes goes to the bathroom on the potty. She likes to pick out books for you to read and when she has a favorite she makes you read it over and over again.  She can climb the stairs all the way from the bottom to the top.

Signs she knows: All Done, More, Milk, Book

Things she can do: Wave hello / bye bye, clap her hands, flush the toilet, drink from a “big girl” cup all by herself, feed herself finger foods (what little she will eat), look at books by herself including turning the pages

Things she can point to: light, door, window, fan, books, Nala, ball, drum, mommy, daddy, grandma, grandpa, Anna, jump-a-roo, cereal, spoon, high chair, baby, belly button, toes, mouth, hair, ears, ring, necklace, watch, cat

Things she doesn’t really do anymore: High Five, So Big, Shake her head “no”

I’m sure there are more things, but I forgot.

2 – 11, 3 – 4, 4 – 232

/ Shane / 3 Comments

I haven’t had a chance to update lately.  Of course a lot has happened, we celebrated another month with Evie, our anniversary, and of course, the birth of our nation.

For our part, we went camping for a 4 day weekend.  The camping went about as well as could be expected.  We were a little nervous since we have 2 more camping trips coming up this summer.  It rained once when we first got there and our tent leaked, but there was some time before we went to bed and it dried a little bit.  The rest of the time, the weather was great.  The bugs weren’t too bad and the campsite was decent.  We mostly avoided the sun, although I did have two funny red knees from where I sat in the sun talking for too long and got burned between where my shorts ended and my legs bent down at the knee.  Evie slept surprisingly well, including sleeping right through an impromptu fireworks display right outside our tent that kept Sara and I awake. 

In general, Evie loved camping.  She enjoyed being outside, she enjoyed the swimming and she enjoyed all of the people, but most of all she enjoyed the walking.  She is not walking on her own yet, but she moves quite well when she has something to hold on to.  When we were camping there was an endless loop of lawn chairs, picnic tables, outstretched hands, etc. for her to walk and walk and walk around, from sun up to sun down.  She probably improved her walking skills more in 3 days than in the previous 2 weeks.

The only bad thing that happened was that Evie got sick.  She had an elevated temperature (the doctor insists it wasn’t high enough to call it a fever) and she would periodically throw up.  But when she wasn’t doing that, she was in a pretty good mood so it was hard to know what to do about it exactly.  Actually, the one who got the worst of it was Anna who took a stream of vomit full in the mouth!  Yes, you read that right.

After we got home, the first night was pretty rough as Evie tried to re-adjust to things around here.  That was just the warm up though for the next day.  Sara caught whatever Evie had and got as sick as I’ve ever seen anybody.  She literally could not keep down a sip of water.  In addition Evie was still throwing up, so it was somewhat disastrous around here.  So far I have not gotten sick.  My stomach felt a little uneasy here and there, but I’m hoping it was just paranoia from being around sick people.  We seem to be through the worst of it (assuming I don’t get sick) so perhaps they will not have to paint a big skull and crossbones on the front of our house and quarantine us as a plague house.

Although, it wasn’t all doom and gloom, there were a few silver linings.  For example, Sara lost 7 pounds in about 10 hours!  She doesn’t recommend it as a weight loss program.

Pickle Pops – Maybe I should try some after all

/ Shane / 8 Comments

Okay, I like pickles.  I would go so far as to say I *love* pickles.  But nonetheless, they seem disgusting to me in frozen form and I’m not sure how I feel about them being in kids lunches.  Call me old fashioned, but why not just give them a regular old pickle?  But I definitely think getting away from the name “Pickle Sickle” was a good move.

That link was courtesy of InteractiveReader, and speaking of which, this quiz is courtesy of her boyfriend, whom I am currently blogstalking.  You know, to make sure he’s right for her and stuff.  It’s practically a duty.  I’m sure she would ask me to do it herself, but that would be impolite.

I am Rickets. Hear your bones go boing.
Which Horrible Affliction are you?
A Rum and Monkey disease.

