From the Mouths of Babes

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.

Oh where, oh where has my privacy gone?

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Over the weekend, while visiting her grandparents in MI, Evie was looking all over the house for something. “What are you looking for?” we asked her. “My privacy,” she said. She took my hand and led me all over the house looking for it (nevermind the irony of taking someone with her to look for her privacy). When we got upstairs she started singing, “Oh where, oh where has my privacy gone?” Finally, she came back downstairs. Someone asked her, “Where is your privacy?” and she said, “I left it at home.”

Overheard at a small town restaurant, Anytown Middle America, a wonderful “how we met” story:

“No, when we first started dating, we didn’t eat much. All we did was drink.”
“That’s how we got pregnant.”

And if that lovely story wasn’t enough to melt your heart, the couple they were with had their own touching story:

“We met in high school. I was a jock, she was a cheerleader, typical story. And when we she first walked by, I told everyone on the basketball team, “I’m going to hit that.”

But the fun with overheard conversations didn’t stop there. Walking around at Festival, I saw two homeless guys walking around. As we passed by them, one of them made this reassuring comment to the other:

“I don’t buy crack.”

Not clear if he was saying he doesn’t do crack at all, or just that he doesn’t pay money for the crack that he does.

And just to be clear, no one in the above stories should be considered “babes” anywhere other than the categorizing of this entry.

She has the concepts down, the rest is details

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Evie has been using numbers and concepts lately that are sort of surprising. She doesn’t use them correctly, but she uses them and that’s something:

“And what did you buy at the rummage sale?”
“Uncle Nathan!”
“Oh yeah, how much did he cost?”
“Fifty dollars.”

“Did you have a good night’s sleep last night?”
“Yes, thirty hours.”

“How old are you?”
“Two months of five. And E starts with Evie.”

“What’s the opposite of up?”
“Down!”
“What’s the opposite of left?”
“Right!”
“What’s the opposite of sleeping?”
“…”
“If you’re not asleep, you’re a…”
“An Owl!”

She also said probably the most heartbreaking thing ever:

“Mommy loves me and Nala loves me.”
“And Daddy loves you.”
“No, Mommy is the only one. Daddy works.”

Just to show how things change as you get used to parenting, I forgot to mention on the blog that Evie fell down the stairs at my grandma’s last weekend! When she was little and she fell over, it was a big, big deal. Now she falls down like 10 stairs and I don’t even remember about it! She was fine, she just had some marks from where her sun glasses smashed into her face. But we knew she was okay because when Sara took off Evie’s glasses to see if she was alright, Evie was more upset about not wearing her glasses than she was about the fall. So I had forgotten all about this until Evie reminded me that it was “scary” to fall down the stairs. I asked her what else she was afraid of and she said, “Crocodiles.”

In totally other news, we got some beautiful lettuce from the garden, and it was delicious!

This is what I invented the category for

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Evie says so many funny things that, even though I try to write them down, there are still a million that I forget. Anyway, here are a few from the weekend.

“Do you like to help your mommy?”

“Yes.”
“What do you help your mommy with?”
“Daddy!”

Evie kept saying something about “eating letters” but we didn’t know what she meant. She said she had eaten an orange one and a green one and we eventually realized another girl had shared 2 M&Ms with her in those colors.

Sara to me: “Should we go to the G-A-R-D-E-N?”
Evie: “I want to go to the G-A-R-N-F!”

Evie wanted to touch Nala, but I told her not to because Nala was sleeping. So instead, she said she was going to touch daddy. Then she said, “Nala is jealous. Very jealous.”

Evie was helping Sara in the garden with a child-sized watering can. Sara looked over and saw Evie dumping the water all overherself, mostly down her back. “What are you doing?” asked Sara and Evie replied, “Watering myself!”

 

As many of you know, I have a very large extended family and they do many things together.My mom is one of 17 kids. One of the traditions is the annual rummage sale in the spring, which happened over the last weekend. Almost everybody in the family contributes and the result is the largest rummage sale I’ve ever seen. Everything is dirt cheap and many of the items are bought by other family members before the sale really even begins. You want to know how big of a sale it is? Despite many items being priced at a quarter or less, they cleared $800 at the end of the first day! That’s a lot of quarters.

On the second day, everything that is left goes down to a quarter. I mean anything, a t.v., a table and chair set, whatever. I think this is brilliant. The point isn’t really to make a lot of money, the point is to get a little cash for stuff you wanted to get rid of anyway. Most of the stuff we put in the sale was stuff we had intended to donate to Good Will. Instead we got enough cash to cover our own purchases (~$4) plus cover pizza that night. Everything that was left we did end up donating. And it is fun to look through everybody else’s junk!

While we were at the rummage sale, Sara took Evie for a ride in a borrowed wagon. It’s not as funny to describe as to see, but Evie fell asleep about a block from home. As the wagon was pulled along, she swayed back and forth hard enough to smack her head on the cup holder a couple of times, but she must have been tired because she still didn’t wake up.

Just as a side note, Evie looooves shrimp! In addition to everything else she ate for supper, she ate 13 shrimp last night!

Evie Update Monday

/ Shane / 1 Comment

“What color is Evie’s hair?”
“Blonde”
“What color is mommy’s hair?”
“Grey!”*

*Disclaimer, Sara is forcing me to write in here that she does not actually have any grey hair.

And P.S., it’s my blog and I can write grey with an ‘e’ on it like a filthy redcoat if I want to! Take that world!

Over the weekend we got our garden all set up. We bought our plants from the gardens of Gethsemane – no joke, that was the name. It’s not as good as the garden of eat’n’, but I was still chuckling over it for a long time. It took Sara and I about 3 hours in the garden and another hour or so on the back porch, but everything looks beautiful. Looks like we’re going to have even more stuff than last year, as every square inch of our garden is accounted for, including plans for what goes in when certain things are done.

Evie went on the potty for what I think can be counted as the first time. She has gone a few times before, when she was younger, but I think this was the first time where she did it consciously, knowing what she was doing and why. That’s a big step. We’re not really potty training her per say, but we do let her sit on it whenever she wants to. Usually she will sit forever, but never go. So hopefully she will start to do this more and more and then we can try to potty train her for real. It certainly would be nice to be able to leave the house without all the diapers, etc.!

Sara found an article that says morning sickness increases the chance your child will have a high IQ. She thinks that people are just saying that as a consolation prize for the people who have a rough time with morning sickness, but anecdotally I will say that Sara had really, really bad morning sickness and Evie is really, really smart. You be the judge.

Since I began with a funny story about Sara, I feel I should end the same way; bookend-like. The other night I was sleeping blissfully when Sara forcefully pressed her arm against mine and yelled triumphantly, “They’re finally together!” I woke up rather confused and looked at her, but she wasn’t awake. I guess I’ll always wonder what the heck she was dreaming about.