From the Mouths of Babes

She takes after her daddy

/ Shane / 3 Comments

After polishing off an entire avocado for her afternoon snack, Evie leaned back and smirked, “Daddy’s ‘mpressed.”

Fairly uneventful weekend. Evie had her first ice cream cone. She wasn’t too messy, but she didn’t really get the idea of eating the cone so she was burying her nose in there trying to get as much out of the cone as possible. We did some shopping at some places we don’t go very often, including buying enough food to stock a pantry that would make a Mormon blush. Blame it on my current end-of-the-world-scenario reading.

There has been a recipe floating around my extended family recently, but we just finally got around to making it. Basically you dump all the ingredients in a mug, mix it up, microwave it and voila, chocolate cake for one.

The first one sort of exploded like a chocolate volcano in our microwave. Our tip is to do it on 70% power. Sara pointed out that if the recipe is old they probably had lower power microwaves back then. Also, if you can manage it, use an extra tall mug. Those two things combined seemed to do the trick for the second cake.

I’d have to say, not bad at all. The taste is good, though the texture is sort of odd. I wouldn’t make it just to eat it, but it may be worth it for the fun of making cake in a mug. Also, it is single serving size which certainly has its advantages. So, if you’re like stuck on a desert island where you can’t get cake but you inexplicably have a microwave or some other strange cake-less situation (like you live in Norway), I’d say give it a try.

Chocolate Mug Cake

4 tbs flour
4 tbs sugar
2 tbs cocoa
1 egg beaten
3 tbs milk
3 tbs oil
1/4 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt

Mix ingredients together and pour into large coffee mug. Microwave 3 min. Remove cake from cup and slice into 6 pieces. Drizzle with caramel or chocolate syrup and cool whip on top.

An exciting, yet relaxing weekend

/ Shane / 7 Comments

On one hand we didn’t really do all that much this weekend, and on the other hand we had a lot of exciting things going on.

The library has passes for all of the museum etc. around us, but they are mostly always gone, or at least the good ones are. Some of them are so completely always gone that one of the librarians confided that they were probably lost. But Sara managed to snag a pass to Adler Planetarium. I was already on board with going there for free, but that was before I knew that one of the exhibits right now was Sesame Street based. We did have to pay for that part, but it was well worth the money.  Evie was in 7th heaven, by which I mean she was happy as opposed to how you feel when someone forces you to watch that god-awful show. Although she was a little young, she was just so thrilled to be watching an “Elmo movie” on this huge screen, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from it. It was fun in the audience too seeing all the kids get so excited and like shouting out the answers to Big Bird’s questions, etc. and all the parents singing “twinkle twinkle little star” and just enjoying watching their kids. Needless to say, it was a big hit. I would recommend the show to anyone with little kids. There was more to see at the planetarium than I expected, but it was a little boring, especially for someone Evie’s age.

As if that wasn’t enough excitement for one little girl’s day, we also rode the train there and back. Since the train runs right by our house, Evie has always been into trains a little bit. This was the first time she ever rode on one and she was pretty excited. The train trip worked out perfectly and we definitely plan on using it a lot more in the future.

Probably the highlight of my day, was the (for lack of a better word) hipster-ish breakfast place that Sara found, Yolk. It was sooo super easy to get to from the train, and it was delicious. The best part? Instead of toast, you can substitute pancakes! “Yes, instead of my toast I would like to substitute a second breakfast.” I paid a little extra and upgraded mine to blackberry / banana pancakes. Evie approved. It was a tad pricey for breakfast, but I ate so much that I hardly ate anything else the rest of the day. Given it’s proximity to the Museum Campus, I’d imagine it could get busy in the summer, but it is huge and kid friendly.

So to top it all off, we decided to give Evie her first haircut! We only cut her bangs. They are always in her eyes and she would rather die than wear something in her hair to keep it back, like a barrette. She was really good for it. She didn’t exactly sit still, but she did okay. I think Sara’s not really happy with the job she did, but I think it looks fantastic, and not too short no matter what you might hear.

