Night night!

In the last few nights, Evan has started telling us “Night night!” (pronounced “na na!”) at bedtime. Tonight, Aaron was signed up to do some group stuff on World of Warcraft, and they start about 30 minutes before Evan’s bedtime. I gave Evan his bath, then we went to the living room to find his blanket and his sippy cup so we could go do his bedtime story. As we walked past the office where Aaron was on the computer, Evan waved and said “Dada na na!”

We think he has about three teeth coming in and a lot of sinus congestion (allergies, we assume), so he hasn’t been much fun lately. It’s always nice to get those adorable moments to remind me why I love being a mom!

We’ve spent the last few evenings passing out invitations to our Halloween block party, and having Evan has come in very handy. I think a lot of people would have assumed we were solicitors if we didn’t have a toddler with us. Of course the nearby neighbors know us and recognized us, but we wanted to cover a wider radius than we do on a day-to-day basis. Overall the response was very positive, and only one person actually declined an invitation. We did have to leave some tucked into doors, and I hope those are well received. I always hate junk wedged into the door, but I think I’d be ok with a block party invitation. I’m thinking maybe in a few years, once people know to expect it, we might be able to just put a sign in our yard with the time and date.

Life with an Evan

Somehow blogging time keeps getting away from me, and then when I log into WordPress and see the last things I wrote I realize that a few weeks seems like a lifetime in terms of a toddler’s growth and development.

Evan still loves his key, but he misplaced it somewhere around here last Friday and it has yet to turn up. I’m about 90% percent certain it’s here in the house, and if not it may be in the lost and found at the church where I go for my Bible study. Poor little guy seems to miss it, but I can’t find it anywhere in the house and I’m not sure what he did with it. Glad it wasn’t the mail key, at least!

Evan continues to amaze us with his memory and thinking skills. This weekend, Aaron hadn’t shaved his face recently and I asked Evan, “Can you feel Daddy’s scratchy face?” That’s a line from one of his favorite books, “Pat the Bunny.” Immediately, Evan signed “please” and went to his book basket, got “Pat the Bunny,” and took it to Aaron expectantly. We were both surprised that he would recognize the line from the book and immediately know which book to get.

“Please” has finally caught on, which is mostly a good thing. Evan is very enthusiastic about signing it anytime he wants something, often without any prompting. Unfortunately, he also thinks it’s the magic word and that he can’t be refused anything as long as he signs “please.” For example, we came in from playing in the yard the other day and Evan had his usual brief meltdown as soon as he stepped inside the door. While crying, sobbing and collapsing on the floor, he kept signing “please.” It’s a little harder to ignore a temper tantrum when he’s trying to be polite at the same time! No, I didn’t give in, but awww….

Evan’s favorite food seems to be bananas, although almost any fruit ranks pretty high up there. I always break his bananas into pieces, but he still does his best to shove as much as possible into his mouth at one time. I’m always astonished at how quickly the banana disappears!

While Mom Rhinehart is in Australia visiting my adorable nephew Elijah (yay!), Evan is in childcare at church while I attend my Bible study on Thursday mornings. I’m always a little uncomfortable leaving him somewhere for the first time, and it always proves to be unnecessary. This past week was my group’s week to volunteer in childcare, and I was just down the hallway from Evan’s class. We crossed paths a few times over the course of the morning, and while other moms were having to duck lest their kids see them and put up a fuss, I was having a hard time getting any acknowledgment from mine. “Evan! Hey, Evan! Wave at Mommy! Hey! You! It’s me! Your mom, remember? Never mind…”. He did deign to smile at me once, and he acted happy to see me when I picked him up: he came running to show me the blue ball he was playing with. We also left him in childcare Sunday evening for the “Shepherding a Child’s Heart” class we’re taking, and in that case he actually cried when we picked him up because he was having fun playing with the toys. Sheesh.

On Sunday evening we got to Skype (video-chat) with Gretchen, Mom Rhinehart, and baby Elijah. We started before Evan’s bedtime, and I was curious to see if he would realize that it was his grandma on the computer, live and in person. Boy howdy, did he ever! He was so excited to see her. He didn’t seem to impressed by his cousin, but that was kind of mutual. I’m sure it will change when Elijah (and Gretchen and Rob!) come to visit in the spring and they can play with trucks together.

Another random tidbit: we suspect that Evan may think the color orange is actually called “cheese.” He frequently refers to orange things as “cheese,” even when they’re clearly not actual cheese. Recent examples would be the orange ring on his ring stacker, and the orange wristband he got in childcare on Sunday.

