Evie Update

Helmet Head

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Evelyn’s class has a pair of guinea pigs as pets this year, and Evelyn is very excited. Ollie seems to have an endless parade of cool classroom pets, but Evelyn had nothing last year, and a turtle the year before. (You know, a cuddly-wuddly wittile smooshy….turtle.) So the much more adorable guinea pigs have really captured her imagination.

Evelyn very sweetly decided to make a nice little house for the guinea pigs out of a box, with a little door that said “Home Sweet Home” above it. Her plan was to have every student in the class sign it, so the guinea pigs could remember them on weekends and holidays. She worked on it all night, and the next day wanted to bring it in to class.

“Bad news, honey,” I said. “I’ve got to ride my bike today, which means you’ve got to ride your bike, which means nobody can carry the house.” Evelyn was crestfallen. In the following seconds I saw the whole thing flash across her eyes: her marching in with her guinea pig house, the oohs and aahs of the teachers, the other children picking her up onto her shoulders and marching around the room cheering, the inevitable fame and fortune as the world’s only guinea pig architect…except now, the teachers wouldn’t ooh and aah, and the children wouldn’t carry her triumphantly, and she would probably instead end up strung out and homeless, all because of her stupid dad and his stupid bike and the unfairness of life.

I knew it wouldn’t hurt to leave the box for the next day, but on the other hand, isn’t it every father’s dream to see his daughter become a famous guinea pig architect? Except I really didn’t know how to get it to school. It was a pretty big box. Technically I probably could have carried it, but riding your bikes on the streets of Chicago is taking your life into your hands at the best of times.

Unless… “What if you wore it on your head?”

Suddenly the parading children were back and the hand-designed guinea pig houses were flying off the shelves and she was retiring early to a villa on the Southern coast of France where she would drift to sleep every night under a blanket of warm, soft, furry, happily-homed, guinea pigs.

The box fit pretty snuggly over her bike helmet and, although it completely restricted her peripheral vision, it was reasonably secure. Absolutely hysterical looking, but reasonably secure. Problem solved.

I don’t think either Evie or I were thinking about the sheer number of people on the streets at that time of day. She was turning some major heads and people were calling out, “Hey, I like your helmet!” Kids would just stop and stare with their mouths literally hanging open. It was clear that most people thought she invented some kind of “cool” helmet for herself and thought she would enjoy the compliments.

Neither of us were expecting quite the reaction. She was obviously very embarrassed, and even though she didn’t say anything, she asked me to walk my bike and carry it as soon as was reasonably possible. I really wish I had gotten a picture, because it would have been something to save for posterity.

You know what, though? I’m proud of her. Even though she was mortified, she didn’t get upset, just kept her eyes on the prize and finished the job. I didn’t hear whether or not she got the triumphant parade, or the “Queen of the Guinea Pigs” tiara, but as far as I know we’re still on track for that French villa.

Back to School (yesterday)

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I know yesterday was the day for posting back to school pictures. “A day late and a dollar short” Halbach, that’s my name.

We did take these pictures yesterday, but we had an out of town visitor last night (hi Dabu!) so I didn’t get a chance to upload these. Two big kids, ready to go!

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As usual, Evie is calm, cool, and ready to go.

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She was so excited to start school, she could hardly stand it. This year is perhaps a little more serious than last year. Evie told me this morning, “We can’t talk, except at lunch and recess. It’s so hard to just sit there all day! I just have so many things to say!” Now THERE’s a daughter after my own heart.

I looked at last year’s post, where I said about Ollie, “Is it me, or did he age about 5 years this summer?” Well, he did it again. So I guess he’s like 15 now.
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Of course, his bike accident scab flaked off this morning, the day AFTER back to school pictures. Oh well.

Here’s to another good year!

Pirate Party

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Since I was gone for a couple of weeks (more on that in a post later this week), we just now got around to celebrating Evelyn’s birthday. Evie had the idea to do a “murder mystery” party (you know, like most 8 year olds), but they strangely don’t make a lot of those for kids.

Sara looked around online and found a company that makes kid-friendly equivalents. However, there were like 8 princess ones, and Evelyn said, “absolutely not” to that idea. So instead, we ended up with pirates.

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It turns out, hosting a pirate mystery party is a tremendous amount of work. Not only do you have to prepare everything for the kit and come up with really awesome food ideas, you also have to deal with the fact that the company involved thought it would be a really good idea to have the scavenger hunt lead to rooms such as “the master bedroom” and “the main bathroom”. And you can’t just stuff all the mess in a closet or something because, hello, it’s a scavenger hunt, where do you think the kids are going to start digging first?

So, yeah, lots and lots of cleaning.

Of course, Evelyn also demanded a chocolate cheesecake, because it can’t be easy, right?

