Clio

Three is a Magic Number

2011-12-11T17:50:00.003-06:00

This blog is (over) three years old, Evie is three, we're a family of three. It's a number that traditionally represents unity and completion. I've been feeling for months that my blogging is complete and finished, but I've left things open to the possibility of another adoption and my potential desire to write about that process.

But a couple of things have happened to change that. First, J and I have both experienced a growing feeling of peace about being done with the adoption process. As the last year and a half has progressed we haven't felt more and more anxious about being chosen by a birth family, but instead more and more peaceful about not being chosen at all. This is not to say that our family is finished, but that we are ready to leave infant adoption behind and wait a few years before considering foster adoption of a child younger than Evie. My thought is to perhaps wait until Evie is in middle school and then adopt an elementary-aged child. We'll look at that more closely in a few years.

The other thing that happened recently is that I switched e-mail accounts and didn't realize that by deleting my old e-mail, Blogger would delete all of the photos on this blog that were attached to that old account. Even though I authorized my new e-mail as an administrator of the blog, the photos were lost. I still have them on my computer, but I don't have time to go back and re-upload them all back into the posts where they belong. Grrrr. Technology strikes again.

So, blogging is done for now. I haven't been good about posting or keeping up with other blogs recently anyhow, so it's a no-brainer decision. I'm Facebook friends with some of the women I've met in the infertility/adoption blogging community, so I still keep up with people that way. E-mail me if you'd like to friend me there.

Evie is doing great, but I really don't have anything to write about parenting that isn't being said on a million other mommy blogs right now. It's challenging, it's fun, it's a daily blessing and I could brag about my daughter for many, many paragraphs. :) As far as blogging about our open adoption, I'm not feeling as comfortable with that right now. We definitely have adoption-related issues, conversations, etc., but as Evie gets closer to the age where she'll "get it" I am less and less comfortable writing about R & G online at all, and I am careful what I say to people about them, especially around Evie. She's the classic little pitcher with big ears.

Anyhow, unless God intervenes between now and February (when our home study expires), this is it for Clio. I've been immeasurably blessed by the relationships I've formed by participating in the online ALI and mommy blogging world, so thank you to everyone who has read the blog, cared about my family and offered prayers for us over the years!

Happy Independence Day!

2011-07-03T14:06:00.001-05:00

Evie's first sparkler was a big hit:
Hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday!

California Vacation

2011-04-20T14:10:00.002-05:00

We just got back from a week's vacation in California with Evie's Nana and Papa, and it was a great time:

Gone Fishin'

2011-04-07T07:13:00.003-05:00

Evie and I went to a local children's farm yesterday, where she had a blast feeding baby goats, gobbling at a male turkey, seeing her first bald eagle and catching her first fish! I have to admit that a nearby dad who was there fishing with his son taught me how to put a worm on the hook, and then helped me get our fish off of the hook and back in the lake. Next time I'll know how to do it myself, which makes me feel like supermommy. Let me assure the rest of you who might have the same hesitations that I did...worms don't feel nearly as gross as they look, and they don't bleed when you put them on the hook. It's not nearly as disgusting as you might think. Anyhow. Unfortunately, we were too excited about our little fish (it was silver...small trout?) and forgot to get a picture of it for posterity. But we did get a few other pictures from the day.

(My friend is helping Evie hold her rod while I take the picture, and Evie's little friend is a second away from petting the worms.)

Two and a Half

2011-03-19T12:05:00.007-05:00

Evie is two and a half today! Growing up, my family celebrated half birthdays with a special outing and called it "Karen Day" or, now, "Evie Day." We aren't going anywhere today, but we took Evie's special trip on Tuesday to the Mall of America, with her Nana and Papa. She got to ride in the Wonderpets' flyboat and also the carousel, Ferris wheel and a Diego ride (all in the Nickelodeon Universe amusement park there). It was "Toddler Tuesday" and Evie got a ride wristband for about 1/2 price. She loved it! Today we had a little chocolate cake after lunch and if you ask her, Evie will tell you "I am two and a half now!"

Here's a picture of our sweetie from yesterday, enjoying spring weather outside. The socks make the outfit, don't you think?

One more recent picture, here is Evie getting her first haircut last month. Her verdict: "I don't like haircuts." But she cooperated and now her hair is a tiny bit shorter with the baby wispies trimmed off. Since her hair is curly, you can't really tell any difference before and after the cut; she didn't really need the haircut, but I thought she might have a few split ends so it would be good to trim them once in awhile:

Here's the rundown on Evelyn at 2.5:

*29.5 pounds (59th%)

*36 inches tall (53rd%)

*size 7 shoe

*teeth: all 20! (and no more drooling!)

*favorite toy: umbrella/parasol

*favorite book: whatever is new and different (e.g. library books)

*favorite character: Kipper

*favorite color: blue

*favorite activity: going on a walk

*favorite song: Brahms Lullaby (words by Daddy)

*favorite food: "mush and raisins" (cream of wheat)

*favorite clothes: naked, or pajamas

*favorite shoes: running shoes

*fears: drains (!), strangers, small appliances (sometimes they are loud)

*dislikes: getting out of the bathtub, new foods, brushing teeth, bedtime

*challenges: she's recently started playing favorites; yesterday she only wanted Daddy and told me to "go away!" but then today she called out "I want Mommy!" when J was trying to get her upstairs for a nap. She's also started asking both of us for something she wants, if the first parent she asks says "no." So we're working on the united front. And if we both say no she starts up with the whining "pleeeeease?" We're staying strong and hope to extinguish the whining by not giving in.

*potty learning: so far, so good...only a handful of accidents in the last 6 weeks

*sleeping: doesn't nap unless she's sick or had a short night of sleep. Generally she's sleeping 12 hours total from about 7 pm to 7 am.

*drinking: about 16 oz. of 2% milk and/or soy milk each day and about the same amount of water

*eating: picky, picky, picky...a typical day is toast with jam for breakfast, PB&J sandwich and fruit for lunch, trail mix for a snack and peas, black beans and something else for dinner.

*gross motor: can gallop, run faster than my jogging pace (!) and do most playground equipment by herself (except big kid stuff like monkey bars)

*fine motor: much less messy with a spoon these days

*verbal: "no" at 2 years is now "I don't want to" at 2.5 and this morning she said "Mommy, you need to put on some socks; your feet look kinda cold." Her grammar grows every. single. day. She's also full of questions. Reading a book produces a lot of "what's that?" questions and when we are driving somewhere I have to answer "where are we going?" about every 5 minutes. A few times she's gone on "why?" binges as well.

*cognitive: she can count past 20 by rote if she wants to (if she's focused on it) and if you put 5 or fewer objects in front of her and ask her to count them she'll get the right number by pointing to each item as she counts. If you give her more than 5 items she tends to skip some or count some twice and arrive at the wrong number.

*social: understands gender and mostly knows whether people are "boys" or "girls" and is very interested in feelings. When a character in a book is not smiling, she often asks "what is his mouth doing?" which is her way of asking "what is his emotion?" If I am feeling frustrated or tired, Evie will quiz me with "Are you happy, Mommy?" over and over. Sometimes the question improves my mood and sometimes it doesn't. :) She's also learning to share, if we're there to remind her to do it.

*play: the pretend play stage is here! J and I are encouraged to nibble on a piece of mulch that is a "cupcake" or coo at the invisible baby she's rocking in her arms. My absolute favorite is when she reads books to her stuffed animals.

We're looking forward to the return of warm weather and the fun we'll have in the back yard this year with Evie's new water table, and in the park with her bike. Her third birthday will be here before we know it, and Evie already knows what she wants: balloons and chocolate cake.

Butterfly

2011-02-06T21:38:00.005-06:00

Last fall we visited the "Butterfly Palace" in Branson (fun and cheesy vacay with Nana and Papa!) and learned that some caterpillars actually liquefy themselves within the cocoon in order to undergo metamorphosis into a butterfly. J and I kind of feel as though the past few days have been our chrysalis stage as a family and we truly entered this week parenting a baby and left it parenting a butterfly. No, wait, a kid.

The book we used for potty learning emphasized the importance of parents sending a clear, confident message to the kid that "You are a big girl/boy and we believe in you! You can do this!" J and I definitely got this message through to Evie and she will adamantly tell you now that "I am NOT a baby." This week we went from diapers to panties. We went from afternoon nap to reading time. We also put her high chair downstairs and went permanently to her booster seat. It's not a big deal since she had already been in her booster 80% of the time, but it sent a clear message. Finally, we rearranged her room and put her crib totally out of commission. She'd already been mostly sleeping in her toddler bed, but again, it added to our "big girl" message.

What worked:

*sticker charts: she got to put one tiny Dr. Seuss sticker on a sticker chart every time she peed and the charts were numbered 1 to 26, so she got a special reward on #26 (a favorite movie or game). By the end of the weekend, less than a week into training, she'd already weaned herself from the sticker charts by getting bored of them and not asking for stickers every time she peed. Yay!

*naked bottom time: at our house this is "nakey jakey time." We didn't start this until a few days in, but it has worked really well. If I need to get something done and let Evie take more responsibility for her own bladder control, stripping her bottomless with access to a potty has worked really well. She hasn't had any accidents so far when she's going "nakey jakey." This approach has its limits when it's time to go to school or on an errand, but if I need to do the dishes it's very handy.

*the timer: as J said this week "Pavlov's dog!" If we told her to go potty she might obey or she might resist, but when the timer went off she quickly ran to the potty without argument. The timer removes the human relationship from the equation; it's an inanimate object telling her it's time to go instead of her mother saying it...her mother who also tells her to stop walking on her books and to eat her macaroni with a spoon...the bossy mom who must be defied because Evie is 2 and is her own woman now! Anyhow, the timer was great for about 4-5 days, until we all got used to the new routine and weaned ourselves from it. Now we use a combination of parental prompting and Evie responding to signals from her bladder. Yay!

What didn't work:

*hand washing: Evie is prone to eczema and in those first few days of training while she was going every 20 minutes, she started having bad rashes on her hands from washing them so much. We've backed off from the hand washing and are only enforcing it for after poop. Urine is sterile anyhow. We'll re-introduce it when she has more bladder control so that it won't affect her skin so much. And we are enforcing it when we're out and about in public restrooms and guest bathrooms.

*panties at night: the book we used suggested that Evie could learn to hold her bladder at night, so we gave it a (very) brief try. The first night I woke her up at about midnight when I went to bed and took her to potty (and she was dry!), but she cried and asked to sleep in our bed. Ack! The last thing I need is a toddler in big girl panties coming into bed with us...we don't have a waterproof mattress pad! I did get her back asleep in her own bed and I set my alarm for 7 am to wake up before her. I planned to wake her up and whisk her right to the potty, since many kids pee as they wake in the morning. But when I went in to wake her she was already soaking wet and VERY sad to be woken up from sweet dreams to find a stinking wet bed and pajamas. FAIL. So now we are using "special nighttime panties" (pull-ups) for bedtime and will wean her from them when we think she's ready (i.e. when daytime dryness is easy).

*3 day potty training: the book is called "Potty Train in Three Days" and it took much longer than that for Evie. Day 1 and 2 were very stressful as she could only hold her bladder for 15-20 minutes at a time. Day 3 was better, but Evie still hadn't made the brain-bladder connection. Day 4 was hopeful...only 2 accidents! Day 5 was bliss, no accidents! (But we were still prompting her to pee each time and she was taking no responsibility for it all.) Day 6 was only one accident. Day 7 was horrible; we went to storytime at the library and she was terrified by the big, public toilet there. She refused to go on the potty and had an accident at the library, then repeated the pattern 2 more times that day...putting a tiny bit of urine into the potty and saving the majority of her bladder contents for her clothing. By the afternoon I was despairing and in tears, wondering if I needed to put her back in diapers. But we survived, and the next day was her first day back at "school" (parent's day out). She stayed dry through school!!! Since then it's been a breeze; each day she can hold her bladder longer and is more apt to tell us "I need to go potty!" instead of letting us remind her to go.

I can't believe it...I am a mother to a little girl with curly pigtails, skinny legs and big girl panties. There is very little baby left in my Evie Bea. But if I close my eyes, kiss her cheek and breathe in her sweet scent I can still grasp those memories of the chubby infant she was, not so long ago. My baby is only 2 and I'm already sentimental about her babyhood!

BIG Girl

2011-02-01T19:55:00.003-06:00

Today Evie officially became a big girl. We are having a blizzard, like much of the country right now, and Evie's school (Parent's Day Out) was canceled, so I took the opportunity to start 3-day potty training (this is the book).

This morning I put Evie on the potty in the morning, threw away her diaper and put her into panties, then had her help me load up all diapering gear into trash bags and take them to the garage. (Changing pad, wipes, diaper cream, swim diapers, EVERYTHING.) We talked about how she was a big girl now and not a baby and it was time to say goodbye to diapers and use the potty from now on.

(I have to add, here, that we have been slowly potty learning since she was about 14 months old and so by this time she knows exactly what to do on the potty, how to pull her own pants up and down, how to flush and wash her hands independently, and how to push in her bottom to make herself go. She still needs some help with wiping and with knowing when she needs to go. She has been putting about 60% of her poop into the potty for the past few weeks, as well. She was very prepared to start today. At least *I* knew she was prepared even if she didn't.)

I won't go into the specifics of this particular PL (potty learning) system but just say that it involves positive reinforcement and the parent keeping a close watch over the child to prevent accidents. We had several accidents this morning because Evie has been the type of child who pees tiny amounts into her diaper all day instead of having learned to hold her bladder. It is frustrating to have her pee a tiny amount on the potty and then wet her panties 10 minutes later, but it's all a part of the learning process and I have faith that it will get better tomorrow and the days after that, as she learns bladder control. This afternoon she did much better and kept the same pair of panties dry from about 3 pm until bedtime!

Unfortunately, she did wet her bedtime panties about 10 minutes after lights out, so we'll need to leave more time tomorrow night between dinner and bed so that she can leave her dinnertime milk in the toilet. The book we're using suggests "fortifying" the bed with extra mattress pads and sheets and limiting liquids before bed--giving the child a chance to learn night dryness instead of automatically using pull-ups at bedtime and sending the child the message that "you can't stay dry at night." We're going to give it a few days and see how Evie does, but we won't bat an eye at going back to diapers for nighttime if she needs it. But right now our plan is to wake her up to urinate before we go to bed and hope she is sleepy enough to go right back to sleep. My parents used that method for my brother and I for years and my mom swears that it works.

I might be crazy, but along with this major milestone I'm combining a second one by letting Evie drop her nap. She's been showing signs for weeks now: fighting her nap for over an hour and then sleeping too late in the afternoon and then fighting bedtime, or taking a good nap and then refusing to fall asleep until 10 at night, or skipping her nap altogether and then going to bed like an angel. So today I sat her down after lunch and told her "You're a big girl now, wearing panties, etc... and big girls are allowed to say 'no thank you' to nap time. Would you like to say 'no thank you' to a nap today?" Of course she said yes as soon as she understood what I was saying. So I told her that instead she and I would have a reading hour in her room. I put a "magic reading carpet" (beach towel) on her bed and I sat in her rocking chair. She read picture books and I read my novel. I only got about 5 pages read between talking to her, reading to her and taking her potty 2 times (plus one accident), but it's a start. I hope that our reading hour becomes a huge success as we continue; I love the idea that I still get a little break of silence to have some time for myself, besides that I'm modeling a love of books for Evie.

She did very well this afternoon after reading hour and fell asleep at about 8 pm after lights out at around 7:15 (much of the 45 minutes in between was spent singing "Peas Porridge Hot," going potty and having her panties changed). Forty five minutes to settle down and fall asleep is pretty normal for Evie, but it's a long time considering the lack of nap! Hopefully she'll settle quickly into the new routine.

In conclusion, she is getting rewards for using the potty. Every time she urinates with a dry pair of panties she gets a sticker on a reward chart and when the chart is full she gets a special treat (like playing a favorite game with us) and when she poops in the potty she gets a piece of gummy candy. The gummy thing is not a great tradition, but I started it a couple of months ago and, what can I say? Gummy is very motivating for my daughter.

Wish me luck with day 2!

Awwwww...

2011-01-31T16:13:00.001-06:00

Evie the Artist

2011-01-22T17:21:00.008-06:00

I've been reading a new (to me) blog in the last few months, called The Artful Parent. A friend sent me the link and it's been an inspiration for doing art with Evie. One book recommended on the blog is First Art and I've enjoyed having that at home as a resource as well. On a rainy/snowy/too hot/sick day at home with a toddler, it has a wonderful array for ideas for art projects with a little 'un. Not to say that art is only for boring afternoons, but it's nice to have the book on the shelf when I need some new ideas. I remember feeling frustrated a year ago because Evie was a young toddler and when I tried to do art with her on those long winter afternoons, she tended to eat the crayons, or suck the water out of the aquadoodle pen, or put the stickers on herself instead of the paper. Yes, I got over myself. But anyhow, this year is much better and it's exciting to see her interest and skills develop. Here are some recent pictures.