As for me, my most recent accomplishment has been to make two couch pillows (out of a planned total of four). The couch pillows we had were covered in a pink floral pattern that didn’t match the couch or anything else in the house, so I decided to use the stuffing from those to make new pillows that do match. Aaron and I picked out fabric in four different colors and patterns and I used quilt block patterns for the fronts of the pillows. I’ll try to take pictures of them soon, but I still have two more to make. I’m very pleased with how they’ve turned out. I forgot my measurements so the new pillows are a little smaller than the old ones, but it turns out smaller pillows seem to suit the couch better anyway. Maybe I’ll use the extra stuffing to make a fifth pillow for my recliner or something.

Awww

This is just a quickie, but I had to share that Evan is starting to learn about hugs and kisses. Last Sunday he kissed me goodnight for the first time and has been doing it pretty frequently since. Today I was kneeling on the floor and he walked up to me, put his arms around my neck, and kissed my chin. Although, when we were at the library today Evan was playing with another little boy (22 months) and Max wanted to give Evan a hug before he left. Evan didn’t object, but just sort of stood there looking uncertain while Max hugged him. They were exactly the same height, which amused me since Evan is 6 months younger.

Evan has discovered the joy of keys, and now even knows how to say “key.” I used to let him carry around our mailbox key, but after he hid it pretty well once I switched it out with the key to an old bike lock. He carries it around everywhere, and checks my pockets for it as soon as he wakes up. “Ot ot key” is now one of the most frequently used phrases around here. He also seems convinced that his key is the key to the car scooter that our neighbors handed down to him. He’ll go up to the scooter and put the key on the steering wheel as if to start it. And speaking of the scooter, he’s finally learned to sit and scoot on it instead of just pushing it around and carefully inspecting it.

He really loves to play outside, which is a blessing and a curse. I love letting him get some sunlight and fresh air, but he hasn’t yet learned that it isn’t ok to throw a fit when I say it’s time to go in. This is especially an issue if I just need to take out the trash or check the mail. He’s getting better, but we’re still working on it.

We went on vacation for a few days around Labor Day, and the pictures are here.

Dialogue

I  just carried on a brief conversation with Evan! We were playing in his room when he pointed and said “Ut ut!” which means “I want that!” So, I asked him, “What do you want?” and he replied, “Ball!” I didn’t see one, so I asked, “Where’s the ball, Evan?” and he got down on his hands and knees and pointed under his crib where, sure enough, a ball was hiding. I rescued it for him, and all was well. He even signed “thank you” when prompted.

My toddler

Many of you have already heard, but I’d like to make the official announcement that my baby has grown up and turned into a toddler. I’ve come to terms with it, mostly because he makes a pretty cute toddler if I do say so myself. It does come with new challenges, but it’s impossible not to enjoy seeing more and more of his personality take root and start to assert itself. Evan is definitely not shy about personality!

There’s my sweet boy with his backpack on and car keys in hand. “Let’s go, Mom!” Actually, trying to go anywhere wouldn’t be pretty, because he does NOT like to surrender the car keys. We’re working on that.

There’s the backpack I made for him the other day. Just big enough for a diaper, some wipes, and a toy or two. Time for him to start carrying his own weight!

In other news, Evan is starting to show preferences regarding his bedtime songs. When he wants “Jesus Loves Me,” he signs “yes” as in “Yes, Jesus loves me.” When he wants our David and Goliath song, he makes a fist and knocks himself in the head (“and the giant came tumbling down”). He also waves around his index finger for “This Little Light of Mine,” and sometimes folds his hands for a moment when it’s time to pray.

Food-wise, Evan has started on that staple of the American child: nut-butter and jelly sandwiches. We try to change up the type of nut-butter just because we can, and so far he’s had peanut butter and almond butter with no problems. Sometimes we skip the jelly, but he really likes raspberry preserves. Lately I’m also allowing the occasional cookie, mostly the free samples he gets every week at Sun Harvest. They usually give him an oatmeal cookie or some type of newton, which he loves. I figure they can’t be too bad for him once a week.

We’re also working with him on personal hygiene. Most mornings he follows me to the bathroom while I brush my teeth, brush my hair, etc. I bought him a couple of baby-sized toothbrushes, and I keep on in our bathroom and hand it to him while he watches me brush my teeth. He’s starting to get the idea, although this morning he first tried to use it as a hair brush. Oops. Good thing we’re not trying for toothpaste yet! I try to wipe his teeth and gums with a washcloth after he eats, but I want to transition toward using a toothbrush and I know it will be a long process because he does NOT like having his mouth messed with. He clamps it shut and doesn’t budge.