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Luckily we borrowed a truly authentic looking pirate chest for the grand finale (filled with Pirate’s Booty, natch). We gathered clues, solved mysteries, swabbed the deck, played pirate guessing games, and told pirate jokes, but when the kids found that pirate chest, they lost their freaking minds. I doubt real pirates, with real gold, were ever so excited about finding a treasure chest. Or, if they were that excited, I bet their screams were not quite so high pitched.

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Despite the tremendous amount of work, I don’t think I exaggerate to say it was the best party I’ve ever given. Everybody had a blast (even the adults), and it lived up to all of Evelyn’s expectations (something that, needless to say, is difficult to manage on the best of days).

I’m already a little nervous about what she’ll want next year…

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Sweet Hawaiian Bread

/ Shane / 1 Comment

There’s a new love in Evelyn’s life.

At church one day, Evie had a pinch of sweet Hawaiian bread, and it was love at first bite. She was going on and on and on about how delicious it was. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was, so I said sarcastically, “Why don’t you go ask Dean Elizabeth where she got it.”

Well, Evelyn did, and Dean Elizabeth came back with a note explaining which grocery store she got it from and what the package looked like.

After that Evie was just obsessed. Any bit of money was set aside for sweet Hawaiian bread. “How much does sweet Hawaiian bread cost?”, “If I buy my own sweet Hawaiian bread, can I eat it whenever I want?”, and “If I gave piano lessons, people would give me money and I could spend it on sweet Hawaiian bread!”

Totally unrelated, one day we were talking about being the mayor, and I mentioned how you have to manage the budget. Her eyes got big. “They give you money when you’re mayor??” Her mind raced with the possibilities. Then she muttered, “No, nevermind. You probably couldn’t spend it all on sweet Hawaiian bread.”

One city’s entire budget spent on sweet Hawaiian bread. I’ve heard worse mayoral platforms.

Ironically, the one cure for this obsession was actually buying a loaf of sweet Hawaiian bread. I guess it’s like the old “make-‘um-smoke-the-whole-pack” cure. One loaf was more than our family could handle. After we finally finished it, she hasn’t mentioned it a single time.

No, now she’s moved on to yogurt. All of her saved money has now been used to purchase carefully selected, individual yogurts. This is a major purchase; she pours over the choices for as long as you will give her.

I’ll tell you one thing about Evelyn; at least she’s pretty easy to please.

Star Wars in the blood

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Evie’s regular piano teacher is busy for the summer, so she started with a temporary teacher. In the first lesson, the teacher was just trying to see where Evie was at, skill level-wise, so mostly Evie was just playing old stuff.

I have to admit, I’m kind of amazed at how far Evie’s come in the 5 months she’s been taking piano. I mean, it’s really amazing; she’s really good! It seems like it must have been longer than 5 months. Obviously the fact that she likes to play piano, and often practices more than she needs to just because she enjoys it so much, really helps. She cannot walk by the piano without playing something.

So finally, at the end of the lesson, the teacher assigned her a few new things that she hadn’t played yet. She had Evie play the first song, which she played with no trouble at all. “That’s too easy for you,” the teacher said, “let’s try another one.”

The next song was the theme from Star Wars. “This one is a bit more tricky,” said her teacher. “Have you ever played it?” “No,” said Evie, “I think I’d like to try it.” She looked at it for a minute, and then played it through perfectly. Not a single mistake.

Both the teacher and I were SO IMPRESSED. She even got the crossover note, no problem. I mean, I was really stunned; she played it better the first time out than she had some of the old pieces she has practiced so many times.

The whole way home I was so excited. “Oh, Evie, you don’t know how happy it makes me to hear you play the Star Wars song!” I mean, of all the songs to be a natural at! I went on to tell her how I used to play the John Williams scores from the original Star Wars movies for her when she was a baby to help her sleep.

Obviously, the songs had subconsciously made neural pathways in her brain, predisposing her to play this piece of music. Best. Father. Ever.  I was so pleased with myself.

Well.

::Ahem::

My Star Wars parenting was involved, though not how I first thought.

I turns out that we accidentally hoodwinked the piano teacher. See, Evie has been secretly practicing the Star Wars theme as a surprise for me for Father’s Day. We were out of town that weekend, and she forgot her piano book, so she never got a chance to play it for me. Naturally, with me sitting right there during her lesson, she didn’t want to admit that she had practiced the song many times, so she said she had never played it before.

The good news is, the song had the desired effect of getting me pretty excited, even if it didn’t play out the way she had imagined it. And, as nice of a surprise as having a Star Wars virtuoso in the family would be, it was even nicer to know she had spent time preparing a good surprise for me. One way or the other, I have managed to implant Star Wars thoughts into her head.

Maybe the Force has influenced her after all.