I feel pretty good about Rickets.  It feels kind of old world and dignified, as diseases go.  Any disease with the tagline “Hear your bones go boing” can’t really be all that bad.  Plus, since it is almost wiped out in the 1st world, it sort of has a nostalgia factor.

Today marks the first day that anybody pulled over to tell us how adorable Evie is.  We were walking back from the garden and they just stopped their car in the street to tell us.  So perhaps I am not just being a proud pappa in thinking she is indeed adorable!

The Incident

/ Shane / 4 Comments

So we had our first “incident” with Evie the other day.  She was trying to stand up in the bathtub (no matter how many times I try to tell her…) and her feet slipped out from under her and she came down chin first on the side.  I quickly picked her up to comfort her, but I could tell it was a bad one.  She did the thing where she is so upset that she cries out all of her breath and then there is a long silence due to the fact that she is so upset she can’t breathe in, followed by a huge intake of breath and then the loudest scream she can manage.  You can judge how upset she is / how loud the scream is going to be based on how long the preceding silence was.  This one was so long that I tried reminding her to breathe, fearing that she was so upset she would forget to.  And when she let that one out, boy howdy it was a howler.  Sara didn’t come in because usually at that time of night when Evie is already tired, if Evie sees Sara and then Sara leaves, Evie can’t handle it.  So I was holding Evie and I looked down and saw that the shoulder of my shirt where her head was resting was bright crimson with blood.  I said, “Sara, I need you” in what I thought was a very calm voice but Sara later said that she could tell by my tone there would be blood (and not in the oil discovery, I drink your milkshake kind of way).  She had a lot of blood dripping out of her mouth and she wouldn’t let us see, but I’m guessing that her two teeth on the bottom cut her gums on the top.

Anyway, she recovered quickly and it didn’t require going to the doctor or anything, but it was still interesting.

In other news, I watched The Notebook the other day.  Between that and the cupcake place, I fear I am becoming a stereotype.
(Note that I would have loved to just embed a youtube video, but apparently NBC made sure none where out there.  Enjoy that commercial!)

One last thing, the folks over at Improv Everywhere have spun off a blog to coordinate all of the mayhem ensuing across the globe.  So go over to Urban Prankster to keep abreast of all the best “scenes” and perhaps participate if one comes up near you.

Ma Ma

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Well, the day has finally arrived, just over 10 months in the making and Evie finally said “Ma ma”.  (Well, more like “mamamamama”)  It’s funny because on T.V. and cartoons and stuff, that is always the baby’s first word.  Anyway, Evie has been pretty sick all weekend and she has been extra-extra-clingy to Sara.  I was trying to entertain her while Sara was busy but she really wanted her mommy.  And finally she said it!  It is also weird because it is the first time she’s ever made the sound and yet she meant it.  Contrast that with “Da da” which she was saying for months without really meaning anything.

In garden update news, holy cow weeds.  They just grow like crazy!!  It seems like a never ending job but I swear all the other gardens around us never have any!  Ours is like weed heaven.  Last week we weeded 4 times and never spent less than an hour and a half at it.  But the good news is, our “crops” are growing as fast as the weeds.  Well, the carrots are a little iffy, but everything else is good.

Speaking of garden-based updates, the farmers’ market is really taking off.  I previously reported that it was sort of lackluster but we’ve been back every week since and it gets better every time.  There are more booths now offering more things and they’re not sold out by the time we get there.  We’ve tasted fresh salsa, admired the fresh cut peonies, investigated the spinach, asparagus and mushrooms, bought organic Amish bread, considered the lamb and we’ve never been able to avoid buying something from the organic baker.  There is even a drummer now for entertainment.  All in all, much improved and much recommended!

Finally, a condo based update.  We bought like a big hutch thing to contain, among other things, our china.  So we can finally get all of those boxes out of the closet and unpack them for the first time (although it was convenient for moving that they were still all packed up).  Also, we finally put up some tie backs for the curtains in there so we can let some light in.

And now also I suppose I have a blog update ::publish::