Decorating our windows with window crayons:

Evie learned to cut with scissors today! She has safe scissors that won't cut clothes or hair:
Look! She's getting the idea of coloring! Before this week we've never seen her color in the focused way you can see with the blue hat:
And finally, some early attempts at representational painting. I don't know why Blogger rotated this picture because it should be rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise. Anyhow, the green is grass and the blue is sky, and the yellow smudge is a sun. The orange and purple are flowers and birds, according to Evie. I think all kids draw these types of things at first; it must be because they see the green grass, blue sky, etc. so much in picture books, right? I remember reading that even kids who live in smoggy cities draw blue skies:
Our fridge is covered with masterpieces. Fun!

Talking about Adoption with a Toddler

2011-01-15T22:04:00.003-06:00

I read somewhere that kids can't truly understand the concept of adoption until they are about 5 or 6 years old, and that every conversation you have with a child before that age is really just practice for the real thing. I think the hardest thing for me about talking to Evie about adoption is finding words that are at her comprehension level to express such big, important and somewhat abstract ideas. She's still a little fuzzy about the terms "boy" and "girl," so the concept of "first parents" and "adopted" are way beyond her ken.

Tonight we read the book I Wished For You at Evie's bedtime, and afterward had a conversation:

Me: "Evie, you know you were adopted just like Barley!"

Evie: "Adopted."

Me: "Yes, we adopted you. You know that R and G are coming to visit us tomorrow; they are your first parents."

Evie: "First parents."

Me: "Yes, when you were born you came out of R's tummy and then Mommy and Daddy adopted you."

Evie: "And we eat cake!"

Well, at least she has positive associations with adoption at this point? :)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T23:02:00.007-06:00

We spent Christmas with my parents, Evie's Grandma and Grandpa, and my brother and his family--including new twin nephews! It was a wonderful trip despite the long travel time to Washington D.C. I had fun holding 3-month-olds again and enjoyed changing poopy diapers and getting spit up on...at least for a few days.

Here is one of my new favorite pictures, of Evie with one of her twin cousins:
Here are Evie and her cousin C before Christmas Eve church:
Christmas morning, playing with her Uncle D's squishy rat (a stocking stuffer) which looks like a rubber rat until you throw it on the floor and it turns into a puddle of goo before it pops back into its original shape. Of course, Evie was more fascinated with this than with her own stocking stuffers:
Evie and her cousins in front of the tree before gift opening on Christmas morning:
Evie received a new cowboy hat and boots from her Grandma and Grandpa, but since her rocking horse and stick pony were left at home, she had to make do with a decorative rocking horse as her steed:
Evie also received some dress-up masks; a mouse, duck, bunny and an elephant:

On the 23rd, Evie tripped outside and face planted, scraping up her nose (she was our Rudolph for the holiday). On Christmas she scratched her scab and started it bleeding again, which makes for a fun family portrait...Evie with her Dora bandage, squinting at the camera flash! Here she is with my parents and her 3 cousins:

Rudolph (she LOVED having that bandage on her nose):
I love how the good light in this playroom (at my friend Jen's house) brings out the blue in Evie's eyes:
Ready for bed, the night before we left to drive home, wearing her new "princess" nightgown and holding Grandpa's stuffed armadillo, which she slept with that night:
It is humbling to learn about the real meaning of Christmas from your toddler. On Christmas Eve the church we attended had a living nativity and Evie spent a full five minutes staring at the youth group dressed up in pageant costumes, Mary holding a very fake-looking baby doll (and no live animals). She didn't want to go home because she was so fascinated by the pubescent wise men and the shepherds carrying stuffed animal sheep. I tried to lure her away with the promise of one gift from under the tree before bedtime, but she responded "no, I don't want a present. I just wanna look at the nativity." From the mouths of babes.

Our family has been richly blessed this year and we look forward to what 2011 will bring. We hope that our family will include a second baby by next Christmas, but after the joy of adopting Evie we feel content to wait patiently for God's will. It is SO different this time; we both feel peace and hope instead of anxiety and pessimism.

My resolution for 2011 is to put myself first more often, knowing that a mom who gets enough sleep, exercises regularly, has a strong marriage, spends time with friends and studies the Bible daily is a better mom than one who is sleep-deprived, weak, stressed, lonely and ultimately depressed because she has put everyone else's needs in front of her own. I remember getting that same advice from magazines and friends before I was a mom, but some lessons we need to learn from experience before they really stick.

Happy 2011 everyone!

Wordless Wednesday

2010-12-15T21:27:00.003-06:00

Happy Birthday to Me

2010-12-01T18:05:00.002-06:00

Thank you to my loving husband who baked me a cake today, took us out for lunch and bought me too many thoughtful gifts, as usual. :) Notice Evie's businesslike attitude in this video: "Yeah, yeah, it's Mommy's birthday. Whatever." Right before this was recorded she was singing "Happy Birthday to me!" with much more enthusiasm!

33 is feeling great so far!

Great Offer for Bloggers from Shutterfly!

2010-11-30T19:58:00.002-06:00

I heard about this promotion from a few of the other blogs I read, and I'm happy to pass it along because it is a product I love! Shutterfly is offering 50 free Holiday photo cards to bloggers: sign up here.

If you have never designed a photo greeting card before, you are in for a treat! There are over 800 different designs to choose from, and browsing through the options is almost as fun as receiving your cards in the mail and getting to see them in print for the first time. I love being able to use more than one photo from the past year, like this style, and also that there are beautiful religious-themed option like this one with its subtle Christian imagery. Last year, we chose a card that featured the word "Joy" like this one, because it perfectly fits the experience of sharing Christmas with a toddler!

The variety on Shutterfly's site extends beyond the colors, layout and wording. You can also choose from different sizes and types of paper. There are 4x8 designs so that you can easily slip your family Christmas letter inside the envelope, flat stationary cards so that you can have a photo on one side and write a personal message on the back, or 5x7 folding cards that look like traditional Christmas cards and will stand up on Grandma's mantel.

I've also spent some time recently designing calendars to give as Christmas gifts. We create one version with just pictures of Evie to give J's side of the family and I collaborate with my sister-in-law each year to create a calendar with pictures of Evie and my nephew(s). Recently my grandmother said to my mom "it's sad to get to the end of my calendar; I love seeing my great-grandkids each month" and my mom had to chuckle "ummm...you know you'll get a new one at Christmas, right?" I love that we can include custom dates like birthdays and anniversaries, so that nobody's special day is accidentally forgotten.

Thank you to Shutterfly for such a generous gift to bloggers!

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-26T09:45:00.003-06:00

Evie update at 26 months

2010-11-21T22:58:00.002-06:00

The Good:

*spontaneous "I lub you"

*singing the call-outs to "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" with me

*choosing a tutu and cowboy boots for our morning at Bible study

*waking up in a good mood in the morning

*less separation anxiety when I drop her off at the church nursery and PDO (parent's day out)

*easily distracted from meltdowns

*loves to learn new things

*happiness is as simple as going outside and wearing sunglasses

The Bad:

*post-Halloween fixation on the glories of CANDY

*will only eat healthy foods now if she's promised CANDY afterward (sigh, I brought this on myself)

*has started hitting us, herself and objects when she's frustrated or angry (we're working on labeling her emotion for her and talking about alternate ways to vent)

*resists sleep by singing to herself (this would be fine in theory except that singing "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "The Wheels on the Bus" etc. for over an hour cuts into her total sleep time and leaves her chronically tired.)

*Is in the testing limits phase, which is normal, healthy, expected, and exhausting

The Quotes:

"I'm a baby." No, Evie, you're not a baby. Do you know what you are? "I'm a toddle. I'm a women."

"I have a idea! I wanna ride a elephant."

"Mommy, Daddy, Evie. We a family."

What would you like for breakfast this morning? "How 'bout candy?"

"I only have one shoe! That's silly."

"Mommy, you wanna come in the other room an play with me?"

How can I choose dishes over that?!

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-31T19:57:00.004-05:00

Evie had two costumes this year, patched together from thrift shop finds and things we already had around the house (and her birthday party hat). She won a prize for "cutest costume" at our church Halloween party this evening for her pirate girl costume:

And on Friday she was a fairy for our playgroup Halloween party. When I secured the tiara on her head in front of the mirror, she said "I pretty!" So I guess the pretty princess phase has officially started and I have only myself to blame for encouraging her by buying the tiara in the first place!

After our church party this evening we trick-or-treated up and down our street from about 6:45 to 7:15 or so, and Evie did a great job saying "trick or treat" and "thank you!" She had a tootsie pop and some gummy candy before bed but she was so worn out that it didn't keep her awake for a second. When I asked her before bath time whether she liked Halloween she replied "one more time?" So, yes. Happy Halloween everyone!

Quick Update

2010-10-25T00:36:00.002-05:00

I actually have a lot to say, but no time and energy to say it right now! Here are a few pictures from the last month.

At the pumpkin patch:

My little fishy with her Nana:
Releasing butterflies at a butterfly exhibit:
The worst service ever at O*ld C*hicago Restaurant, but the chocolate chip cookies were yummy:
Evie's new favorite toy, her very own "little umbella" which is just as much fun in dry weather as in wet:

Happy Second Birthday to Evie!

2010-09-19T05:02:00.001-05:00

I'll have more to say later on, but for today...

Teaching Babies and Toddlers

2010-09-11T23:52:00.000-05:00

Richele posted a comment on Evie's 22 month post asking about our schedule and my methods for teaching Evie, so this post is in response! Thanks, Richele, for the suggestion because I enjoyed writing this.

However, I am also hesitant. I'm a first-time mom to a toddler and my teaching background is with teenagers, so I am far from an expert. But I always enjoy reading about what other moms do with their kids, and often get ideas from them, so I'm happy to share my thoughts in that spirit and not as an authority on the subject. Please read my tone here as conversational, not as preachy. I am under no illusions that Evie is "gifted," especially since I tell her many times a day to take the (pencil, toy, rock, etc.) out of her mouth and remind her that we eat food and play with toys, not the other way around. If she were gifted, wouldn't she have figured that out by now? Anyhow.

First, our schedule. There's really nothing special about our routine, compared to the average SAHM (stay at home mom), except that not every SAHM gets out of the house with her kid(s) as much as I do. We go somewhere (playdate, park, swimming, shopping, etc.) almost every day, usually in the morning.

It's as much for Evie's stimulation and socialization as it is for my sanity. Since she was an infant, she's been a social butterfly and tends to get cranky when we stay home all day. My mom says I was the same way and would cry as she carried me back over the threshold back into our house, while Evie tends to whine in the car when we make the turn into our neighborhood and she realizes we're headed home (of course this is usually headed home for lunch and nap, so she might just be starting her nap protest).

As we eat breakfast each morning, Evie inevitably asks me "go bye bye?" and I tell her where we are going that day. Sometimes I tell her our schedule the night before, and then she'll prompt me at breakfast "go park?" or "go simmin? (swimming)." We rarely go anywhere further than 20 minutes away, so her time in the car isn't too bad.

Anyhow, I don't have a specifically scheduled time during the day to sit down and teach Evie anything. Instead, I try to use teachable moments throughout the day. Catching a teachable moment is like catching quiet alert time with a newborn. I think toddlers learn best when they are alert, but not hyper, and calm, but not tired. For Evie, these moments happen when she is focused on something, like having a conversation with me, playing with a specific toy or reading a book. Sometimes I'm too busy or distracted to notice her mood, but often enough I do take advantage of those moments to teach a new word, demonstrate a fine motor skill or reinforce something else that she's learning.

As far as teaching goes, it's challenging for me to write down a set of things I do because most of it is automatic/intuitive. My mother is an early childhood educator and did many of these techniques with me when I was a pre-schooler. Although I don't remember much of my early childhood, I think that I must have unconsciously learned from her? Anyhow, after thinking about this a lot I think there are 4 general principles that I follow as a "baby teacher."

1. Follow the child's natural interest; everything is easier to learn when you're interested in it, no matter what age you are.

Example: A couple of months ago, Evie's favorite books were Angelina Ballerina's Shapes and Todd Parr's The Silly Book of Shapes. She also loved to play with her shape sorter. So I started pointing out shapes to her in the world while we were out and about, and identifying the shapes of other things she played with. I didn't push the issue, just followed her interest and supplied the words she needed. Now she can identify and name all of the basics (circle, square, triangle, heart, star) and also some harder ones (oval, rectangle, diamond).

2. Learning is fun and fun is learning; for toddlers, play is their job, it's the primary way they learn anything.

Example: When we are at the park playing, I have the opportunity to teach Evie about:

looking right and left when we cross the street
grass is soft and cement is hard
you're swinging up and down
going up 1 2 3 4 5 steps
let's go down the red slide and then the blue slide
be careful because that baby is littler than you
that boy can swing on the monkey bars because he's bigger than you
keep your hat on to protect your eyes from Mr. Sun
it's hotter in the sun and cooler in the shade
if you put your feet down you'll go slower on the slide and if you pick them up you'll go faster
the sign says n-o-s-m-o-k-i-n-g "No Smoking"
etc.

3. General principle: Books. Lots and lots of books.

Example: We've been reading Goodnight Moon to Evie every night since she was 6 months old or so, and she's gone through many phases with it. At first she was unimpressed, then went through a phase where it was the only book she'd sit still for. Then she was bored with it, and then figured out the game of finding the mouse and was fascinated once more. After another phase of tolerating it, now she has developed an interest in the text and will point to the words and say "A B E C L M P X Y" or something to that effect. One night last month she pointed to the words on one page and correctly said "Goodnight stars." Of course she can't read, but she has memorized the words to this book from constant repetition and has now linked the picture, text and phonics together, which is a step toward learning to read some day. Most recently, she likes to hear us read the book to her while she nuzzles in our necks with her blankie. It's so familiar that she doesn't care about the pictures any more. But when we are drawing pictures with crayons she asks us to draw her a pink moon, and then she says "goodnight pink moon." She has many books in her library, but her intimate relationship with this one book has given her the opportunity to relate to it in many different ways.

4. Sing. Songs use rhyme, rhythm and the vocal instrument to exaggerate and emphasize phonics, grammar and storytelling. Thus, they lay the groundwork for future reading skills. They also get a child's attention, so they are a great distraction from misbehavior.

Example: Awhile back we were reading books at bedtime and telling Evie that her Nana and Papa would arrive for a visit the next day, which ended in J and I singing a duet of "Tomorrow" from Annie. Evie did not criticize our pitch. Anyhow, now anytime I tell her something will happen "tomorrow" she starts singing "Tu-marra, tu-marra, I lub ya, tu-marra!" in jubilant tones. It's cute and silly, but it is helping her learn the concept of future time, and delayed gratification.

In the comments, I'd love to hear from everyone else about their techniques for teaching little ones.

Spread Thin

2010-09-05T14:41:00.003-05:00

We are staying very busy these days.

We spent 2 weeks in Mississippi visiting my brother and sister-in-law while she is on bed rest with twin boys, dilated to 3cm. Praise God, the babies are staying put a little longer and hopefully will be born around 35 weeks, healthy and strong. As I said before, Evie and I will probably visit them again once the babies arrive, to help out in our limited, crazy, mommy and toddler manner. Evie had a great time with her 3-year-old cousin, but the chaos she added to house pretty evenly balanced out the help I was able to offer with laundry, shopping, food prep and playing with my nephew.

Now that we are home again, Evie is going to start a parent's day out (PDO) program on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, I'm going to start a bible study on Wednesday mornings, we'll attend toddler story time at the library on Monday mornings and Evie has started gymnastics class on Tuesday evenings. I'm excited to start our little routine and get done some things around the house that desperately need my attention. For example, I haven't washed windows in a full year, and haven't dusted the blinds properly in months. I've always been an efficient housekeeper, but now that I'm a full-time mom I'm a veritable whirlwind of cleaning energy when I have time in the house to myself. Watch out house, I'll be home Tuesday morning at 9:30 and I'm breaking out the microfiber cloths and having my way with you. On Thursday, I might just pull out the orange oil and polish furniture! On top of everything, I'm tackling a big project at church of re-organizing all of the cabinets in the classrooms and kitchens and the pantry, cleaning the shelves and lining them all with contact paper. This kind of thing is right up my alley as a Type A neatnik.