Speaking of Evan’s mouth, it looks like he has a couple of molars coming in! We couldn’t  figure out why he was being so cranky (for Evan) and not napping well (again, for Evan). Then once while he was crying for no good reason, Aaron got a good look at his mouth. Mystery solved! Tylenol is our friend, and hopefully this won’t last too much longer. He’s still sleeping well at night, and today’s nap has been better than yesterday’s. In the meantime, I’m trying to keep him distracted from the pain. We went to PetCo this morning and looked at the hamsters and rabbits, and he also got to play outside with our 3-year-old neighbor, Ava. Ava is so sweet to him and always wants to come play with him when she sees us outside. Evan is getting spoiled playing with her because she shares all of her toys and is very careful not to bump into him or knock him over or anything. This morning she let him hold her necklace for a moment and I was very proud to see him look at it carefully and then hand it right back to her.

Evan has recently started saying “whoa!” when he falls over, and sometimes I think I’ve heard “uh-oh.” He’s working on “balloon,” but I haven’t heard it enough that I can reproduce the word he uses. It’s somewhere between “ball” and “bowl” with an “n” somehow tacked on the end.

My fish tank projects are moving along nicely. I now have 5 corydoras catfish and 9 cardinal tetras in the 30-gallon tank, and am pleased to report not a single loss. I was worried about the cardinals (added last Thursday) because everything I’ve read about them online talks about how hard they are to acclimate and you’re bound to lose a few if not the whole batch, and some people even say you shouldn’t even try unless your tank is at least 6 months old. Unfortunately they say that about most of the fish I plan to get, and I have to start somewhere or the tank will never be six months old (in terms of having had fish living in it). The next step is my German blue ram, which is the really fun one. When you walk by their tanks at the fish store, they all crowd up to the glass to watch you. They’re very smart (for fish) and curious about what’s going on outside their tank. This will be the only fish that will get a name in that tank, because I can’t tell the others apart. Puck the betta is doing pretty well, and I finally found some food he likes. Crazy fish hardly ate for almost a month, and I think he was starting to bite at his own fins. But I tried something new on Saturday and he liked it, and now his fins appear to be recovering.

We have a vacation trip coming up soon — we’ll be going to my parents’ cabin in Bastrop for a few days to relax. Total expenses will be gas money to drive there (about an hour each way), groceries (which we’d buy anyway), disposable diapers for Evan, and probably a meal out at some point. That’s definitely affordable! We’re looking forward to some time away to relax and spend time together.

Newest words

Just a very quick update, but better than none I hope! I wanted to share Evan’s newest confirmed words. He’s now definitely saying “woof woof” when I give him one of his stuffed dogs. What he really says is “oof oof,” but that’s ok. He’s also recently started saying “shoe” or “shoes,” which sounds like “foof.” He has a pair of shoes with cars on them, which he identifies as “cah foof” or occasionally “foof, cah.” And just today I jumped out at him and said “boo!” and he said “boo!” about four or five times in a row.

And in Evan-language, we have “ut ut,” or maybe “ut unt,” which means “I want” or “give me.” For example, “ut unt chis!” (“I want cheese!”).

15 Months and other goodies

On Friday, Evan had his 15-month well-check with Dr. Prochnow. It’s always nice to have some professional reassurance that everything is going well, although a year into this parenting gig I’m actually getting to feel pretty confident about that sort of thing.

Evan weighed in at 25 lbs., 8 oz., which puts him between the 60th and 75th percentiles for weight. I think the timing of his growth spurts had been just off for his last couple of well checks, as he had been getting down below the 50th percentile for weight. The doctor said it was good to see him picking back up on the weight curve. Evan was 32 1/4″ long, which puts him in the 75th percentile for height — no surprise there. He’s still a tall boy! His head is in the 55th percentile, which is about where it’s always been if I recall correctly.

Everything checked out well physically, and Dr. Prochnow said Evan is still very social and friendly and happy. Verbal skills are good — Evan has at least 10 words he uses these days, which is definitely on track for his age. And, Evan is eating plenty! It’ll be good if I can figure out ways to get him to eat more vegetables, but he’s eating a lot of the same meals we are which means it works out to be fairly well balanced. So, Evan and I got a good, solid thumbs up all around!