Evie has been saying a lot of funny words lately. Some of her favorites are perfect, excellent, and exactly. Like, “Hey Evie, how about when we’re done eating we go downstairs to play?” “Perfect!” Or “How are the grapes?” “Excellent.” Or “It looks like you’re putting your froggy to bed.” “Yes, exactly!”

But my favorite quote of the weekend? “And what else starts with the letter ‘R’?” “Arm!”

In other news, I started the dead and the gone and I have to say, with going on my second end of the world book in a row, all of this swine flu talk is coming at a bad time for me.

Nursemaid’s Elbow

/ Shane / 3 Comments

On Saturday the weather was beautiful and Sara got the idea to go to a state park that was not too far away and go hiking. The first part of the day went really well, but around 11 or so we were walking and it was getting a little muddy. Evie wanted to walk, but whenever we came to a muddy part, Sara and I would lift her up by her arms until we were past the muddy part. On this particular one, Evie started to cry a little bit. You can probably see where this is going. She never really cried full out, she was just sort of whining a lot. It was around time for her nap, so we thought maybe she was just tired, although she did seem like she was fussier than usual. She fell asleep on Sara’s shoulder on the way back to the car, but she seemed to be sleeping very lightly and if we tried to shift her she’d wake up and cry. Finally we got back to the car and she slept most of the way home.

When she woke up she complained that her arm hurt and she kept it close to her body, refusing to use it for anything. We talked to our doctor and she told us to take her to the emergency room, making this our 3rd trip in under 6 months. It turns out that she had a dislocated ligament in her elbow, a very common ailment known as Nursemaid’s Elbow. The name apparently comes from having a nursemaid jerk your kid around by their arms, or in this case, swinging your kid up by the arms. The doctor said a lot of kids even do it to themselves. The thing is, this just happened to my boss and his daughter a few weeks ago, so it was the first thing that came to our minds. The bad news is that now that it has happened once, it is that much more likely to happen again. But she will eventually grow out of it.

So, as if hiking a couple of miles in the morning wasn’t enough for one day, we ended up spending a total of about 3 1/2 hours at the emergency room, even though it took literally about 2 seconds to fix. It was amazing, the doctor just rotated her arm a certain way and the pain seemed to go away instantly. In about 5 minutes she was acting like nothing was wrong at all, using the arm like normal. Because we thought we’d be leaving soon I didn’t go put more money in the meter, but a trauma came in to the ER and the resulting ticket means the trip to the emergency room cost $50 more than it should have. (Side note, wow have traffic tickets changed! When I got home I was able to look up pictures online of my car and the expired meter.)

Did I mention that in the middle of all of this, she apparently got two more teeth? And don’t get me started about how she is not even 2 and she seems like she is already giving up on naps. Oh well, another day, another person saying Evie looks like Shilo Pitt.

I don’t know how many times Sara or I said, “What a day!” and that was even before the power went out to our entire block. Luckily we had *just* finished our movie and we were getting ready for bed, so it wasn’t too disruptive. Plus I got to smugly use the flashlight I keep next to the bed. Sara makes fun of me for it and I’ve never had a chance to use it until now.

All’s well that ends well, I guess.

On Sunday we went to the museum. We were getting ready to go and Evie ran out into the main entry hall, with me following behind. There was an old car on display and she must have decided she wanted a closer look because she ran head first into the plexiglass around it, hard enough to knock herself on her butt. She wasn’t too hurt, just a little dazed and confused. I think even after she hit it she didn’t see it and she wasn’t sure what happened. Sara and I felt bad for her, but we just could not stop laughing about it.

She says so many cute things during the day, that I can hardly remember them all, much less put them all here.  Like when she says something like, “Can we have ice cream? Maybe, we’ll see.” Or when you ask her something and she says, “Ack-shoo-all-y…”

Evie was eating some Cheerios when she suddenly indicated one of them and said, “It’s waiting.” “What is it waiting for?” asked Sara. “Evie’s mouth. After this one and this one.”