Anyhow, until I get through this period of busyness, which I think we all experience in the fall, I'm going to be taking a blog break. I'll post for Evie's birthday in a couple of weeks, and I'll post if we hear anything about the second adoption, but other than that I'll probably be silent. We'll see. Here is a fun picture of Evie from our trip to Mississippi:

and a short video of her jumping off the diving board at the pool there (in Mississippi):

The floatation device she's wearing is this: http://www.amazon.com/Stearns-Puddle-Jumper-Basic-Jacket/dp/B00364E0C6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=sporting-goods&qid=1283717167&sr=8-1

I can't recommend this product highly enough. IT ROCKS. It gives Evie total confidence in the water and almost complete independence. Using it, she's learned to kick her legs and propel herself through the water, spin in circles and jump into water by herself. I'm not receiving any kind of incentive to promote the puddle jumper, I just think it's awesome. In my opinion, every kid 30-50 pounds who can't swim yet will love it.

In Brief

2010-08-22T23:24:00.002-05:00

We are in Mississippi, visiting my brother, sister-in-law (on strict bedrest with 31 week twins and pre-term labor) and nephew. My mom is also here helping out. Things have been...eventful. Here are a few highlights.

Evie and her cousin gamboling like puppies on the golf course near the house here:

She won't be two until next month, but somehow she already looks it in this picture, doesn't she?

Evie is learning a lot from her cousin, like baseball, bowling and football. He's allowed to tackle her, gently, on the grass:

Wordless Saturday

2010-08-07T22:27:00.003-05:00

Hang Time

2010-08-02T20:50:00.003-05:00

In my last post I referenced putting something in the back yard for Evie to hang on, so that she could have a positive outlet for hanging energy (as opposed to hanging on the edge of the kitchen table). We did install the hanging gizmo (like a trapeze on one rope) last Saturday, and in only 9 days Evie is already begging for "hang time" and doing this:

Success!

22 Months Old and More

2010-07-23T13:25:00.008-05:00

Evie is 22 months old and we are officially waiting to adopt again! I dropped our new profile books at the social worker's office yesterday, and she activated our file. We'll be up on her website in a couple of weeks. We are excited, but also apprehensive about jumping back in the pool of waiting families right now, while Evie is in a clingy phase and my sister-in-law, A, is expecting twins in a few weeks (they are due in October but almost certainly coming sooner since she's already on bed rest for pre-term contractions at 28 weeks).

With Evie's adoption, we were only active for 10 days between Lucy's adoption disrupting and being matched with R & G, so technically the same thing could happen this time and we could be matched quickly. You just never know.

I hope we wait a few months at least, so that my mom can spend plenty of time helping with the twins without feeling torn and wanting to come visit our new baby as well, and so that I'll be able to travel to Mississippi (where my brother, D, is stationed with the Navy) and help them out as well. Right now the plan is for me to make 2 trips to MS...once to help out while A is on bed rest and again to help out when the twins arrive. Evie will come with me for both trips and have a chance to play with her 3-year-old boy cousin, C. She loves playing with older kids and learning new tricks from them, so I predict Evie will enjoy the trips and I'll be able to be a help to D & A.

Another project around here is to fully transition Evie from her crib to her toddler bed before we adopt baby #2. These days she tends to decide NOT to go to sleep, but instead to create piles of stuff. This particular pile is stuffed animals, books and a doll bathtub, which was her project in place of bedtime last night:

More photos from month 22...

She gets better at climbing each month as her legs get longer:

In a woven wrap (borrowed) at a babywearing get-together (she hates being worn and would much rather run around on her own feet, but I still use the Ergo quite a bit for errands):

At Grandma and Grandpa's house in late June:
Daddy's Girl:
She LOVES to hang these days, and unfortunately tries to hang on furniture a lot. We are trying to break her of that habit, out of fear that she'll some day pull something heavy on top of herself, so we really need something like this in the back yard, since we don't have this in the back yard:
Big girl swing:
How do you go out to eat with a toddler? Stickers:

Evie learned about rolling down the sand hills from The Wiggles, so now she log rolls on any hill I'll let her. Here she is on The Lawn at U.Va. in early July:

Doing a dance near The Aviator:
Argh, this would have been a perfect picture of her in front of the Rotunda except for that darn balloon she was obsessed with that day. She'll have this picture up on her dorm wall some day. :)
Sporting Grandma's hat:

Playing drums with Daddy at church:Evie's ABC's (why did I decide to shoot these videos where I have no makeup and workout clothes on? I have no clue):

Evie has had a cute habit of saying "hopi" for "hold it" for months now, and my mom has repeatedly reminded me to get it on video before she grows out of it. She was right! In the process of shooting this video (in which I purposefully taunt her with an illicit colored pen to get the "hopi" out of her) she says "hold it" for the first time:

Finally, we've been watching Elmo ride his tricycle...

...and that has done the trick to get Evie started riding hers "just like Elmo." Now that she has the idea of pedaling we need to work on steering before we slap a helmet on her and let her loose in the park.

In conclusion, here are a couple of quotes I want to remember from this month:

*[pointing to the Pirate's Booty on top of the fridge] "Booty Time!"

and

*[pointing to the cursive letter "L" on my shirt] "ELephant! Braloo!" (braloo is an elephant trumpeting noise, in case you didn't know)

Silk and Linen

2010-07-18T08:00:00.008-05:00

Happy Anniversary to J and me! We have been married 12 years today (the silk and linen anniversary, apparently). Two years ago we were at the airport, about to board a plane headed for Mexico and our 10th anniversary vacation, and we got a call from our social worker about Evelyn Beatrix. I don't think any anniversary gift will ever top that.

I'm going to take this opportunity to write about something that I've been pondering for a few months, ever since J's grandfather passed away in March. The reverend who gave the eulogy (the same man who officiated at our wedding 12 years ago) asked for stories and thoughts from the family to include in his sermon at the funeral. I kept silent because J's grandparents had 5 children and many grandchildren and I didn't think my contribution was really necessary considering the many contributions from other family members. But the question got me thinking about J's grandfather's legacy and about Zeph, since at that time we had just recently learned that we wouldn't be able to adopt him.

I'm not sure I can express this as eloquently as I feel it, but my marriage to J is part of Grandpa's legacy. Grandpa D loved his kids and grandkids, but most of all he loved his wife, J's beloved Grandma, who passed away last September. He loved her in the way God commands husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5:25). And Ephesians 5:28: "In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself."

I don't imagine that J's grandparents lives together were perfect and free from arguments and conflicts, but J's grandfather truly loved his wife in this biblical way and everyone who knew them saw the bonds of love that held them together as husband and wife for 63 years. That legacy of respect and devotion was passed down to the next generation, and I have witnessed the same relationship between J's parents. Ever since I've known them, I've admired the devotion, tenderness and respect that J's dad shows for his mom. I am immensely blessed to be the beneficiary of this legacy. J grew up with role models who showed him how a man ought to love his wife, and he has been a patient, faithful, forgiving, romantic, thoughtful, mature, compassionate and loving spouse to me for 12 years, through many different phases of life.

He loved me through my immature early 20's, the stress of beginning my teaching career, the agony of infertility, minor depression, a crisis of faith, the pain of our experience with Lucy and the sleep deprivation and decision-making of parenting Evie. Of course there were also high points during those times, but it is easy to love your spouse during the fun times, and J has always loved me through the rough times as well. I have no doubt that he will be loving me just as faithfully for the rest of our lives.

As a 20-year-old newlywed I didn't have enough life experience to appreciate how blessed I am to have married such a man, especially since I witnessed the same love and devotion in my own parent's and grandparent's marriages, so I thought it was a given. But now that I've had more life experiences and have seen other types of husbands, other types of marriages, I have become aware that J is truly a gift from God to me. I can't thank his father and grandfather enough for having helped make him the husband that he is.

As for Zeph, I truly hope that his childhood is happy and healthy and that he grows up with parents who adore him. But I am sad for him that he won't get to grow up with J as his dad and our fathers as his Grandpa and Papa. There are things that frighten me about the possibility of mothering a son some day (toy guns, plastic cockroaches, rubber vomit, puberty), but at the same time I am excited by the idea of having a hand in raising a baby into a man, a man who will be just like his dad and will some day pass on that legacy of love, tenderness and respect to his own son.

Deuteronomy 7:9: "[God] is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands."

1-2-3-5-8

2010-07-12T22:54:00.003-05:00

Evie can count to ten! She's also learning her ABC's (more on that in another post) and learning to pedal a tricycle (ditto). The below video was supposed to show off her new skill but instead showcases what a ham she is. I recorded this via web cam and she could see herself the whole time, which was much more interesting than counting to ten.

Zen and the art of flying with a pookie

2010-07-06T14:59:00.001-05:00

This past week we traveled to Washington, D.C. because J had a conference for work. Evie and I tagged along with him to visit grandma, grandpa and friends in the area. This was Evie's fifth round-trip air experience since her birth. Each of these trips has taught me something.

At 6 months, Evie and I flew to the D.C. area to visit friends. This trip taught me survival skills. It involved a 3-leg flight, meaning 3 takeoffs and 3 landings (but we stayed on the same plane thank goodness). Six opportunities for Evie's ears to pop and for me to feed her a bottle to relieve the pressure. Six times in three hours. Please remember that Evie was a happy spitter. I brought ten bibs and six burp cloths on the plane with me and still ended up with spit up all over myself and Evie by the end. And we survived! After that trip I felt invincible as a mother (briefly). I also discovered that if your baby accidentally teethes on a plane seat belt, the world will not implode.

At 10 months, Evie and I flew to D.C. once again to visit friends and my grandmother in Virginia. This trip taught me the true value of camaraderie. My mother met up with us at our layover in the Detroit airport and flew 1/2 of the way with Evie and me. Her presence transformed the flight from a trial to a pleasure! Two adults are SO much better than one...especially when the other adult is Grandma. This trip also taught me that sometimes there is an excellent reason to let a baby crawl on the floor of an airport, and I shouldn't judge other moms who do the same, as long as they wash the baby's hands afterward. :)

At 15 months, we all flew to San Antonio for Christmas, and I learned that flying with toddlers is totally different from flying with babies. Toddlers can walk, and airplanes have floors. This is stressful for everyone. Also, toddlers aren't necessarily lulled to sleep by engine noise the way babies are. In fact, being confined in parental laps seems to have a stimulant effect. I also learned the value of memorizing your child's favorite songs and finger plays. Singing "The Wheels on the Bus" and "Shake Your Sillies Out" was much more effective than any other distraction on that trip, including books, Baby Einstein on the laptop and even snacks.

At 17 months, we all flew to Florida to see part of J's family. I learned that scheduling a flight for bedtime, thinking that the child will sleep through the entire thing, is an extremely misguided decision. It is a risky gamble, and when the cards don't fall your way, everyone on the plane suffers.

Finally, at 21 months, we flew to Washington D.C. for a third time this past week. Thankfully, Daddy flew with us this time. And we were better educated about our options. We brought along a car seat for Evie to the gate and inquired about any available empty seats on the flight. I recently learned that most airlines will accommodate a baby or toddler this way. Even if you haven't paid for a ticket for a child under age 2, you might be able to install his/her car seat in an empty seat for free. All you need to do is bring the car seat to the gate and ask, nicely. If there aren't any open seats, the gate agents will check the car seat for free. We bought a Cosco Scenera (currently on clearance at Target for only about $35!) just for this purpose, since Evie's Recaro Como is too bulky to cart around the airport and haul on board.

I had heard, and fervently hoped, that buckling Evie into her car seat on the plane would pacify her wanderlust, since she is used to being confine in the harness in the car, and would enable her to sleep on the plane as she can in the car. After some drama over whether or not there were any open seats on our flight, we were finally able to install Evie's seat on our flight to D.C. At first, everything went smoothly. Evie seemed comfortable and content. I read to her and gave her snacks, and we talked about the airplane and the takeoff. We had been reading Airport almost every day for the week before the flight, and Evie seemed delighted by the reality of flying in the airplane. However. Just because it was nap time and Evie was in a car seat (granted, not her cushy regular one) didn't mean she would succumb to the white noise of the engines and drift off to sleep. She didn't sleep a wink. Instead, she decided to seize control of her situation (being strapped in and unable to fiddle with the window, tray table, fan, light and magazines) by kicking the back of the seat in front of her. This was a full flight, and there was a very nice woman reading a book in the seat in front of Evie.

Whoever you are, lady, I am SO SORRY.

I spent the last 3/4 of the flight...a full 1.5 hours in the air...trying to cajole, convince, threaten, bribe, plead and explain to Evie to NOT kick the seat in front of her. At times I would resort to holding her feet still, but then I would foolishly decide to model napping. I would close my eyes and encourage Evie to close hers as well. Instead, she would seize the chance to kick the seat while Mommy's eyes were closed. (Later, my friend Jen said I should have asked the woman in front to turn around and fuss at Evie; that might have actually worked.)

Almost as soon as we began our descent, I realized my mistake. I was attached to the idea of Evie napping on the plane and refused to accept the reality that she wasn't going to sleep. If I had only released control of the situation and stopped trying to get her to sleep, I could have pulled out her books and stickers and played The Wiggles on J's laptop and distracted her from kicking the seat. All that flight needed was a little zen on Mama's part. Sigh.

I redeemed myself on the flight home. We flew in the morning, but Evie was visibly tired from a late bedtime and early reveille that morning. But I did not succumb to the allure of a plane nap, oh no! I cheerfully pulled out the books and snacks and movies and we had a great flight. It also helped that the plane was almost empty, and there wasn't anyone seated in front of Evie this time. When I first plopped Evie into her car seat and began buckling her harness, she gave a hard kick to the seat in front of her and shot me a meaningful look: "See, Mama, I remember last week. What are you going to do about it?" Kick away, child, kick away. Mama learned her lesson.

Then and Now

2010-07-05T14:13:00.000-05:00

Four generations Then (Dec '08) and Now:
Hanging with Snippet Then (Jul '09) and Now:

Sculpture Garden Then and Now:

Sculpture Garden grass Then and Now:

Happy Independence Day

2010-07-04T13:09:00.003-05:00

Happy 4th from our little lady and thanks to all of the women and men in the armed services who continue to keep our country free and safe.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-06-23T16:06:00.001-05:00

Happy Father's Day!

2010-06-20T20:13:00.005-05:00

Happy Father's Day to J, the love of my life and a fabulous daddy to Evie Bea. Just in time for Father's Day, Daddy is all the rage at our house and Evie has started trying to play him (the fun guy) against me (the disciplinarian). Thus begins the era of Daddy's Girl and she will run to him first for a cuddle if she hurts herself. I am sad to see Mama Mania end, but the Daddy Delight couldn't happen to a better guy. J has been a super involved dad from the start and has been pouring love and attention into Evie nonstop for almost 2 years. It's about time she realized he's a super hero!

Here are just a few of the reasons J is my hero:

*he lets me sleep in when he can

*he cooks almost all of our dinners and many breakfasts and lunches when he's home

*he helps out around the house, mows the lawn and pays the bills

*he takes Evie out on errands and adventures on weekends so that I can get things done around the house without a toddler "helper"

*he is a playful and yet tender father to our baby girl

*he loves me more than I deserve

*he forgives my blunders and tolerates my idiosyncrasies

*he makes beer and wine (yum!)

*he single-handedly provides for our financial needs without complaint

*he is a God-fearing and Jesus following man

*he makes my heart race

*he is a gift from God to both me and Evie

We love you! Happy Father's Day!

The portraits we DID order

2010-06-12T13:36:00.004-05:00

What's the occasion, you ask? A new family portrait for our adoption profiles. We are getting closer to jumping back in the pool of waiting families.

The portraits we DIDN'T order...with captions

2010-06-12T13:17:00.005-05:00

Who is that lady with the big camera?

I'm not looking at you
Get me out of here
So funny
I want to hug that bunny!
"Hopi" (hold it)
What?!
Lady, you are nuts.
Tickle!
Hop!
Evie is unhappy=no muscle tone
Cuddle
Why do I have to play with the toy NOW?

I'm done here

Evie's Friends

2010-06-01T23:47:00.002-05:00

This morning I woke to hear Evie (via the monitor) singing to herself. I walked in to find her surrounded by an audience of her friends, who were not in bed with her the night before!

20 Months Old

2010-05-25T12:47:00.008-05:00

Our Evie is 20 months old! Since I shared all of our best 20th month pictures in previous posts, Here are some from this past weekend with Nana and Papa in Minnesota (early 21st month technically). We traveled there to attend J's grandpa's memorial service and while it was a very sad excuse to see family, we had a great time. Pictures and captions here, and a more wordy update at the bottom in case you want to skip it. :)

With Nana:
Tunnels of fun at the local park:
Sliding machine:
Thrilled by the stiff Minnesota breeze:
Learning to enjoy dandelions:
Feeding Mama mac and cheese:
Walking Pika, her Aunt C and Uncle M's dog (contrary to her expression, she loved this):
Slide!
I love her expression here, so serious:

But she loves to swing as well:

Getting dirty in Nana and Papa's back yard:

Vital stats at 20 months: 25 pounds (same as last month?!), some number of inches tall that could hypothetically be measured if she would stand still, and cute as a button. 18-24 month clothes, size 5.5 and 6 shoe, size 16 attitude. :)

Favorite thing about this month: "Cuddle?"