The list of Evan’s words (that I can remember at the moment) includes car, truck, up, ball, bowl, Dada, kitty, cow, moo, cheese, Dag-da (Grandma), an unpronounceable name for Grandpa, and I think we’re getting close to “balloon.” There have been a couple of times I’ve thought I’ve heard doggie, woof, and meow, but I’m waiting to be sure on those. I think that’s a comprehensive list, but I could be forgetting some. He tends to pick up words and then get tired of them — for example, we almost never hear “truck” anymore, but on very rare occasions it pops back up. His newest word is “cheese,” pronounced “sheeeEEEth”… or something like that. It’s still evolving.

Last Wednesday he seemed to have a breakthrough on walking. He still doesn’t do it much, but he’ll walk back and forth across the living room to amuse himself when he’s in the mood. He’ll also walk around holding onto my finger, but I think the finger is more for moral support than for balance. One of these days he’ll decide walking is an accepable mode of transportation, but I think he still feels more confident with crawling. Walking happens most often when it’s just the two or three of us at home.

Another word I’m trying to teach Evan is “fish.” My 30-gallon tank is finally fish-safe, and this weekend I was able to add five three-lined corydoras catfish to the tank. I’m monitoring conditions carefully, and so far so good. Hopefully in a couple of weeks I’ll be able to move forward with my next addition: cardinal tetras. Puck the betta is still doing well in his tank, and I’ve added some live plants that I hope will do well in there. Evan seems to like watching the cories, as they’re very active in moving around the tank. They’re constantly sifting through the gravel looking for something to eat, and also like to swim up and down the sides. I’m working with Evan on watching the fish without touching the tank, but he occasionally slips up and startles the fish a little.

Lately Evan seems to be discovering that everything has a place. He loves pulling two or three toys out of his toybox and putting them back in, or pulling his sippy cups out of his cabinet and putting them back, or putting blocks into a dump truck and dumping them and putting them back. I’m definitely encouraging this line of thinking! He partly figured out the shape sorter at church on Sunday, and was able to put the star shape into its hole repeatedly with just a little encouragement. I’ve pulled out his wooden puzzle and he seems to like it but doesn’t yet understand about putting the pieces back in their places after he removes them.

We’ve moved solidly onto a one-nap schedule in the last few weeks, and it’s working out well now that we’ve gotten the hang of it. Evan gets lunch around 12:15 or so, and when he’s done eating (around 12:45 or 1) it’s naptime. Naps last approximately three hours, give or take a little. We had a rough week or so where he was waking up after two hours just out of habit and that just wasn’t enough sleep to get him through the rest of the evening. Three hours seems to be just right.

We’re still reading through Evan’s children’s Bible with him at night, and I think that’s been good for all three of us. There’s nothing like a good children’s Bible to help you get the big picture of the Bible without getting bogged down in all the details, and of course start exposing a young child to the Bible. The one we have is “The Children’s Bible in 365 Stories,” which is the same one I had as a kid. It’s broken into logical, manageable stories and the rewriting is handled very well — we highly recommend it, either for kids or for an adult who wants a quick survey of the high points of the Bible. We’re in Jeremiah right now, just before the Babylonians come along.

Recent snapshots

Just a disjointed assortment of photos taken recently!

How’s that for a face? This was not long after he bumped his head, butI don’t think you can really see the bruise yet. It would be the right side of his forehead looking at the picture. I’m not sure why he was giving me this look.

He’s learned how to turn his big dump truck over so he can play with the wheels. I watched him do it very deliberately. Crazy boy.

I made Evan a tunnel out of an old box. It took him a while to get interested, but now he seems to enjoy crawling through it almost as much as he enjoys trying to destroy my handiwork.

Standing up like a big boy!

Checking out the bed of the truck.

And dumping it.

Evan’s latest accomplishments

Evan has been a busy boy lately, and keeping Mommy pretty busy too! One of our recent adventures was when he decided to try to walk and fell straight into the corner of a cabinet. Ouch! He hit his forehead pretty hard, so I took him into the doctor to get it checked out. Everything was fine, but it sure left a pretty bruise. There was even a dent there for the first hour or so afterward. Poor baby! That put a damper on walking activities for a little while, but he seems to have recovered his spirit of adventure. He still prefers to crawl, but will occasionally stand up and walk a few steps to a toy he wants or something. When he does walk, he mostly does it very well (the aforementioned incident being a notable exception). He seems to have very good balance and control, although he does have a bit of a swagger. I think he’s just determined not to walk until he can do it like a pro.