There has been an ongoing issue with the fact that Evie has blue eyes, but she wants to have brown eyes like her mommy. The other day she said, “Mommy has brown eyes” so I said, “What color eyes does Evie have?” “I forget,” said Evie. “You have blue eyes,” I said, forgetting her displeasure with them. “I forget,” she said again. “I’m reminding you,” I said. “You have blue eyes.” “I forget,” she said menacingly. I said, “It’s okay that you forgot, because I’m telling you you have blue eyes.” “I FORGET!” yelled Evie. I guess we all have things we are trying to forget.

Evie Week

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Evie was sick last week Tuesday and Wednesday and couldn’t go to daycare, which means I got to stay home with her both of those days in addition to my usual Friday. Then, Sara had a conference that ran until about noon on Saturday, so that was yet another daddy (half) day.  This means I had plenty of fodder for an Evie-centric blog post.

She’s been using pronouns a lot lately and saying “me” and “mine”. So she was telling me a long story, I did this and I did that, etc. and then when it was finished she confided to me in a conspiratorial whisper “I means Evie”.

For some reason, she has gotten it into her head that her first name is “chicken”. I mean, she answers to Evie and she knows her last name, but if you ask her directly something like, “Evie, what is your name?” she reliably says, “Chicken”. Just as a test, I just asked her again while I was writing this and she answered “chicken” as usual, repeatedly and with several witnesses.

She has always inexplicably liked spicy foods, so the other day she tried some of what we were eating for dinner and, finding she liked it, proceeded to yell, “More spicy!” So Sara gave her another big bite, but it must have been a little more spicy than she was prepared for because she got a surprised look on her face and said, “Blow on it my mouth!” We had to explain that it wasn’t the kind of hot you could blow on to cool it off, but she still insisted on having Sara blow into her mouth to “cool it”.

Finally, Aunt Rachael brought some delicious dirt cake and Evie really liked it. I think it was maybe a little too much sugar though because she was absolutely drunk on it. At one point she was leaning back in her chair, one leg up on the table, with her spoon twirling lazily in the air above her head saying, “Weeeeeeeeee!”

Birthday parties are fun

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Over the weekend the big event was going to a birthday party for my boss’ daughter. Evie had a blast! It is all she could talk about ever since then. When we asked her right after we left what she did at the party, her only answer was “share”. Since then though, she’s discussed all of her favorite aspects of the party including watching the birthday girl open her presents (“Sit in chair! Watch!”), watching her blow out the candles, eating, seeing doggies and playing pretend with the kitchen and plastic food in the basement. No mention of the other kids, the piñata, or the lady who was hired to play music, other than to complain that it was “loud”. Her other complaint was, “Doggie kiss face. Keep her safe!” (by “her” she means “me”) She’s not a fan of dog kisses. She also got a gift basket with many exciting gifts such as bubbles, a froggie and her very first jar of play-doh. As far as the play-doh is concerned, she likes it a lot but all she wants to do is rip it into tiny pieces. Then you are expected to roll it all back together so she can start ripping again.

Other highlights of the weekend included:

  • Some child was making us plates of plastic food at the party. One plate had one tiny petit four in the center of it and the other plate was covered in food, barely containing it all. “This one’s for the big guy!” he said, handing it to me.
  • Evie likes to have songs sung to her while she eats. She won’t tell you what song she wants to hear, but as you try to sing different songs she says no to every one. So finally, after innumerable rejections, she was saying no to the song I was singing and I ignored her and kept singing. She said to me, “I’m shaking my head no!”
  • Now that the weather has been nicer, she wants to go outside all the time. She has many tricks to try to get you to take her outside, but I guess she decided to try the straight forward approach.  She said to me,  “Good bye, see you later, I’m taking yankee doodle and the purse!” and then walked over and tried to open the front door.

We also tried to get Evie to fingerpaint, but she wasn’t very into it. As soon as the paint got on her hand she started yelling, “Wipe it off!” I guess I should have seen that coming since earlier in the day she refused to stand up in the sand box because she didn’t want to use her hand to push herself up since that would require touching the sand.