We get this request often these days. Sometimes it is attention-seeking, as in

Me: (washing dishes)

Evie: "Mama, Mama, MOMMY!!!"

Me: "Huh? Wha?"

Evie: "Cuddle?"

Me: (drying my hands) "OK" (cuddles and kisses for all)

and sometimes it is just pure sweetness, as in

Me: (sleeping)

Evie: (in bed with us, sleepily): "cuddle?"

Me: "huh? wha? ok." (cuddle)

Evie: "more cuddle?"

Me: (melting)

Least favorite thing about this month: Little Miss Oppositional Defiant

Me: "would you like some banana?"

Evie "NO!"

Me: "how about cheese?"

Evie "NOOOO!"

Me: "guacamole?"

Evie: "NOOOO! Snack?"

Me: "it's not snack time, it's lunch time."

Evie: "Snack!"

Me: "is it time for your nap?"

Evie: "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" (falling onto the floor in anguish)

Favorite quotes from this month:

"I love Mama"

"no no pick nose!" (with her finger up her nose)

"Pika all done" (the dog had finished eating

And she has started referring to herself as "I" which is not as advanced as it seems, it is just her version of "Evie." But she points to herself and says "I chair" meaning Evie's chair or "I walk" as in "I want to go on the walk." It is adorable.

Newest skills:

*climbing ladders

*coloring with markers and pens (rather than just eating them)

*drinking from a narrow-mouthed bottle like a water bottle

*saying "one, two, three"

*pointing at words on a page and saying "eh, eh, eh" (knowing they represent sounds/words!!!)

* myna birding almost anything she hears, with the exception of the consonants "L" and "R" which are still beyond her

*extended pretend games: last night she put her doll in its bed, then made a crying noise, took the doll out again and cuddled it...I'm glad she's not letting her baby CIO yet :)

Worst new habit: putting her hands into the back of her diaper when she poops (ick!)

Best new habit: learning to re-shelve her books

What we are looking forward to this month:

*our annual open adoption picnic with our agency; we expect R and G to both attend this year!

*Evie will start a toddler gymnastics class, which we know she will love

*our community center's outdoor pool and toddler water play area opening on Memorial Day

I'll try to shoot some videos and post them soon.

Happy Mother's Day

2010-05-09T22:41:00.004-05:00

Like last year, the sweetness of this day celebrating motherhood is tinged with compassionate sadness for the women who are struggling with infertility, who are waiting to adopt or who have lost a pregnancy or a child, many of whom dread this day and suffer through the flowers passed out to moms at church, the sappy commercials on TV and the other reminders that another Mother's Day has come and they are still childless. I'm not sure I'll ever feel about Mother's Day the way H*allmark wants me to feel.

But today was a fun day spent with J and Evie. Evie did her best to make me feel like a mother, by wailing at midnight and refusing to go back to sleep until we nestled her between us in bed. J gave me thoughtful and lovely gifts, cooked me a delicious breakfast, dinner and dessert, and monitored Evie's nap while I snuck out to see the new documentary, Babies. (It was fascinating, funny and touching but didn't make me cry, surprisingly.)

It's been a busy week here with visits from all four of Evie's grandparents. Here are some recent photos. Reading with Papa:
Loving the carousel at the zoo:
Watching the sea lions with Grandma:
"Hi"
Fascinated by a fountain, with Grandma and Grandpa:
Mothering her baby doll, and all dressed up for Mother's Day church in a too-cute-to-be-true outfit from her Nana:

What HASN'T happened in the last couple of weeks?

2010-04-27T23:17:00.005-05:00

In brief:

We found a gorgeous old home (ca. 1855) that we want to buy.
We did a crapload of work on our house to get it ready to sell.
We put our house on the market.
Nobody is coming to look at it...crappy economy strikes home.
Evie woke up from a nap with a high fever (no other symptoms) and we had an emergency doctor appointment that involved a catheter, blood draw, chest x-ray, antibiotic shots and ultimately a diagnosis of...I dunno, a virus? Ugh.
We started composting and joined a whole foods co-op, a fruit and veggie CSA and a meat and egg CSA. Next up is converting our cars to run on vegetable oil. Just kidding.
Both sets of grandparents are coming to visit in the next week.
I wrote a new "Dear Special People" letter as a first step toward creating our new profile and eventually jumping back in the pool of prospective adoptive parents. (Anyone want to edit it? Shoot me an e-mail.)
Evie's birth parents, R and G, both came to visit on Saturday. It was R's first time seeing Evie since she was 3 months old! More about that another time.
J started baking bread from scratch and figured out how to cook sous vide in our crock pot with his brewing temperature regulator.
I scored a brand new Baby Bjorn at a yard sale for $20 and re-sold it within 2 days for $30 on Craigslist.
I found Evie a pair of like-new size 5 Converse for $1 at a yard sale. :D
Evie likes to poke her finger in my belly button to make me giggle.
The allergy medicine seems to be helping Evie...at least her sneezes and itching have subsided since we started giving it to her. And R said on Saturday that she had seasonal allergies as a child badly enough that she got shots for awhile.
R also mentioned that she can be a bit of a drama queen. That explains a lot! :)

19 Months Old

2010-04-19T19:07:00.004-05:00

Today, we celebrated Evie's 19 months of age by spending the entire morning at appointments.

First, her first trip to the dentist. We have been concerned about some gray spots on her teeth but learned today that her teeth are perfectly healthy and the spots are iron stains, which are most commonly found in toddlers who take iron supplements. Since Evie doesn't take supplements, it means that her love of black beans and raisins is awesome for her hemoglobin! But the spots are strictly cosmetic, so we're choosing at this point to ignore the issue and re-visit it in a year or so. Maybe at that point she'll be able to sit still for the dentist to polish off the stains. At this point, NO.

Second, a trip to the pediatrician. The doctor confirmed my suspicions that Evie is showing signs of allergies. The past few days she's had a clear runny nose, sneezing, itching and shadows under her eyes. The dark circles under the eyes were the clincher for me, since I have had allergies since childhood and have many pictures of myself with "allergic shiners." So we have samples of X*yzal syrup and hopefully they will give her some relief. The sneezing and dry cough is keeping her up at night and waking her up early from naps and nighttime sleep, much to all of our chagrin.

Oh, and Evie weighs 25 pounds at 19 months according to the doctor's scale. She's still basically in 18 month clothes, although she fits into 24 month and 2T summer clothes for the most part. When she was an infant, we received a large gift of hand-me-down clothes from a family friend. Most of the clothes were 24 months and 2T, since that was the size her youngest daughter had just grown out of. Between those clothes, gifts and my own shopping I realized a few weeks ago that Evie had 33 summer dresses in her closet in sizes 24 months and 2T. No toddler needs that many summer dresses, so we pared down and are giving away about half of them.

Evie has started playing imaginatively this month and likes to put her baby doll in her high chair and feed her air with a spoon. She also shows more interest in her L*ittle P*eople and enjoys having them go "night night" in their beds, or ride in a plane. As I was picking up last night I was amused to find that she's imaginative enough to have a dog drive the car with Robin Hood passed out in the back seat. Nice:
Evie is still a big reader, and although she has a huge board book library she really enjoys stealing Mama's books and flipping through them. I was particularly amused by her reading The Mother of all Toddler Books. Maybe she'll figure out a way to make her own diaper changes easier:
When I posted about Easter, I didn't include the following pictures of Evie's first experience with chocolate. She'd had chocolate in things before, like granola bars and a chocolate chip cookie on Valentine's Day, but she'd never had the pure, unadulterated, simple milk chocolate before. One of the items in her Easter basket was a Dove fairy bunny. She started out by making the bunny "hop, hop, hop:"
The creation of a chocoholic:
Yummy:
It's been beautiful weather here, so we are spending a lot of time outside. Evie loves to chase the dogs around and is learning (slowly) how to pedal her tricycle. My jobs are to chase her around, protect the dogs, pick up dog poo in her path and push the swing. The reward for my work is that special sparkle in her eyes when she is outside. (Oh, and for awhile this month she had scabs on both knees...which I expect to continue until she's 7 or 8 years old.) We are also getting to the park at least twice a week so that she can feed her sliding addiction.
The other developments have been in the area of speech. She is continuing to add new words and phrases almost daily. Her latest new words are "napkin" and "yucky" and her cutest new phrases are "okie dokey" and "yummy, yummy." Here is a video of the latter:

Finally, Zeph was born yesterday at 38 weeks gestation. He and his mama are doing fine physically but they can still use prayer that the custody issues will be handled smoothly and will end up in the best interest of little Zeph.

Gardening: Before and After

2010-04-12T22:09:00.004-05:00

With a combination of hard work (from J's dad, J and I) and mother nature, we are making progress with our yard! And Evie has enjoyed being my little (muddy) helper.

Back bed before:
Pruned and budding rose bush after:
Blooming daffodils after (God gets credit for that):
Side bushes before:
After (and I've raked more since, so they look even better now):
Corner of house before:
After! We extended our sump line to eliminate the marsh, pulled down all of the ivy, trimmed the bushes, and J's dad came for a week to help scrape, bleach and prime the house. J is in the middle of painting it, hence the blue tape:
Another view of the ivy infestation before:
And after!

Happy Easter

2010-04-04T14:05:00.004-05:00

Last year (6 months old):Today (18 months old):

Just as cute, but this year she says "hop, hop, hop" when she sees a bunny. I love it!

Dear Julie Andrews,

2010-03-28T00:00:00.002-05:00

For the past 18 months you've been my parenting mentor. Whenever I find myself in a tricky situation with my daughter, I ask myself WWMPD? What Would Mary Poppins Do? Usually, the answer is "sing a song!" I have solved many parenting dilemmas with random singing. And, just like Mary Poppins, I carry 8 tons of handy equipment in my bag.

It doesn't stop there. Like Fraulein Maria, I have tried to be "firm, but kind" in disciplining my daughter. Like Maria and M. Poppins, I find that the answer to many parenting issues is an "outing" to play (and sing) in the fresh air. I have tried to be "practically perfect in every way."

But recently I realized something. My parenting mentors are not parents! They are nannies! Sure, they can be perfect because they have the benefit of constructing a relationship with their charges before they come to love them. They can be perky and practical because they aren't emotionally invested in everything the children do and say. They love their charges, but not too much, not like a mother does. Now I realize why my mothering has been mostly imperfect in many ways. I have had impractical mentors.

I am at a loss. I need you to make a new movie in which you play the role of a stay-at-home mother. Until it is released, I'll be fumbling through motherhood without a compass. Rescue me from all of this uncertainty, please.

Sincerely,

Karen

New Directions

2010-03-22T22:18:00.003-05:00

Almost exactly a year ago I posted that I was "bankrupt" and taking a break from blogging. At the time, I felt as though there wasn't enough of me to go around and I needed to re-prioritize my life and see where blogging fell on the list. Obviously, the blog made the cut.

This past weekend I started feeling the same way, that I have too many irons in the fire and I need to simplify. I was minutes away from writing a post entitled "Goodbye" or something like that, and then I realized that this overwhelmed feeling is seasonal. It has to do with coming out of winter hibernation, finding the renewed energy of spring, and having too many outlets for that energy.

I am confident that my freak out will pass, and that blogging will once again make the cut; I've always enjoyed writing and I need the creative outlet.

But, I am interested in writing some off-topic posts (e.g. posts that aren't about Evie's latest activities).

So, one of my projects this spring and summer is to re-claim our yard. We bought our house 8 years ago from its original owners, who built it in the mid-1960's. By the time they sold it to us, they were elderly and retired. Elderly, retired and gardeners. They had time to putter in the yard and prune bushes and weed flower beds.

Then we moved in, a couple in our 20's, both with full-time jobs and hobbies other than gardening. We managed to maintain the lawn, but we pretty much let the beds and bushes "return to nature."

For the past few years, I've resolved each spring to get out in the garden and take it back from the weeds, but grading finals and parenting an infant have gotten in the way of those plans. Until now. Until this spring. This spring I will conquer the rampant entropy that is our back yard!

This past Friday, before we were hit with a spring snow storm, J and I filled our yard waste bin with fallen twigs, prunings and other yard waste. It was our first stab at this year's gardening project. Then, before the snow began falling, I took a few pictures of our yard. They aren't truly "before" pictures because, as I said, we had already done a couple of hours of work. But they are close enough. Behold the chaos. I hope I have some impressive "after" photos to offer you in the fall.

Here is where our sump pump empties into the side yard. We have a natural spring on our street, so the sump pump works year-round. I am plotting to turn this into a little rock pond with lily pads:

This is where the pleasant creeping ivy that the house's previous owners planted has threatened to consume our home:
This was a sweet little rock garden with succulents when we moved in. Now it just looks abandoned:
This weedy plant is a rose bush. We have ignored it for years and yet it still produces a few roses every year. Imagine what will happen when I take an interest!
This is the back border of our yard. In summer it resembles the deepest, darkest jungle of the Amazon. I have always been afraid to weed it in the summer, for fear of being strangled by a python or bitten by a tarantula. It looks much less threatening in March, before it becomes dense and green.
Today most of our snow melted, and tomorrow should be pleasant. I'll be back outside, filling up the yard waste bin again. If I have any gardeners reading, feel free to advise me; I'm all ears.

Sad News, Eighteen Months Old and my Second Blogoversary

2010-03-17T00:00:00.003-05:00

Sorry to combine so many things into one post.

First, sad news to report. J's Grandfather, and Evie's last surviving Great Grandpa, passed away today. His death was sudden, but not completely unexpected because his beloved wife passed away about six months ago and ever since that his grief has been palpable. I know I'm not the only family member who saw that he literally couldn't live without his wife. We are all bereft, and also happy for him that he is reunited with his soul-mate in heaven.

Although we saw him a couple of weeks ago, during our trip to Florida, we unfortunately failed to take any pictures of him with Evie. But I do have a short video from Christmas, and watching it tonight made the tears start up again. Both he and J's Grandma were devoted to family and delighted in having great grandchildren. One of our last pictures of Great Grandma is of her on the floor with Evie, blowing bubbles:

And one of our last memories of Great Grandpa is that he made a point of getting down onto the floor with Evie at Christmas:

This photo and video illustrate so much about who Evie's Great Grandparents were: active, loving, joyful, and devoted to family. I am blessed to have known them for eleven years and I grieve for Evie that she only had a few opportunities to meet them during her first eighteen months.

Switching gears...

Happy Blogoversary to me! Two years ago I started this blog on J's laptop from our room in this hotel, in New Orleans' French Quarter. I wrote my first posts while lounging in the courtyard, sipping gin & tonic. Two years later, I am pondering whether or not Evie is ready to taste her first Guinness. Kidding.

But seriously, I can still taste the excitement of those days in the Big Easy. We got "the call" the day before leaving (it was my spring break) and had a full, lovely week to luxuriate in our prospective parenthood and enjoy St. Patrick's day in style.

My life today is everything I thought it would be two years ago. Absolutely everything. I'm so blessed to be writing a mommy blog these days!

Speaking of mommy blogging, Evie is about to turn 18 months old. (Let's just ignore that I didn't manage to write a 17 month old post last month. Ahem.) I am in complete denial that Evie is on her way to her second birthday, so if you know me in real life, please don't speak of it. I'm just not ready.

Because this has already become a lengthy blog post, I'll be brief.

Vital Stats on Evie at 18 months:

weight: 24.5 pounds

height: 32 inches

percentiles: around 50th

clothing size: 18 month

favorite food: raisins
favorite song: Baby Beluga by Raffi

favorite animal: cat (or as she calls it, meow)

favorite book: Night Night Little Pookie by Sandra Boynton

favorite activity: sliding

favorite person: Mama

scared of: strange men

hates: brushing her teeth

latest accomplishment: two and three word sentences (Mama night night, Dada bye bye, more rice, light on) and jumping (she gets about 3/4 inch of air)

cutest behavior: holding her hand to her ear and saying "hallo?" when she hears a phone ring

teeth: 12 with 4 more on the way (canines)

I'll finish with pictures.

Dinner at Red Robin (she loved the mascot and gave him a couple of hugs):
After a bath, with Mama:
Just like her favorite animal:
Checking her stocks:
Rocking at Grandma and Grandpa's house:
Reading with Grandma:
On the grounds of the University of Virginia, where her Grandma, Grandpa, Daddy and Mama all went to college and graduate school (Me for my B.A in English and Psychology., J for Engineering B.S. and M.A., Grandma for B.S. in Education and Grandpa for his B.S. and M.D.):
Wahoowa! While we were there, I bought her a t-shirt that says "Born to be a Wahoo." I guarantee I'll post a picture at some point.