His vocabulary has also expanded, although “up” is still the word I seem to hear the most. A week or so ago I realized he could tell me what a cow says: “bvooo!” Well, close enough. He also says “cow” (all animals are now “cow,” but before that started he could identify his stuffed cows on request) and even “cow bvooo!” He’s also starting to make a lot of car and truck noises while playing with his toy cars and trucks.

One of Evan’s favorite family activities is bed wrestling. We go into our bedroom and wrestle around on the bed, where he loves to be dropped and shoved around and dragged backwards by his ankles. Daddy makes a very good monster, and Evan likes to hide behind Mommy or bury his face in the pillows. Hide and seek is another favorite, especially around the dining room table and chairs. As soon as Grandma Rhinehart walks in, Evan crawls full-speed behind a chair and drops to his belly giggling madly.

That will have to be enough update for now — I’m off to spend some time with that wonderful husband of mine!

More Craigslisting

As Evan has gotten older, he’s gotten bigger toys and more of them. We used to keep his toys in a basket in the corner by the fireplace, but in spite of our best intentions, the collection kind of grew to take over the whole area in front of the fireplace. On an average day, it looked something like this:

I’ve definitely seen worse… but not really the look we want for our living room. While I was having lunch with Mom Rhinehart today, she told me Evan had liked playing with the chest in their spare bedroom and was very good at opening and closing the lid. She’s also mentioned previously that she’s thinking of getting a nice toy chest for grandkid toys. That got me thinking, and when I got home I checked out Craigslist to see what kind of price range we’d be looking at for a non-plastic, non-ugly toy chest. About $40 to $100 or so seemed to be the norm… and then there was one for $5. And it wasn’t plastic, and it wasn’t ugly. If I were designing my own toy chest and cost wasn’t a factor, I’ll grant that this probably isn’t exactly what I would have come up with… but it wasn’t ugly, either. And it was still available! I asked for the dimensions and measured the place where we’d want to put it (under the window by the bookcases) and it was a good fit. Aaron looked at the pictures and price tage and said to go for it — so Evan and I went and picked it up this evening, about 7 hours after it occured to me that a toy chest would be nice. How’s that for some fast Craigslist action?

You can see that it’s been loved — there are some crayon marks (see the red along the bottom?) and a piece of tape or two — but it’s sure not bad looking. I wiped it down with soap and water and got off some of the worst markings, and I’m not worried about the rest because I’m sure Evan will add his own. I like that the front edge of the box dips down so he can’t shut his fingers in it too easily.

As you can see, it has a slow-closing lid so it won’t fall on any fingers. The whole thing was a little wobbly, but I tightened up all the screws I could find and that seemed to solve the problem. There’s a sticker on the bottom that’s mostly illegible, but there’s a date in 1986 written on it so I’d be willing to guess this box is almost as old as I am. I like the heart cut-outs on the side — they make good handles for moving it!

Evan likes his toy box! Opening and closing the lid is fun, as is pulling out the toys. I’ll have to see if I can start teaching him to help me put toys away, but I suspect we won’t get very far with that lesson just yet. On the plus side, having a very specific place to put them is a step that direction!

My other Craigslist find this week was also a fun one, although it took me a couple of weeks to find it. While researching fish for my 30-gallon tank in the living room, I did a lot of reading on bettas (they can actually live with other fish most of the time — just not anything that looks like them). I decided I didn’t want a betta for my 30-gallon… but they sure are cool fish! On Sunday I got a 5-gallon hex with a built-in light and filter for about 40% of what it costs new. I got it all set up, and on Monday Evan and I went and picked out a fish to live in it.

This is Puck, named for the mischievous sprite in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Little guy somehow managed to swim into the output slot of the filter… the spot where all the water is coming out, creating a current he would have to swim very hard against to get in. Crazy fish. He escaped none the worse for wear, but earned himself a reputation for trouble. I’m very happy to have a pet, since it’s more than two years since I gave my old fish tanks to my neighbor when I moved out of Waco, and almost two years since I moved out of my parents’ house where we had Gypsy and Nipper. Two years without pets is a long time!

This is Puck’s home. Eventually I plan to add some more live plants to make it more natural-looking and give him more nooks and crannies to explore. He loves the pieces of wood, and seems to prefer them to the plastic hollow rock I had in there until the wood was ready for him.