29 September 2012

The Jig is Up

We're on to him. Evan can no longer act all "I'm just a baby... I don't understand what you're saying" anymore.

Examples:

Me: "Evan, do you want to Leggo Your Eggo?"
Evan: Walks his little baby butt right over to the highchair and stares at it.

Me: "Evan, are you ready for your snack?"
Evan: Claps and heads directly to the baby gate. After I open it, he walks directly to the highchair and puts his arms up in a "put me up there" motion.

Me: "Evan, do you need a clean butt?"
Evan: Puts down his toys, stands up and walks directly to his bedroom.

Me: "Evan, are you ready for your bath?"
Evan: Walks directly to his bedroom door (where he gets undressed). When I don't follow, he walks into the living room and stares at me until I do.

In the bathtub, Evan throws his dolphins out but has his chin on the edge of the tub looking at them.
Me: "Are you all done with your dolphins?"
Evan: Shakes head. "No."

Well, okay then. He understands us. No more playing dumb for him.



27 September 2012

14 Months!

Some random tidbits about month 14.

Evan's practically running. He's started walking in the grass outside. Previously, it was too lumpy. Outside time is much more fun for me now. He'll also sit on my lap in the middle of the yard and just watch stuff-- squirrels chasing each other along the fence or tight-rope walking along the power lines, birds flying overhead, the leaves blowing in the wind, Laika chewing grass. That's about the only time he'll sit still on my lap, so I treasure those moments. He walks into and out of daycare each day. And, he learned to stand up from the middle of the floor without support this month.

He's starting to climb more. He lifts his leg, trying to climb the baby gate, his crib, the bath tub, the furniture, you name it. That's going to be a challenging time. I feel like he's one of those "no fear" kids.

His fine motor skills are improving noticeably. He puts different shaped blocks through their proper hole, he places gears on the gear table, he stuffs pom-poms into a water bottle. The pom-pom water bottle is my homemade fine motor skill game-- and his favorite. I like it because he can't get them out on his own and throw them all over the house, like the gears, blocks, shapes, Legos, balls.

He's talking. Not consistently. He knows "red" and signs it. He's repeated several other colors but only completely randomly. He knows and signs "more" but I think he doesn't know that it actually gets him more food. He says "water" and "milk"-- again, not consistently. He says "bye-bye" like a pro and knows how to use it properly. When I lift him up at daycare, he says "bye-bye" and waves to the caregivers while I'm still talking to them-- as if to tell them, "Hey lady, my mommy's here. We're through. Buh-bye." He says "hi" sometimes. He points at everything and wants us to tell him what everything is. It's so exciting to watch him learn.

He's quite smart. When I'm sitting on the couch with my feet propped up on the coffee table, he'll run up to me, drop to his knees and crawl under my legs, then get back up and run again. He used to just stand at my legs and whine until I moved them for him to get through. Also, I've been ghetto baby-proofing lately. (Did you notice the blue painters tape keeping the living room cabinet doors closed in the last post's pictures? I'm sophisticated.) We have black hair bands around the cabinet handles in the kitchen. This works for double cabinets, but not so much for the single cabinets on either side of the stove. So, genius me decided to get out the yarn. I tied each cabinet handle to the stove handle. What does Evan do? He tries each cabinet, looks at it for a minute and then starts using all his weight to pull on the stove handle. Too smart for his own good, that kid.

He does really cute things. He lays his head on our shoulder when we hold him and pats our arm. He also lays his head on Laika and attempts to do it to Lars too (that never ends well.) For some reason, he's started trying to eat my face (only mine?). He'll point and I'll say "nose" and then he just opens his mouth wide and tries to bite it off! So, I started blowing into his open mouth when he does that. That makes him laugh hysterically. Weird kid. He's also started opening his mouth wide like that for Laika... TO LICK! Which causes him to laugh even more hysterically. I knew it would happen eventually, but really? REALLY? Laika wakes me up most nights licking her butt. Laika eats her own poop. Laika steals Lars' turds from the litter box when given the chance. *vomit* We try very hard to stop that mess but we separate them and then Evan goes running back toward her with his mouth wide open, laughing all the way. It's hilarious, but also totally disgusting.

Last, but not least, Evan had his first haircut this month. He did great. Just a little fussy when she was cutting his bangs. He was rewarded with Smashburger for dinner. Okay, maybe that was my and David's reward.

Long haired boy more interested in Barney than I would like...

Snip, snip...

It was really long! 

He's going to miss his long, flowing locks

A whole new kid! 

23 September 2012

Weekend at Home

As promised...

Daddy nom-nom-nomming Baby

I love to hear his baby belly laughs... which reminds me of a very challenging parenting moment. I was sitting on the floor and Evan was standing next to me when he decided to slap me across the face. I grab his hand and sternly tell him "no." His response? He LOL'd like I had just told him some hilarious joke that only his crazy baby brain understood. It was all I could do to not LOL with him.

Saturday was a boring day. David was off volunteering at the Dayton Art Institute's Oktoberfest (yeah, poor guy... free beer for stamping hands for a few hours.) So, I spent the whole day with the camera in my hand. And, here's what that gets ya...


Baby Toes
Baby Fingers
Chubby Baby Cheeks
Evan's been enjoying his Legos lately. Well, he enjoys when I build pretty things and he can rip them apart. And he enjoys the sound of clunking the Legos into the bucket and then pouring them back out and starting again. He also enjoys the sound of the Legos hitting the tile kitchen floors when he launches them over the baby gate.