The Zoo

2010-03-01T22:00:00.003-06:00

Because I'm a member of our local zoo, we got 1/2 off admission to the Tampa zoo, which was a great deal. Although the weather was cool on the beach, in the heart of Tampa it was warmer and a beautiful, sunny day for the zoo. We all had a great time and Evie stayed awake long enough for us to see almost everything. Evie's favorite was the primate section. She particularly enjoyed watching a family of gibbons at play and cracked us up by scratching her armpits and saying "ooh ooh" as she watched them. This was our first trip to the zoo since she's started recognizing animals and knowing their sounds or movements, so it was a lot of fun. We can't wait until it's warm enough here to start going to our local zoo again. Here is a short video recap of our zoo day in Tampa:

The Beach

2010-02-28T23:15:00.004-06:00

Whenever people ask me how I like living where we do (the Midwest), I'm usually enthusiastic, with a caveat. "It's great, but..." "We love it here, but..." "We plan to stay here long term, but..."

My caveat is the ocean. Until I became a Midwesterner by marriage, I'd never lived anywhere that didn't border the ocean. I grew up an Air Force brat and lived in Virginia, California, England, North Carolina, Louisiana, Texas and then Virginia again. At the time I thought that I was well-traveled and had lived a variety of places, which was true. But then I moved to the Midwest and realized that all of my former homes had something in common: they were all a day trip away from the beach. I never thought of myself as a beach person until I couldn't get to one if I tried. People here often tell me "but we have so many lakes!" or "the Great Lakes are like the ocean..." Nope. Not the same thing. Being a Midwesterner makes me feel claustrophobic. We love it here, but....

So, at 17 months of age my daughter finally got to see the ocean for the first time. She appears to love it as much as I do:

More Prayers Needed

2010-02-27T10:44:00.002-06:00

This time for Evie's Aunt C and Uncle M, who just moved to Santiago, Chile about a week ago. They are safe after the recent earthquake but need prayers for continuing safety. Thank you!

Evie's Uncle M is getting his doctorate in the political science of Latin America and they have been living in Mexico and now, Chile. Here is C's blog, where I'm sure she'll post about the quake once they have enough stability and internet connection to do so: http://unpesoparati.blogspot.com/

Sad News

2010-02-25T15:03:00.002-06:00

I am sorry to report that Zeph's adoption plan seems to be over. We are about 97% sure that adopting him is impossible.

Long story short, Zeph's father is fighting for custody. On the one hand we admire C for loving his unborn son and fighting passionately to parent him. On the other hand, we support A and feel sad for her that her wish for her son will not be fulfilled. She dearly wanted for us to raise Zeph and we can't make that come true.

As we told A last night, we don't want to have to tell our son some day that we fought his biological father in court, took him out of state as a newborn and hid him from a birth family that wanted to raise him. This is the opposite of the kind of adoption we have with Evie and the antithesis of the kind of adoption we want for any of our future adopted children.

We can only pray that C and his family will prove A wrong and be a wonderful nurturing family for Zeph. That, or C will have a change of heart and decide to choose adoption for his son. But at this point we do not think Evie will have a little brother this spring. We are sad, and disappointed, but we feel relieved that this is happening before Zeph's birth and before we had a chance to know him and fall in love with him.

If you pray, please keep A and C, Zeph and their families in your prayers. Pray for peace, wisdom and comfort for everyone involved. Thanks.

Wordless Wednesday, Vacation Edition

2010-02-24T12:29:00.003-06:00

Fat Tuesday

2010-02-16T11:03:00.002-06:00

Happy Fat Tuesday Y'all! I lived in NOLA in 8th grade and I started this blog from the French Quarter almost 2 years ago. Evie is dressed for the occasion today:

And here is a short video that will particularly entertain her grandparents. The first minute is animal sounds but the last half is less action-packed, if you know what I mean. :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

2010-02-14T14:26:00.004-06:00

One year ago:The next couple of pictures are of Evie last night, getting ready to attend our church's Valentine's Day party with live music and scrumptious sugary temptations. Evie had her first real cookie (chocolate chip) and everyone there enjoyed watching her bop, twirl and clap in appreciation of the music. The band played a mix of Christian and secular love songs. Evie did great and got to stay up past bedtime, but punished us for it by waking up at 5:30 this morning! Here she is before the party:

And on the way to church this morning:

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ergo Giveaway!

2010-02-13T17:21:00.002-06:00

I saw this linked from Diana's blog, that a friend of hers IS GIVING AWAY AN ERGO BABY CARRIER!

I debated whether or not to enter, since we already have one, but decided to go ahead and enter because I have someone in mind to give it to in the case that I win.

I've only had my Ergo for a couple of months but it is fabulous for carrying older babies because it can be worn on the back and your wiggly toddler feels like carrying a backpack of books, which is much easier to carry than the same weight on your hip or front. The Ergo distributes the baby's weight primarily on your hips and is also comfortable for the baby, allowing them to sit in a comfortable pocket that doesn't put undue pressure on their crotch or thighs. I've used several different carriers, but this is the only one that Evie has fallen asleep in since she was a newborn. She fell asleep on my back while we were shopping, at 15 months old. That is saying something, in my opinion.

Anyhow, better late than never...if you read this in time, go enter the contest by midnight tonight, Feb 13th.

Nursery Before and After

2010-02-07T20:39:00.005-06:00

Here is what Evie's room looked like a year and a half ago:

And on the ceiling we had this I*kea light fixture:
And here is what it looks like now, with Evie's new toddler bed! (Notice the curtains are different, too. Brown to block out light during nap time.)
And J spent Friday afternoon putting up a new light and ceiling fan. It's hard to see (sorry for the bad pic) but the light looks like the earth and the fan blades have stars and rocket ships on them. It is super cool and Evie loves it. It will be nice to have the fan in her room.

We have decided at this point to leave the crib in Evie's room in order to keep the third bedroom as a guest room. We want to be able to have plenty of guests (like grandmas!) to help out when Zeph comes home. We anticipate, however, that he will probably sleep in the moses basket or in a P*ack 'N' P*lay in our room early on, and perhaps in the PnP in the guest room when we don't have guests. When he gets to 6 weeks or so and starts sleeping better at night (knock on wood) then we'll try putting him in the crib and see how he and Evie do together. I've heard anecdotally that siblings tend to be closer friends when they share a room and that they will get used to each others nighttime noises. We will see!

Tiny Dancer

2010-01-28T19:57:00.008-06:00

First, an update on Zeph. Things are looking good at this point and we are feeling hopeful that Zeph's adoption will actually happen in April! This is making me freak a little bit about getting ready, so I'm going to start making a packing list since this adoption is out of state and will require more planning than Evie's did. I've also started buying things, like boyish changing pad covers and boyish bath towels, and yes, those socks that I wanted. :)

Today I took Evie for more portraits (free 8x10 and sitting fee!) because 1. I recently found a pettiskirt for a great price online and 2. I have been awful at getting good pictures of her at home these days.

Of course, Evie could sense my plan to take her at 3:40 (since she usually naps from 1-3) and refused to fall asleep until 2, so I had to wake her up to get her to the sitting on time. Thus she was somewhat grumpy, and hungry. This is the worst of the pictures, but I love it anyhow:

And here is one of the best of the pictures:
But this is what I chose for my free 8x10:
Since they wouldn't let me get it for free in b&w:

Having raisins as an after-nap snack:
A little scared of the photographer and her camera:

Would be cute except for the sock dents and toenails that need to be clipped :)

This really deserves a whole other post, but I'll end by saying that 16 months old is my favorite age so far. Either that or I'm finally hitting my mommy stride. Life is good.

16 Months Old

2010-01-22T20:58:00.009-06:00

Where do I begin?! My baby is 16 months old and isn't a baby anymore. Every day she does something new and proves to me that some day she will, indeed, go off to college and leave me heartbroken.

Although she's still clingy and needy at times, the last half of this month has been all about independence. The other day I fussed at her for the first time because she was ignoring me as I was trying to ask her a question! This same scenario will happen a gazillion times between us, but the first time happened at 16 months old. Sigh.

She is very interested in toys at this age and is extremely distractable. She'll sign that she wants to eat, but on the way to the kitchen a toy will catch her eye and she will lose interest in our destination. I've learned that when she signs "potty" to me I really need to pick her up and carry her to the bathroom because otherwise she'll lose interest on the way there. It's nice in one way that I have more freedom to do dishes and sort laundry without her clinging to my legs or "helping," but it's also sad to feel that I've become irrelevant unless she needs something from me.

Here are the latest brag-worthy Evie details:

*she now can identify things that are "bue." (blue)

*she is starting to use 2 word phrases...we've had 3 so far: "more Daddy" (awwwww), "down Mama" (go down the stairs) and "Mama bubbles" (blow more bubbles in the water).

*yesterday (twice!) she signed potty to me on her own initiative and then went poop on the potty. Yay!!! Potty learning is going very slowly, at Evie's pace, but she seems to understand what it feels like to need to go, and how to make the magic happen, so to speak. These are very important skills, no?

*she has a few new ASL signs: "potty," "play," and "beautiful."

And for the big finale:

*we are transitioning to a toddler bed! She's slept the past couple of nights and naps on her crib mattress on the floor, and she is doing great with it. Yes, just a few minutes ago I heard a THUMP and a cry as she rolled out onto the carpet, but overall she has been sleeping just as much as normal and actually going to bed with less fuss. I think she might have decided it wasn't fair that she had to sleep in a crib since she has come to understand that Mama and Dada's bed does NOT have bars on it. In any case, she was becoming more and more resistant to bedtime and naps in her crib, and this transition has eased some of the angst. At least for now. (Knock on wood.) When she stops rolling out, we'll find a toddler bed frame and get the mattress up off of the floor. But it looks like her crib will be ready for Zeph to use in a few months!

Next, here are a few pics from this month (most of the pics were from Christmas and have already been posted).

This is Evie's new pal, Violet. She was a gift from Evie's Uncle D and Aunt A, and Evie LOVES Violet. Some of you might not have heard of these toys yet, but Violet plugs into the computer via a USB cord and can be programmed with Evie's name, favorite color, favorite food, etc. and then sings songs about those things. J and I can't help but grin whenever we hear Violet say "I love you, Evelyn." It's precious and creepy at the same time. Because we're dorks we want to program Violet to say "My favorite color is....gray!" and "My favorite animal is...a weasel!" and "My favorite food is...lima beans!" :)

Here is a picture that we will print out and keep for posterity so that we can embarrass Evie in front of her friends some day. Every kid has to have a potty pic, right?

We had a lot of snow in the Midwest this month, and here is Evie enjoying sledding in our back yard. I picked up this infant sled (it has a lap belt to keep her in) at a yard sale this summer for $2. Go me! The only problem was that the snow was so deep; the sled kept tipping over. But Evie seemed to enjoy it anyhow.

Finally, here is a fun pic of Evie roughhousing with her Dada. Good times:

And finally, a few (I mean several) short videos. First, Evie saying a few of her words:

Next, playing the piano:

Sledding, earlier this month:

Watching Dada shovel the driveway and practicing our "ho ho ho":

Playing peekaboo with her newly attached blankie (yay for transitional objects!):

Feeding herself oatmeal (and notice the gasps of delight when she comes up with oatmeal on the spoon!):

And, finally, a funny video we caught accidentally while celebrating Christmas in Minnesota. Here Evie and her Papa are playing a silly game while the movie A Christmas Story provides the background audio. Strangely appropriate audio?

Off-Topic: My Shoes

2010-01-18T19:38:00.007-06:00

I mentioned over a year ago that at the time I had 12 pairs of Crocs HERE. The primary reason is that I suffer from plantar fasciitis and Crocs help relieve my symptoms. Since I wrote about it, I've had a couple of people suggest that I need to elaborate on this factoid about myself, most recently Evie's Aunt C mentioned it as she saw me receive 2 new pairs for Christmas. :)

Right now my count is 15 pairs, plus knee pads, and a new pair of slippers on the way (I got them for Christmas but they were too big, so we are exchanging them). Enjoy the tour of my shoes (?!). I do have other types of shoes, but the only ones I really wear are my running shoes and my Crocs. All of the others mainly stay in my closet unless I am attending a wedding or something like that.

#1: These are pink and brown Adara style, a semi-dressy sandal. I wear them in the summer when I want to look a little nicer than flip flops.
#2: These are the Malindi style and I wore them a lot for teaching because they are closed toe and look professional peeping out from below pants. I promise.
#3: These are my newest pair (excluding the slippers on the way). They are the Lena style. Although you can't tell from the pic, they are wedges. They promise to be a comfy alternative to dress shoes for some occasions. They look silver in the pic, but they are black IRL.
#4: These are the Havana style and I picked them up on clearance this past fall and haven't worn them yet. Cute, though! They are also wedges.
#5 and #6: These two are both the Sassari style, which was the first wedge style Crocs ever made. They were my first experiment with dressy(ish) Crocs. Unfortunately they have been hard to match to outfits because of the 2 tone, but I have enjoyed having them in my shoedrobe.
#7: These are my trusty Croc flip flops that I live in when it's warm (Capri style)...
#8: ...unless my outfit doesn't match the brown of the above pair, and then I wear my older gray and aqua flip flops (also Capri). Right now these live in my gym bag for when I take Evie swimming at the Community Center.
#9: These are my old, trusty Rx Relief style black crocs that served me well for teaching in the winter...
#10: unless I needed brown, and then I wore these Professional style:
#11: These are the Nile style sandals. They were my first sandal Crocs and got a lot of wear for awhile but now they are mostly gathering dust. :(
#12: These were one of my Christmas gifts this year. They are the Nadia style boots and have been wonderful for our snowy winter days. Sometimes Crocs just shouldn't have holes; winter is one of those times.
#13: These were my first pair of Crocs ever, the classic Beach style. I never wear these anymore because it's not cool to wear this color of Crocs unless you're six years old. :)
#14: These are my current slippers, the Mammoth style. They have seen 2.5 winters of hard use and you can see how much I need those new slippers to arrive in the mail. Don't be too grossed out, though. The dark stuff on the inside is lint from socks, not dirt. The linings on these get washed regularly. :)
#15: Here are the Georgie style rain boots that J and I share when we need to grab some boots for getting the mail or walking the dogs in rain or snow. Now maybe they belong to J since I have my new Nadias.
#15.5: These don't really count, but I highly recommend Crocs kneepads. They are awesome for doing an old-fashioned scrub-down of the kitchen floor, and J uses them every year when he goes on our church mission trip to Mexico to build houses for needy families. They are super comfy.

p.s. Evie pooped in the potty 3 times today!

p.p.s. She is 16 months old tomorrow; wish me luck getting some decent pics and/or video of her.

In Brief

2010-01-11T00:20:00.004-06:00

Evie's newest words: star, bow and car

On the to-do list: fingerprinting and other paperwork for our homestudy update (in preparation for possibly adopting Zeph).

Latest on Zeph: still uncertain; his mom still wants to make an adoption plan but his dad is trying to disrupt it (I can't go into detail, but in A's opinion, C and his family should not get custody of Zeph). J and I find ourselves even more grateful to M & T and R & G for making their adoption plans together. If we do adopt Zeph, it will be stressful to not have a good relationship with his birth father, or perhaps not any relationship at all? But we trust A's assessment of the situation and are trying to just stand back and see what happens.

Warm fuzzy: Evie can pick J and I out of photos, even older ones where my hair is different, J is clean shaven, etc. She points at us and triumphantly states "Mama!" or "Dada!" She knows us. That is awesome.

2009 in Pictures

2010-01-08T20:14:00.006-06:00

Stealing this idea from Ashley (thanks!), here is 2009 in pictures. Some of these are pictures that I haven't posted to the blog until now.

January (3 months old):

February:

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:

August:

September:

October:

November:

December:

Christmas, and Books are Food

2010-01-02T22:00:00.001-06:00

So much has happened in the past couple of weeks that it exhausts me to think of trying to recap, so I'm going to wimp out on that. But I do have some pictures, a video and a question for you all (please help!)

Evie's dress for Christmas Eve church:
Evie received many gifts, of course, but a box of clothes from Nana and Papa got the best reaction. As she pulled out each item she literally exclaimed "ahhh" and "oooh"...my little girl:
Our tree shot for this year...Nana, J, Papa, Evie, me, Uncle M and Aunt C:
My video is from a couple of days ago. Evie has been having nap "issues" and is getting so tired by evening that she is either hyper and silly or else literally falling asleep at dinner:

And now for my question. 2 lead-up questions first. One, why is Evie reading a pizza cookbook?

And why are her board books on the top shelves and our cookbooks on the bottom shelves? Shouldn't it be the other way around?
Evie has developed a love of devouring books. Literally. There are whole bites taken out of "Mr. Brown Can Moo. Can You?" She is also in a defiant toddler phase (pardon the redundancy) and so the more I fuss at her for eating them, the more she chows down. But I can't just give in and let her eat her library, can I? Please help! Any advice and wisdom is welcome. It isn't that she doesn't want to read them, she does. And yes, she's teething. And no, she doesn't seem interested in teething toys. She wants to eat cardboard, apparently. Help. Can I use bitter apple on a toddler? (mostly kidding)

Santa didn't show

2009-12-24T13:08:00.005-06:00

We waited until today (Christmas Eve) to take Evie to see Santa. Unfortunately, the mall Santa in J's hometown decided to stay home because of the on-again-off-again snow we're getting here. So we put Evie in Santa's chair by herself. Poor, sad Evie. Actually, this face is a lot more cheerful than she would have been if Santa had been there. We were expecting a "screaming on Santa's lap" shot for this year, since Evie doesn't like anyone but J or I to hold her these days.

Merry Christmas everyone!

15 Months Old

2009-12-19T20:15:00.005-06:00

Happy 15 Month Birthday Evie!

We'll go in for a well child checkup after Christmas, so I don't have official stats, but I weighed her tonight and she is 23 pounds. I have no idea about her height because the number of times she has stood still in the last couple of months is about 3, and none of those times did I have a tape measure handy. But she is in 18 month clothes, can almost open the dishwasher herself and can now climb onto a lot of our furniture by herself, so I'd say she's gotten taller. When she's naked she looks so tall and skinny to me!

Potty learning is going OK. As expected, she had a regression for a couple of days and wasn't interested, but today she rallied and peed on the toilet 3 times. She loves to watch the toilet flush and clap her hands "Yay!" Poop is another matter entirely. I know that poop is often a challenge when potty training a 2 or 3 year old, but I was hoping it would be smoother with Evie. Nope! I am so jealous now of the parents who start potty learning when babies are younger and the kids learn that the potty is a great place to poop, instead of getting comfortable pooping in a diaper. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say. It's only been a few days, but my mother's intuition is telling me that Evie prefers pooping in a diaper at this point and doesn't want to change the system. I don't want to pressure her but instead follow her lead, but it's going to be a challenge to bite my tongue on this issue because MAN would it be nice to not have to spray out between 1 and 3 poopy diapers in the toilet every day! Enough poop talk.

Speaking of challenges, is anyone else dealing with (or has dealt with) the violent streak in young toddlers? Evie is all about hitting, kicking and pinching me these days. She does it some to J, too, and the dogs (although we heavily supervise those interactions) but mostly to me. I believe it's mostly frustration surrounding not being able to communicate her desires and thoughts, but some days I feel as though I'm "fighting" with her all day, that most of our interactions are negative. Either she's doing something naughty and I'm redirecting her, resulting in a tantrum, or I'm trying to play with her and she lashes out at me (testing boundaries I guess). I feel as though I say "no" too much, so I've started saying "oops" or "uh oh" instead, as a warning that she's doing something naughty. That seems to help, but she still likes to yell "NA!" at me as her way of saying "I hear your 'no!' and raise you a 'NA!'" I call her a little stinker a lot these days. :) We've tried to toddler-proof as much as possible, to reduce the number of times we say "no," but there is a limit to how much we can do without removing all of the furniture and padding the walls.

Hopefully this phase will pass quickly, if it is communications related, because Evie's verbal and ASL skills are blossoming. She owns (uses independently, correctly and most adults can understand her) "Mama," "Dada," "ball," "baby," "no (na)," "doggie," "bubble (bubba)," "more," and a few others. She also says several more words with a little modeling beforehand, and she is myna birding a lot. Yesterday she said "chiz peas" back to me after I modeled "cheese please." So cute.

She also uses a lot of non-verbal communication and owns the ASL signs "more," "all done," "eat," "milk," "please," "sorry," (she gets a chance to use that one after she pinches me) "light," "ceiling fan," "music," and "hot." She learned that last one while I was taking a bath this week. Mama's baths are HOT! The water is not as much fun to splash in that way. :( She uses the signs for "light" "fan" and "music" a lot. She figures out quickly where all of the sources of sound and light are in any particular room and then demands that they all be turned on at once. She won't let it go until the room is ablaze with light and playing a song she enjoys. Evie is not environmentally friendly, yet.

Speaking of music, Evie is in a repetition phase right now (with books, too) and doesn't want to hear any new music, only the music she already knows and likes. If anything comes on that has a slow rhythm, is instrumental, has foreign language lyrics or uses an instrument that isn't familiar to her, she shakes her head no until I change the track. If I don't change the track fast enough, she starts crying. If she likes the song she'll either sit still listening, bop along to the beat, or in the case of "Baby Beluga" by Raffi, she'll sing along "baybee, baybee, baybee." When the song ends she emphatically demands (and signs) "MORE."

I love that she has generalized some of her ASL and is being creative in her communication. For example, younger babies only use "more" for food, but Evie uses it for more food, music, book repetitions and games. She has also generalized "all done" by using it to tell me when she's ready to get off the potty. She's also started using it in her crib when she wants to tell me that "no, I'm not going back to sleep. 45 minutes is long enough for my nap and I am ALL DONE with this nap." How can you argue with a baby waving "all done" to you from her crib? I had to cave, but she was miserably cranky by bedtime.

More updates...

Teething: currently, bottom eye teeth and molars. Evie's teeth take forevah to come in, so it's easy to attribute just about all of her cranky behavior to that instead of toddlerdom.

Eating: she just came out of a picky stage and right now is eating like a linebacker. Must be a growth spurt starting. I feel like I spend all day preparing food, feeding her and cleaning up afterward. She's still being fairly picky about what she'll eat, but during growth spurts like this she broadens her choices somewhat and eats enough veggies to keep me from starting her on vitamin drops. Really the only veggie she'll eat outright is peas, but we sneak other things into her with things like this and this.

Reading: her attention span is getting longer, but she is getting picky about which books she wants to read. She prefers books that she can participate in by lifting flaps, pointing out objects that she knows "ball!" "baby!" or that are participatory. For example, books that encourage us to point to parts of our body, sing, clap, stomp our feet or make emotive faces. Once she latches onto a book, she often wants us to read it to her over and over and over and over again. We usually get bored by the fourth or fifth time and distract her before she is truly satiated..."hey, Evie, want a snack?!" We feel properly guilty about this.

Sleeping: with a few exceptions (teething related?) she is sleeping better right now (knock on wood) and has slept through the night (usually 7pm to 7am) a handful of times in the last month. Other nights she is up only once or twice and we have started going in and giving her some water instead of milk when she wakes. The lack of a whole milk snack in the middle of the night has resulted in a VERY hungry toddler when she wakes up in the morning. She heartily disapproves of our desire to start coffee brewing before we cut up her banana. Where are our priorities!?

Visit with G: a week ago, G (Evie's birth father) came to visit. We were very happy to see him, or at least I was. Evie was pretty freaked out and cried at a couple of points. Poor G! I can imagine how that feels for him. I assured him that we show her pictures of him regularly (we do) and that it's only a matter of time before she will understand that he is one of her people and will greet him warmly. I am confident of this because of my recent experiences S*kyping with my 2-year-old nephew. His parents have shown him pictures of our family and taught him our names, so he knows our faces as Uncle J, Aunt Karen and Cousin Evie. I'm sure Evie will be the same at his age, so G doesn't have too long to wait until she will greet him eagerly by name. Anyhow, he was still happy to see her and gushed about how beautiful she is (something we heartily agree on) and how smart (another point of congruity). He is having a rough time right now, due to the economy and lack of jobs. For those of you who pray, please say a prayer for him because he is a wonderful man and needs to have blessings come into his life right now. He came with good news that R, Evie's birth mother, is doing well. We anticipate that she will be able to see Evie again in the spring, which will be very cool.

I'll conclude with a few pictures from this month...

At C*huck E C*heese on my birthday (long story) Evie adored the carousel ride and I love this picture because it shows her face in the mirror. Don't let the expression fool you; she thoroughly enjoyed this!

Another great mirror shot! This one is at a pre-school learn/play center we visited last week. Evie likes to wash her hands these days, and this little sink was made for her. She was not happy to have competition, even though the other little girl is one of her playmates and friends. See that look she's giving? I get that A LOT these days. Exasperation, wariness, frustration and stubbornness:
Here's another look we get frequently: the "tilting my head back so that I can see you under my bangs." This is why she has pigtails and/or bows in most pictures. This pic also illustrates her deep and abiding love for monkey climbing. And, yes, the paci...she was very cranky that day.
I took a lot of photos today, to try to get at least one decent photo of her on her 15 month birthday. This is the best I could do, out of 31 photos. Not only is Evie a bundle of energy, she also takes after her Nana and likes to close her eyes in photos! :)
No video in this post since I've posted so much of it in the past few days.

The next few days will be busy with packing up to drive to Minnesota for Christmas, so in case I don't post between now and then, Merry Christmas everyone!

Wordless Wednesday plus words

2009-12-16T21:35:00.003-06:00

___________________________________________________________________

(not related to the picture, so the picture still counts as wordless, right?)

So, I am not ready for this new development, but that doesn't matter...I'm just along for the ride! "They" say that girls potty train earlier than boys and that kids in cloth diapers potty train before kids in disposables. OK. But nobody prepared me for the possibility that Evie would initiate potty training at almost 15 months old and that I would be shopping for a training toilet seat this afternoon. Here's the timeline:

10 months: she starts showing interest in the toilet, so I buy her a potty to sit on while I'm on mine

13 months: she starts getting very agitated and defiant about diaper changes, and begins to fight back at the aggressor (me) by pinching my arm as I change her

14 months: I start changing her on the floor so that I can stay out of pinching range a little better

14.5 months: I decide that as long as I'm changing her on the floor, why not put her potty next to me and let her sit on it with a naked bottom before I put on the new diaper?

yesterday: she peed in her potty 3 times in a row (stayed completely dry between times) and shocked her Mama who was not prepared for this development. Once, yes, great, but 3 times in a row?

today: she seemed to have regressed and cried when I tried to put her on the potty this morning, but then made her desire clear by running half naked in to the bathroom and running up to the toilet. I held her under the arms while she peed there, and then again after her nap. Plus, she stayed completely dry during her nap! 2.5 hours! So, after her nap we went shopping for a comfy padded training seat with handles. She loves it, and peed on it 3 times before bed.

I fell totally unprepared for this...I haven't read ANY books about it yet! :) Maybe it's a phase and she'll go back to diapers in a few days and train when she's 2 like many kids do. But maybe not. My mom's advice was to go with it, follow her lead and do whatever I can to help her along. Next goals are to teach her a sign to tell me she needs to go, and try to catch poop on the potty as well. Won't that be nice!

Bonus Videos

2009-12-14T23:32:00.001-06:00

I had to capture this footage yesterday (if only for myself as I started recording) because Evie was sooooo tired at dinner (due to only a 45 minute nap...grrrrr...) that she was laying her head on the table between bites. Little did I know that I would capture her very first use of the word "more" without the accompanying sign! I love her jargon in this, I'm glad I have it for posterity.

Right afterward I also taped her playing a little game that we do all the time these days--labeling parts of the face and body:

By Special Request

2009-12-12T23:58:00.004-06:00

A few of the items in this mish-mash are by special request. Oh, and we are seeing G tomorrow so I'll post about that later.

Evie has, ummm... ideas about who gets control of cutlery these days. Around Thanksgiving my mom got this (very short) video:

Evie is ready to eat with utensils, but I'm not so sure I'm ready to release control and deal with the messes! Mommy has issues. Here she is more recently, taking control of her applesauce experience:

And our little monkey is a problem solver, too. Sigh. She pushed her chair over to the baby gate in an attempt to summon her daddy from the basement (where he has a home office). It didn't work, since he was at his real office, but she gave it a good try.
We got couple of inches of snow here this past week and it was Evie's first experience getting to go out and wade in it. Here she is being contemplative about the experience of having a cold, wet bottom (we had a wardrobe malfunction with her snow suit):

I've been playing around with making my own prefold diapers out of old t-shirts, and here is one of my projects. It's hard to see in the picture, but the (former) t-shirt has tiny faux gems glued on as part of the pattern. Every girl should have at least one pair of undies with sparklies, right?
And Safire requested awhile back that I show some of my scrapbooking spreads. I would have more except that my computer recently crashed and I lost some of the photos I have taken of my work. But for now, here's one example!

The background of this photo is also a project of mine; a fall quilt that I made a couple of years before Evie was born. Will I ever finish a quilting project again now that she's here?

Finally, a few recent videos. J got me a new camcorder for my birthday and it is great! Here is Evie doing the motions to Eric Carl's book From Head to Toe. This is by special request of Evie's grandma:

And some video that J captured this morning ("Dancing Queen"):

Drizzle has a brand new name

2009-12-08T21:15:00.008-06:00

Drizzle is definitely a boy (!) who is now blog-dubbed Zeph, short for Zephyrus, Greek god of the west wind.

A had another ultrasound today, obviously, and everything looks great with her and the baby. Not so much with C, Zeph's dad. We really have no idea how this is going to play out in the end. The short version is that A would like to make an adoption plan for Zeph and C would like to be a dad. It is clearly a very stressful and confusing time for them, and J and I are trying to stand out of the way and just be there to support whichever decision they end up making. This one might come down to the wire, so please nobody hold your breath.

Honestly, I feel very peaceful about this situation. I could let myself stress out with the uncertainty of it all, but I have absolute confidence that things will be OK in the end. Whatever happens, Zeph will be loved and we will be happy. We feel that God's hands are in this situation and His will will be done.

However, this is going to be hard on me as the months go by and Zeph's due date approaches because "Planner" is my middle name. I don't need a late-term pregnancy to nest; nesting is in my DNA. So I've already started collecting tiny polo shirts and a blue velour cover for our B*oppy pillow, and a few other items, even before we got the final news that Zeph is a boy. My brain tells me that because of the uncertainty, I really shouldn't go hunting for boyish crib bedding, prepare a second nursery and get the P*ack 'N' P*lay down from the attic. But the type A part of me is truly itching to start accumulating blue scrapbooking doo-dads and these socks. Which side of me will win this tug of war? I'm betting on the second contender.

Finally, I promised in my last post about this topic that I would write about the prospect of having a son. I feel:
*blessed by the chance to experience parenting both sexes
*challenged at the idea of raising a MAN with a gentle spirit and strength of character
*happy for Evie to have a playmate, especially because she seems to be tomboyish so far
*intimidated by the possibility that karma is real and that I'm going to get comeuppance for the stress my little brother and I inflicted on our mom by fighting constantly for 16 years (we're friends now, though!)
*scared that I won't understand him, since I have trouble understanding the minds of most men :)
*disappointed that I won't get to re-use the pink tutu I made (just kidding)
*exasperated that all little boy clothes seem to have footballs, dinosaurs or bugs on them
*excited to discover Zeph's personality, talents and abilities
*confused by the debate over whether or not to circumcise
*prepared, somewhat, by having so many friends and family members with little boys--they will show me the ropes and their sons will be Zeph's pals
*already worried about autism, like every other mother of a baby boy, as if SIDS worries weren't enough
*hopeful that Zeph will be our son

Christmas Card Photo Shoot

2009-12-03T00:22:00.003-06:00

1 Toddler + 2 Parents + Holiday Decor + Christmas Attire + beagle + jingle bell =

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We Give Thanks...

2009-11-27T21:56:00.011-06:00

...for surviving today. Thank you to our fellow passengers for being relatively tolerant of our exhausted, refusing-to-nap, squirmy, climbing, fussy, ripping up the in-flight magazine, adorable 14-month-old daughter. And thanks for tolerating the sounds of our voices singing silly songs and reading "Peekaboo!" books over and over and over. Short flights never felt so long.

But the rest of our trip to Texas for Thanksgiving was great! It was our last trip to see Grandma and Grandpa there, since my dad is being transferred to a job in D.C. very soon. (Yay!)

Here is our trip in pictures:

Waiting at the gate:

Wearing pajamas with hair in her face because Mama is still sleeping (yay!):

Reading one of our oh-so-fun-and-repetitive Peekaboo! books:

Checking her e-mail:

Our latest (and most fun) thing is playing ball (again in pjs while Mama is sleeping in):

Feeding ducks! Evie loves everything to do with ducks, but she's thinking "aren't they supposed to be yellow?!" They did quack for her, but sadly, did not sing a song:

"Mama, Dada, look! It's a turkey duck! That's silly."

Evie is starting to understand that this is supposed to be fun, not scary:
What Evie wants from Santa (C*ostco) for Christmas:

Our poor (still teething molars) Pookie has been on a self-imposed milk, fruit and snack diet. Sharing a pear with Mama:

Sweet kisses from Grandpa:

"Oops, I think I lost a black bean in my bib."

I love this picture! It expresses perfectly her combined dismay about being trapped in a high chair AND having the camera flashing in her face:

Another favorite at home and away is rocking chairs. She figured out how to climb in, rock away and climb out of this one at Grandma and Grandpa's house...all by herself:

Seemingly eager for the journey home:

Do you see the exhausted, mischievous glint in her eye? She is getting away with something! We don't normally allow her to have pacifiers except in her crib, but a full flight of holiday travelers calls for an exception:

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Hope you all ate a lot more turkey and fixings than Evie did. My mom prepared a delicious spread but Evie only ate a couple of bites of stuffing and some pumpkin pie. That was about it. Toddlers!

Crash! 14 Months Old

2009-11-19T23:59:00.002-06:00

Not the car, the computer. The old computer, I should say. The trusty computer that brought you this blog from the beginning. Dead.

Good news! I backed up all of Evie's photos from her first year, and all of the videos from her first year, on DVD data discs.

Bad news! All of the photos from months 13 and 14 are now only on S*napfish and in hard copy form, which doesn't help me upload them here. And now I have V*ista (don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to the nice lady at C*ostco who gave us a great price on a floor model of my new touch screen Dell, but V*ista stinks) and it's going to take awhile to get my free copy of Windows 7 that was promised with the purchase of the computer. And S*ony didn't release a driver for my camcorder that works with V*ista. So, the videos are stuck on my camcorder unless someone locally wants to come over and let me use theirs to upload? :)

Which means, in the end, that this post is going to be way more words and a lot fewer pictures. And the pictures I do have from the past couple of days aren't anything great, but they do illustrate what Evie is up to at this age:

Playing with Aunt C and Uncle M's dog (Nana and Papa were visiting). She loved kicking the dog out of the bed and sitting in it herself:
Eating frozen yogurt (teething molars = OUCH! fever, diaper rash, runny nose and much crankiness):

Avoiding the camera:

Dancing on her toys:

And some pictures from today (in a D*ora outfit that was a birthday gift from G's grandmother)...

"Hey, Mama! There's velcro on my shoes!"
My little genius who figured out that her tea set is also a shape puzzle:

Just after taking off a shoe and throwing it to the floor:

Examining her music:

Balancing out the challenges of parenting a willful, teething toddler, Evie is all sugar and spice right now. She learns something new every day (throwing balls! new words and signs! climbing skills!) and is very cuddly. She has recently begun giving J and I real hugs and kisses, and will sometimes come up to us when we are standing and give our legs a tight bear hug. There is just nothing like it--feeling your baby's little arms wrapped around your legs or neck, squeezing tightly...knowing that she learned how to hug by being cuddled and hugged every day since she was born. Knowing that she loves you back and wants to express her love for you with a tight squeeze and a little puckery kiss. Parenthood just keeps getting more wonderful, and more challenging!

I've been spending a lot of my spare time trying to get caught up with projects before the new baby comes, so I haven't been online as much recently. It's paid off, though, with some major accomplishments. I am officially, totally and completely caught up with scrapbooking Evie pictures! That is a major accomplishment because if I can keep it up then I'll be able to start scrapbooking Drizzle's pictures immediately and not fall into the second child trap of falling behind on documentation. You know, the first child has a baby book and scrapbooks and the second has a box of pictures? I don't want that for Drizzle!

I'm also working on a Christmas quilt that I started over 2 years ago. I'm hoping it will be displayed before January, or at least for Drizzle's first Christmas next year. :)

Finally, I bought a plain t-shirt for Evie and some iron-on letters to make her a "Big Sister" shirt to wear to Florida in the spring. Now that the holidays are here the time is going to fly!

Drizzle is (Probably) a...

2009-11-10T22:43:00.005-06:00

...Boy!

A had a sonogram today and the doctor is pretty sure it's a boy and will confirm 100% with another sonogram in early December. Darn it, I'm going to have to wait a few more weeks to start shopping blue. And, I'm going to hold off on writing about how I feel about the prospect of having a son (SO EXCITED, YAY! in short) until we know for sure. We'll also keep Drizzle until we're sure, because I know how much my mom and Deanna love the name. (Facetious.)

Speaking of things we don't know for sure, we also found out today that C, Drizzle's dad, is more uncertain about the adoption than we knew at first. A is hopeful that he will come around, but we are grateful to know how he is feeling because if this adoption plan fails, it will be much easier to deal with if we see it coming. It is very comforting to know A and have ongoing communication with her.

On to cheerier topics! Evie is having a communication growth spurt and is a little mynah bird these days, imitating words and signs and is also starting to use them with purpose. She now signs (independently, not mimicking) "milk," and "eat" and is starting to sign "all done" again (after refusing to do it for weeks). She is also mimicking some of the hand motions we use with songs we sing to her and one of my next missions is to get that on tape. Unfortunately, you'll have to hear me singing in the background. :)

Evie also says "baby," "ball," "no!" and "Dada" (again) independently and mimics the sounds of "bye bye," "bread," "yeah" and "girl." "Baby" and "bye bye" sound identical, so you have to go by context! She has also started saying "gaga" intently, in a tone of voice that indicates she believes it is a word. I haven't yet figured out what it means.

I'll end with a couple of cute anecdotes:

Yesterday Evie woke me up with the following coming over the baby monitor: "dadadadadadadadadada.....Mama?"

Today when I walked into her room to get her up from her nap, she waved "Hi" to me!

How is it that she just keeps getting cuter? This is her "smile for the camera" face these days. I need to teach her how to say cheese with her eyes open:

Mud

2009-11-05T17:27:00.003-06:00

(Look at her pant leg.)

First time getting muddy outside, but definitely not the last time.

Happy Halloween

2009-10-31T20:32:00.004-05:00

Evie was a bumblebee for Halloween this year. The costume does have a face on the hood, but she hates the hood so it stayed down 99% of the time.

She wore her costume for the first time on Thursday since the kids were invited to dress up for baby storytime at the library this week. Here's gangster bee: and thoughtful bee:

This evening we were invited to a bonfire and party at a friend's house. Evie had a ball tromping around their huge yard and she was in awe of the bonfire when it got going (it was about 8 feet tall before it was lit).

They also have a sand volleyball pit on their land and it was Evie's first experience with sand. Tasty:

Happy Halloween everyone!

Forever Family Day

2009-10-27T19:18:00.004-05:00

Dear Evie,

One year ago today we all sat in a court room (well, you slept) and a judge signed a paper that says you are officially, finally and forever adopted into our family. This didn't change anything about how we felt about you or how you felt about us; it only changed our family's status in the eyes of the legal system and enabled us to put our last name on your birth certificate and get you a Social Security number. But even though the day was just a formality, we want to celebrate Forever Family Day as more than a legal anniversary.

On this day, we want to talk to you about "Forever." It means there is...

...nothing in the world so big...
...nowhere in the universe so far away...
...no amount of time so long...
...nobody on earth so powerful...
...no event so horrible, or so wonderful...
...no change in our lives...
...nothing you could do, not even the worst thing you can think of...
...nothing you can say, really nothing...

...that will ever, ever make us stop loving you. We will love you FOREVER.

Kisses,
Mommy and Daddy

Big Sis Evie is 13 Months Old

2009-10-20T12:40:00.001-05:00

Thank you so much for all of the encouragement and congratulations, and prayers. We are blessed to have so many people who love and support us. I do have a few tidbits to write about the new baby, but I'll save those for another post and devote this one to Evie Bea.

First up, the month in pictures and captions (Where did this month go? Seriously, where?):

Blueberries! They match her eyes (notice the bandaid from her blood draw at the 12 month doctor visit):
She is becoming the queen of funny faces, at least whenever I try to take a picture of her. It's either this, a picture of her back, or just a blur of color. Toddlers are difficult to photograph:

A recent trip to the zoo was exciting because of the animals, the train ride, the other kids, and the puddles:

She really, really likes to slide these days. Can't you tell? No, seriously, she loves to slide. I have no idea what was going on here. I think it had to do with the camera:

At the zoo we saw a mama kangaroo with a joey in her pouch! Evie was too young to get it, of course, but I was so excited I had to get a picture:

Cold weather, pshaw. Evie's favorite activity these days is being OUTSIDE tromping around the back yard. You'll see more pictures like this below:

TROMP:

We didn't even get a good picture of playing in the leaves because the camera ran out of batteries. And picking leaf bits out of her longies? Not too fun:

Anyone remember Evie's first Halloween?

Things haven't changed that much:

This is not her costume this year (I'll save that for later) but because it is a toddler sized costume and was huge on her last year, I decided to try it on her again. She still hates it.

What is it with babies being fascinated with blinds and blind cords?

Evie also likes to feed other people these days. I was wearing her in a front carrier at the doctor's office recently and trying to feed her a snack, but she kept taking the food back out of her mouth and jamming it into mine. It made both of us descend into a giggle fit and the whole waiting room thought I was insane. Anyhow, here are Evie and J feeding each other peas:

Don't you love a baby in overalls? (And the red C*rocs are her favorite shoes these days):

She is definitely getting taller, judging by her reaching up onto the kitchen island, kitchen table, bathroom counter, etc. and being able to easily get on and off of her zebra by herself:

Let's add clambering to the tromping in the back yard:

She is fascinated by animals these days, as are most babies, but especially by DOGGIES!

She also has a new habit of lying down in odd places, like the middle of the kitchen floor or in the grass (she laid down, she didn't fall):

The best thing about the back yard? Free range doggies:

Giving presents to the beagle: Another pic of her lying down in random places. Actually, not random; this is where Phoebe likes to hang out during the day (she was crate trained early on and still loves to nap in nooks and crannies):

I want to take Apollo on a walk (see Phoebe's leash in her hands?):

Thanks to Courtney's post about making your own mei tai, I made one a couple of months ago (Courtney, sorry I took so long to take a darn pic of it!) and I've been really, really enjoying being able to carry Evie on my back. Our routine is usually that I wear her like this twice a day, after breakfast and after afternoon snack, and use the freedom to get things done like switching loads of laundry, sorting recycling, getting the car ready for an outing, taking the dogs out, etc. Evie seems to enjoy it as long as I keep moving and don't keep her in for more than 20 minutes or so. But this Mama can get a lot done in 20 minutes! Now I'm kicking myself for not making the version with the hood because it would be great for the new baby. Maybe I can alter it in the next few months.

Evie's "13 Months: The Movie" trailer (her interview, you'll notice, is a bit different this month):

Stats and tidbits from this month:

Evie went from picky mouse eater to picky ravenous eater and weighs 1.5 pounds more now than she did at her 12 month appointment 3 weeks ago!

A favorite food these days is cream of wheat, which we encourage because of the iron in it. She also loves fruit, yogurt, cheese, milk, peas, peanut butter, cinnamon, guacamole, hummus, bread and anything with too much sugar in it.

The talking is coming slowly. She says "Mama" the most but has said the following words at least once: "Dada," "doggies," "tree," "ba-oon," "nose" and "no." She also moos and baas. ETA: today she said "key!"

The signing is going pretty well. I don't work with her on it as much as some moms do, so my results are about what I'd expect. She knows "more" and "all done" but refuses to do the second because it means a face wiping will follow. I also taught her the signs for light and fan and now that she knows them she is even more obsessed with them than she was before and will frequently, throughout the day, point at lights and fans and make the sign. With J the sign now means "make the fan spin, please, Daddy!" I need to work on the sign for diaper change next, because that will be extremely useful.

As far as non-ASL nonverbal communication, she started waving "hi" and "bye bye" awhile back but seems bored with it now and rarely does it anymore?! I taught her to shake her head no and nod yes and she is getting the hang of that. My favorite non-verbal communication is her snuggly hugs.
Evie's receptive vocabulary is pretty large, and sometimes surprisingly so. I won't try to list the words here, but simply say that she seems to understand the words for most of the important people, places and events in her life (e.g. Pearl, outside, eat lunch).
What we are learning right now is the parts of the body. She can easily identify my nose, hair, eyes and tongue and is working on ears, mouth, teeth and identifying the same on her own face. When she has it down I'll start trying the bigger body parts, but Evie likes to focus her learning and right now is all about face parts.

Evie is already showing signs of the terrible twos: tantrums and independence. Her latest thing is wanting to choose which shoes she wears. Surprise, surprise, she usually chooses the most sparkly and impractical pair, or her C*rocs.
Evie has some new favorite books these days, including Sandra Boynton books, books with photographs of babies (including a few with photographs of her) and song books, like "The Wheels on the Bus." She loves that if she pulls out a book based on a song and gets my attention, I'll sing the song to her.
She is still not sleeping through the night, but wakes up once or twice for a drink of whole milk and goes right back to sleep. We have been coping just fine with her schedule and haven't been motivated to try night weaning, but a new baby on the horizon is making us talk about this more. Night weaning might be in the near future for Evie Bea. We'll probably do it by watering down her milk gradually and then putting a sippy of water in her crib at night.
We are down to one nap a day now, which is generally immediately after lunch and lasts an hour to 2.5 hours, depending on when she woke up, how late lunch is and how active she was in the morning. I dreaded the transition to one nap, but now that it's here it's not bothering me as much as I thought it would. It's nice to be able to get out and about during the morning and not schedule playdates around an early first nap.

Evie is still clingy and attention-seeking when we are home, but independent and social when we are out. My little extrovert. :) She does great in the church nursery now, and we don't keep her in the service for the worship music anymore because she'd rather race up and down the aisles than be held and enjoy the music.

I've heard in a few different places that the first 2 years of a child's life are the most important in terms of shaping who they will be for the rest of their life. During these first 2 years they are forming their personalities and attitudes toward the world and toward other people. I have felt for the past 13 months an immense amount of pressure to give Evie everything and anything she needs to develop into the best version of herself. I am feeling a little panicky that I only have 11 more months until this formative period is over! Deep breathing...

Evie is going to be a fabulous big sister. She's affectionate, social, energetic and enthusiastic. The new baby will be in awe of her. We had a playdate this morning with another mom and her 3-month-old and Evie was gentle with and interested in the baby. She even willingly shared a couple of her toys, which amazed me to no end because it is uncharacteristic of this age.

Happy 13 months, Evie Bea!

Two Under Two

2009-10-17T21:12:00.002-05:00

Completely out of the blue, we are expecting to adopt again! Baby #2 (sex as yet unknown) is due in late April and we are SO EXCITED. And cautious, because there are 2 whole trimesters between now and then. Trimesters full of flutterings and kicks and bonding between mom and baby. So we are cautiously optimistic, moving forward with plans but still trying to hold back our emotions a little. We did the same with Evie and had no trouble bonding with her in the hospital, so I'm sure it will be the same this time.

We are thrilled, but writing this post makes me feel guilty because some of you reading this are still waiting to adopt your first, and J and I are being blessed by a second adoption. I can justify this logically. This is happening to us because x + y = z --- x is our adoption of Evie, y is our relationship with the expectant mom of the second baby and z is parenting 2 kids under age 2. But I can't justify this emotionally and spiritually. When there are so many women out there longing for their first baby, and here I am perfectly content with Evie. Why do I get to be doubly happy? Why did God put us through the desert of infertility for years and then pour out a second helping of grace when we weren't out searching for it? I have no answers to these questions. I'm here feeling overwhelmingly blessed, and guilty.

Just as with Evie's adoption, most of the details are going to stay private, but I will say that we haven't been running around doing a homestudy and profile and jumping into a pool of waiting families without writing about it here. We had talked in the past about adopting again quickly, but our most recent plan was to wait until Evie was 3. But the expectant mom (we'll call her A here) chose us independently because she has known us for years, knows about our infertility and adoption of Evie, and is relieved that she can make an adoption plan with people who are familiar to her, people she trusts to keep in contact with her, people she knows will love and cherish her baby. We are honored that she thinks us capable of parenting 2 under 2, and we have faith that if God orchestrates this adoption, He will also give us the wisdom to do it well!

Anybody else watching "Glee" on Wednesdays? Of course you are. So, I'm thinking that "Drizzle" would be a great nickname for the baby until we know the sex and can assign an appropriate Greek nickname for the blog. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to start watching the show. I would butcher the joke by explaining it here.

More details:

we'll be traveling to sunny Florida for the birth and adoption
we'll do our homestudy update in January
the expectant father and his family are supportive of the adoption--YAY!

Time to start asking myself some important questions:

1. Buy a second crib for Drizzle or try to put Evie in a toddler bed? (Her crib is not convertible.)

2. Buy a double stroller even though Evie pretty much hates strollers and only tolerates them if they are moving forward quickly at all times or have really interesting people walking by them in a steady stream?

3. Leave Evie in her room with the mural she loves, or move her and put Drizzle in the nursery to enjoy the mural?

I'm glad I have 6 months to figure these things out.

Wordless Wednesday--First Masterpiece

2009-10-14T08:19:00.001-05:00

One Year Old, Part Four

2009-10-12T20:09:00.007-05:00

This post was going to be about "A day in the life of Evie Bea, age 1," but after I'd written about 2/3 of the post, I realized that it was reeeeally boring, because the joie de vivre of Evie's life is in the spontaneous moments and not in the everyday routine. So, instead I'm going to make something that I love. A bulleted list.

Evie's joie de vivre at one year old:

stealing our eyeglasses (and smudging the lenses)

toddling around naked before and after her bath, and pausing to pee on the floor (just like a puppy)

biting our fingers when we brush her teeth (again, just like a puppy)

putting her hands and feet in the dogs' water bowl (ahem)

crawling through the dog door (ummmm...)

stumbling around in the back yard (this is getting ridiculous)

begging for food from our plates (seriously)

going on walks with Daddy (although she gets to ride on his back...)

chewing on and/or eating our things when we aren't looking (paper, cell phones, keys, books, tissues, price tags, etc.)

This is what happens when you let a couple of people raise 2 dogs for 9 years and then give them a baby.

Back to my list:

being held up to look out of windows

seeing and touching animals, but especially dogs (she gives her dogs hugs these days, which they think is very odd)

BALLOONS!

TREES!!! "tee!"

touching, picking and destroying flowers

pushing things with wheels

kissing and hugging stuffed animals

reading books by herself (We are so annoying because we want to read every word and read the book front to back without skipping pages. What-evah.)

typing on computer keyboards
slides
being tickled

calling Mama's friends, and Grandma, on her cell phone

calling Dada's co-workers on his cell phone

being in a new place to explore

climbing on an adult-sized chair

walking up and down steps like a big girl (with help)

helping Mama get the mail

DADDY'S HOME!

reorganizing (Washcloths go in Daddy's closet. Socks go in the guest room. Shoes go in the bathroom sink. Lovey blankets and dolls go in the bathtub. Toys go in the snack drawer. Toothpaste goes in the toy bin.)

playing the piano

anything that makes a sound when you shake, shake, shake it

Snacks!

Milk!

Cheese!

Frozen Yogurt!

watching older kids play

climbing over Mama and Dada on the floor

climbing over Mama and Dada in a chair

being carried in arms, a sling or a backpack

shoes

trashcans

emptying and filling containers (laundry basket, bucket of blocks, cup of water, etc.)

being able to SCREAM REALLY REALLY LOUDLY

communicating effectively with her parents, whether through words, sounds, signs, pointing, body language or facial expressions

dancing to music

getting a smile from Mama or Dada

being outside

getting her hands on a book with paper pages

getting her hands on the remote control

learning something new

new toys

making noise

These are Evie's one-year-old joys.

Adorable Short Videos

2009-10-07T23:24:00.003-05:00

Instead of the fourth (and final) post about Evie's 1st birthday, I need to interrupt and immediately post the following short videos that I've shot over the last 2 days. For myself, for Evie's Nana, Papa, Grandma and Grandpa and anyone else who needs a quick dose of adorable:

Video #1 is from yesterday, when Evie found out just how much fun it is to feed her afternoon snack to the dog. She was giggling so hard she almost sounds like she is crying!

Video #2 is also from yesterday. We have a very strict schedule around here, and Evie has silent reading time every day after lunch for half an hour. Just kidding. Really, really kidding. But look:

Video #3 is also from yesterday. Here is Evie thoroughly enjoying her birthday gift from her Uncle D, Aunt A and Cousin C (a L*eapF*rog Fridge Farm). Please notice the following things as you watch:

1. Yes, she says "moooo." Hee hee.
2. The reason she falls down is that she's wearing sequined sandals with no traction. This was not my idea. They are hand-me-downs from a friend and she pulled them out of her shoe bin and sat in my lap, basically saying "these are the shoes I want." She thoroughly enjoyed clomping around in sequined butterfly shoes instead of her normal practical soft shoes.
3. When she looks like she's waving at the end, she's actually doing the duck quacking motion that I do with my hand when I sing "Six Little Ducks" to her.

OK, now you can watch it:

Video #4 is from today. Evie's latest babbling/jabbering sounds something like yodeling and I am thrilled to have captured it on video!

One Year Old, Part Three

2009-10-06T20:59:00.001-05:00

I'm *finally* getting around to writing about Evie's first birthday party.

So. It was a fabulous day, thanks to my parents and in-laws, who all pitched in to help us get ready. Because we were in Minnesota for a few days right before, I lost some of the time I would have used to get some shopping and cleaning chores done.

Special awards go to my parents, who both were stung by bees in our back yard while helping me clean up out there. Yes, we found bees right outside our porch on the day before Evie's party and sprayed their hive the night before. Thankfully, nobody was stung at the party, although we've continued to see live bees here and there since then and have had to spray 3 times. They have a crack to crawl through into our screened porch, so when we go out to play with Evie these days we have to first clean the carpet of dead and dying bees, since they could still sting even after death. Anyhow...

...the party was small and intimate. The attendees were Evie, us, all 4 grandparents, both godparents, G (Evie's birth father) and G's parents, sister, niece, aunt and friend. Unfortunately, R (Evie's birth mother) and her family weren't able to be there.

There is so much I could say about what it was like to have almost half of the guests be birth family. The condensed version is that it wasn't nearly as strange as many people think it would be, and it was lots of fun to see them enjoying Evie. I've said it before, and it held true on Evie's birthday: it's so awesome to have a bunch of extra people around to dote on your daughter and show interest in all of her little habits and milestones! Honestly, it was like having extended family over to visit. Yes, a bit awkward at first, but by the end of the party we were chatting freely and enjoying each other. I'm glad I can say that we've never gotten together with R and G and regretted it afterward. They are all lovely, gracious people who go out of their way to make us feel comfortable, just as we go out of our way to make them feel comfortable. It's great to be in an open adoption with genuinely nice people. I can't imagine how hard it would be if I disliked any of them.

My mom made one comment after the party, though, that gave me pause. She said (after having met G at both Evie's baptism and at this party) that it was hard to see the look in G's eyes when he looks at Evie, that it made her hurt for him. I totally agree. The look on his face is a mixture of pride, wonder, sorrow and regret. I can imagine that he looks at her and sees all of the decisions in his life that led to making an adoption plan for Evie.

So, my verdict on our open adoption, one year out, is that it is at once simpler and much more complicated than I could have imagined. I have absolutely no regrets about our level of openness and hope that we can maintain it into the future. I still want R and G there at Evie's graduations and wedding, and many small celebrations between now and then.

Back to the party...

The day of Evie's party was perfect weather and we spent a lot of it outdoors, eating and socializing, but we did presents and cake inside. Here is a shot of Evie's table of presents:
Some highlights of her gifts were building blocks from J and I: A wooden train from her godparents:

More highlights...

a refrigerator toy from my brother and SIL

a doll and noisemaker from J's brother and SIL

Little People Noah's Ark from Grandma and Grandpa

an adorable froggy dish set from Nana and Papa

of course, the princess cell phone from G and R

a teapot set from G's parents

a children's Bible from G's grandmother

Evie opened gifts in an adorable fluffy pink birthday dress, but we changed her into a romper for the rest of the party so that she could play outside and not get her dessert on the dress:

I tried to keep a bow in her hair (partly for looks and partly because her bangs are getting long and unruly) but this is what happens to bows these days:

Finally, the story behind Evie's birthday dessert. (For more pictures see this post.) I had debated back and forth for weeks about what to do for Evie's birthday cake. On the one hand I wanted to bake some healthy (low or no sugar) cake for her and on the other hand I wanted to spoil her with a delicious frozen custard cake from our local custard stand. Close to her birthday, I actually bought a butterfly-shaped cake pan and decor icing, planning to make a healthy-ish cake myself. I ran out of time, and that pan and icing went back to the store.

Anyhow, the day before Evie's birthday we found out that our local custard place can't write on top of its frozen custard pies, and all of a sudden we were bereft of ideas and officially winging the dessert.

Finally, I decided to trust the task to my mom and dad and they headed out on a birthday dessert mission on the morning of the party. After communicating with them via cell phone (I was at home cleaning and decorating), what we ended up with was a frozen custard pie for the adults (flavor = turtle = YUM) and a clown cone from B*askin R*obbins for Evie. The clown cone didn't have a candle or writing, but what it lacked in birthday tradition it made up for in DELICIOUS. Evie polished off the entire thing, except for the sugar cone. At one point she was actually crying between bites, in an effort to encourage her Papa to shovel the ice cream in faster Faster FASTER! This picture was taken before she realized it was food:

Sorry this post was so scattered, I'm just glad I finally got it written! One Year Old, Part Four (last post in this series) is in the works and will hopefully be posted soon.

One Year Old, Part Two

2009-10-02T23:59:00.001-05:00

Dear Evie Bea (a.k.a. Pookie),

One year ago on September 19, 2008, Daddy and I were sleeping (tossing and turning, me in a hospital bed and Daddy on the couch) in a labor & delivery room at the hospital. Suddenly, a knock on the door! Your birth father said to us, though the door, "She's here!" and then he ran back down the hall to the room where your birth mother was holding you and admiring your beautiful new face.

We jumped out of bed, our hearts pounding with excitement and...we didn't know what to do! We didn't want to call anyone right away because it was so early (5 AM) and because we didn't want to be on our cell phones when the nurses brought you to us for the first time. But we also didn't know how long it would be until we got to see you. We paced around the room anxiously, wondering whether you and your birth mother were both okay, wondering what you looked like and wondering what to do.

Every footstep we heard in the hallway sent us hurrying to the door to see if it was you; every newborn cry we heard put us on alert that you could be on your way. This was it! Our lives were about to be forever changed. We were about to become something that we had been dreaming of and wishing for for years: parents.

After a long, tense half hour, finally we heard you coming! The nurses wheeled you in a hospital bassinet, with your birth father at your side. You cried all the way, and we could hear you coming closer and closer to our room at the end of the hallway. We eagerly waited at the door of our room, and then there you were! The nurses wheeled you into our room and your birth father lifted your little 8 pound body, wrapped in a blanket, out of the bassinet and handed you to me. "Congratulations, Mom and Dad," he said, with tears in his eyes. Both Daddy and I also teared up as we caressed your little hands, kissed your soft head and memorized your tiny face. Then we started giggling about your crying because you sounded like a baby goat: "Mehhhhhh, Mehhhhh!"

We hugged your birth father and thanked him and asked about your birth mother. He reassured us that she was healthy and told us that she had held you, kissed you and cried over you right after you were born. Then he told us that he loved us, kissed you on the head and returned to your birth mother's room. Daddy and I stood gazing at you in wonder, and then we fell in love with you.

Every day since then has revolved around you. Even when we aren't with you for a few hours, or when you are asleep, you are the first and most important thought on our minds. You are a bright, soft thread now woven tightly into the fabric of our lives.

As your parents, we've had a huge impact on you this past year and know that our love for you and time with you is shaping the person you will become. But you've had just as much of an impact on us, and you have done an excellent job of turning us into a Mommy and a Daddy. Keep up the good work, because we have a lot more to learn and you're our favorite teacher.

Evie, thanks for being our Bea Girl. We love you with the biggest love we can muster, and we thank God for you every day.

Hugs and Kisses,

Mama and Dada

One Year Old, Part One

2009-10-01T00:52:00.006-05:00

I've been paralyzed for the past week plus, trying to decide how to write about Evie at one year. I have too many ways to approach it. So, I'm going to write a few short posts and hopefully they will add up to an adequate treatment of the topic. Here is my first jab.

A couple of days ago, Evie had her 12 month doctor appointment. I was surprised to learn that she is now in the 50th percentile for weight (20.5 lbs.) and the 70th percentile for height (30.5 inches). That is a reversal from her normal 75th for weight and 50th for height. I'm not sure what to make of it, but I'll be keeping an eye on her growth and making sure to offer her healthy foods throughout the day to make sure she gets enough. Here are few more tidbits from the appointment:

*our pediatrician recommended we switch to whole milk instead of "N*ext S*tep" formula because she finds that babies have more of an appetite for solids when on milk, because their bodies crave the vitamins and minerals from food that they aren't getting from liquid. Makes sense to me, intuitively.

*Evie had blood drawn to test for iron and lead. Talk about one of the worst experiences of my life. The bruise on her arm from the first (failed) attempt to hit a vein is nothing compared to the bruise on my psyche from watching her suffer at the hands of the nurses. Please tell me this is the only time I'll ever have to watch my daughter give blood?

*Evie got the MMR. Yep. We bit the bullet and just did it, because the separate vaccines (recommended by Dr. Sears) aren't available until 2011. So far, so good. I haven't noticed Evie acting sick or different from her normal self.

*She is still spitting up. The ped isn't worried because it's normally right after she eats and puts some pressure on her stomach (e.g. we pick her up, she bends over or leans her stomach against something). The pediatrician assures me that she will outgrow this someday. Yeah.

Anyhow (that's the best segue I can think of at 1:04 AM), I have been planning to post a montage video of Evie's first year but it's an unwieldy project. My attempts resulted in a 42 minute video that only grandparents and birth parents (and J and I) will ever watch all the way through. So, instead, I put together this mini version for the blog. Enjoy!

(Watching this made me realize how often I have told her "Good Job!" in the last several months. I need to come up with a new way to praise her?)

Still catching up...

2009-09-22T22:14:00.003-05:00

I'm trying to get a book read for my book club on Thursday. After that I'll work on writing about Evie at 1 year old. I'll try to keep it to 20 pages or so. :)

Thanks to everyone for your encouraging comments about our family portraits. I appreciate the offers of help, but the pictures were at J*C*Penney and we don't have high-quality digital versions to photoshop, only the prints and the low resolution photos that they e-mailed me and that I posted on the blog. I wish we could afford to hire a *real* photographer for these things, but that is outside our budget these days without me bringing in a salary. Anyhow, you are all right that I was NOT used to having that much makeup on. This is me with my normal makeup (and, as always, looking as though I don't have any on when actually I do): I took pictures of Evie in her birthday diaper yesterday, and decided that this will probably be the end of that tradition. I had planned to continue until she potty learned, but it's just getting too difficult to get her to sit still! I might change my mind next month, though. We'll see. Here is the only decent shot I got:

And then this started happening:

And I bribed her to sit still with her new toy cell phone:

But even that didn't work for long:

And then she was down and looking for my cell phone:

And it was over:

(look at that big girl stride in the above photo!!!)

Happy First Birthday to Evie!

2009-09-20T10:49:00.006-05:00

The day went GREAT. More on that later, I promise. For now, I'll just say:

1. We didn't get a lot of pictures because we were all so chatty and busy hosting, playing with Evie, eating, etc.
2. The pictures we did get demonstrate the gift that Evie loved most of all: a D*isney P*rincess toy flip phone, which is a gift from her birth father, G. It figures! :)

Evie ignoring the rest of her gift opening after receiving the phone: Still playing with the phone in her high chair before her dessert:

Wondering "why do I have to eat this thing, can't I have my phone back?"--

In the end she devoured the clown cone from B*askin R*obbins (the reason it's not a cake is a story for another post), but somehow didn't make a colossal mess of it. She makes huge messes all the time, but showed restraint when it came to bubble gum ice cream and a chocolate cookie:

Happy Birthday to my precious toddler!

1 Year "Professional" Photos

2009-09-18T13:45:00.005-05:00

They went about as well as you'd expect for a photo shoot that included:

a one-year-old
a one-year-old who needed a nap (I swear when I made the reservation that wasn't her nap time!)
a Daddy who doesn't like to smile for photos
a Mommy who had her makeup done at a salon and looks like a clown
a Mommy who was spit up on before the shoot and didn't realize that she hadn't cleaned up her shirt well enough (aren't the stinkin' photographers supposed to tell me?!)

I think I'll be taking her another time, to another place, very shortly. She melted down before we got any good photos of her alone in her birthday dress.

Our free 8x10 choice:

Pics of us with spit-up on my shirt and a crapload of makeup:

Fun pics of Evie and Pearl (these were the first shots, before the family pics):

And the one family photo in which Evie hides my stained shirt (but not my clown cheeks):

Card Reader Working!

2009-09-17T19:13:00.006-05:00

Yay! I'll try to at least post pictures in the next few days and add text and video after family departs. Here are some pics from the last few days.

Evie loves to cop a squat these days (and be outside):
Strolling in Nana and Papa's backyard:
J and his brother playing B*eatles R*ock B*and:
Evie in pigtails, in her new car seat:

Here's what she and I did (shredded kleenex in another room of the church) during the last half of Grandma G's funeral, after Evie just could. not. sit. still. any. more:

Incidentally, this last photo was taken in the same room where I got dressed and ready before I married J over 11 years ago. I used the bathroom at one point and had a flashback of being in that same stall with two bridesmaids holding up my huge dress. :)