Put the Legos in...
Dump the Legos out...
Any more in there?? 
Seriously, where did they go? 
And then he claps for himself. 
P.S. Could my house be more gray? I even dress my kid in gray. 

And then we went outside. It was a really windy day.





My Handsome Man. Look at that curl in the back! 
The camera was still in easy reach during "The Poop Wait". We've learned (the hard way) that Evan poops about 15 minutes after dinner each night. We used to go straight from the dinner table to the bathtub. That had poor results... like 5 nights in a row. So now, we have "The Poop Wait"-- the 20 minutes between dinner and bath, which terminates with a very smelly signal that it's bath time. (Sorry, I know I'm gross.) Dinner energizes him and he's a little crazy for that 20 minutes.

"La-la-la... you're waiting for me to poop... 
but I'm just going to dance around in my diaper..." 
"I'm Ca-razy Evan!" 
And a couple shots from Sunday too...

Bed Head
Sunday was a much chillier day so Evan got to try out his new WV hoodie when we played outside. 


Seriously, could these two be any cuter? I have no idea what they were pointing/looking at. It must've been something that only super sensitive baby and cat ears can hear.


Whew! The End.

22 September 2012

Catching Up

A few random things...

I went to NYC. It was my first trip without Evan. It was the longest I'd been away from him next to a work day. Leaving was hard. Luckily, a.) I was with a coworker who is also a really good friend so it was almost like a "girls weekend" b.) she has a baby just a couple months older than Evan so we supported each other c.) there's so much to see and do in NYC that we kept really busy so I wasn't sitting around missing Evan. The suckiest part was that I had to leave on a Saturday morning so I missed my whole weekend with him. I got to see lots of cool stuff though.

Yankee Stadium
Grand Central Terminal
Times Square
Rockefeller Center
Radio City Music Hall
Not pictured: Walking through Central Park, riding the NYC Subway, eating delicious bagels and so-so street vendor hot dogs and pretzels, The Intrepid Museum where we saw the Enterprise space shuttle, Statue of Liberty from afar, dinner with my cousin at the Plaza Hotel, Chinatown, the 9/11 Memorial, Brooklyn Bridge from afar, seeing RENT off Broadway... Did I mention we were busy?

When I picked Evan up from daycare early on Wednesday, he was just like "Oh... hey, Mom", like he didn't even know I was gone. The little turd.

----------

Evan had his first ER visit a couple weeks ago. No fun. He was fine when we put him to bed, but at 3am he woke up gasping and when he finally caught his breath, he was really struggling to breathe. It was very scary (I can't even imagine what it must be like to have a kid with asthma!) Although the ER was totally empty, it took us forever. His oxygen levels and all his other stats were fine. They gave him a breathing treatment and  decided it was just another case of bronchialitis. I think I'm going to rename it Daycare Disease. The only upside is he got to wear an incredibly adorable baby-sized hospital gown. And, we got our second pair of hospital bracelets for the scrapbook.


----------------------

Things I never thought I'd say:  "You know, most people don't go for a jog around the house between turds."

Lots of adorable pictures coming soon... and probably a First Haircut post. It's about time, don't you think?


16 September 2012

Cousin Michaela's Third Birthday

We made a very quick trip to West Virginia this weekend to celebrate Michaela's third birthday. We were there for a total of 36 hours and Evan was sleeping for approximately 21 of them. We made the most of the time we had though.

Evan, unexpectedly, got to meet his Uncle Chase for the first time. He woke up on Saturday morning, walked into the kitchen and walked right into Chase's arms. He hugged him like a long lost friend. It was awesome. It wasn't long before the wrestling began.


Evan and Michaela got reacquainted.


Michaela proved what a great big sister she'll be one day by going outside and yelling and laughing like she was having the time of her life while Evan stood inside and longed to be out there with her. 


We FaceTimed with Annie while Michaela opened her presents. 



Evan got to wear his first ever princess party hat.


It was a beautiful weekend. We had lots of outside time.

Showing me her dance moves.
It's like herding cats, but Grandma does an okay job. 

We met with Grandma Barbi and Grandpa Ed for some fun at the park. Evan pretty much ignored all of the adults and played in the sand. I've never seen him focus on a single task for so long. Note to self: get a sandbox. At least Grandma and Grandpa got to see how good he's walking... all over the place


More outside time...


They like each other okay, but not this close. 

I'm so happy that I've been able to spend every birthday with Michaela. Shall we take a look back? 

2012 - Three Years Old

2011 - Two Years Old

2010 - One Year Old

2009 - Welcome, Michaela! 





05 September 2012

3 Day Weekend

We spent Labor Day weekend hanging around the house. It was hot and remnants of the most recent hurricane were rolling through. Not exactly a pleasant end to the long, hot summer.

Spending three entire days with Evan is... challenging. He's in a very whiney stage right now. If he could talk, every two minutes he'd be saying,
"Mooooooom! I'm booooooored! None of my toys are fun anymore! Let's do soooooomething!" 
Are you imagining how annoying that is? Now imagine that he can't talk so it's just whine, whine, whine...throw self onto the floor and whine some more. Yeah. This weekend was not rainbows and butterflies.

I decided to finally organize his baby clothes. I brought everything from storage-- 6 kitchen trash bags of clothes, a plastic tub of shoes, and another box of clothes. My goal was to only keep things that I really liked. He wore lots of hand-me-downs and lots of gifts. Some things just didn't work and I don't imagine they'd work for a future kid, should we have one. I laid it all out on my floor in piles by size. The few items on the kitchen floor are trash and the two bags in the wagon are donations.

NB to 12 Months... a whole year of clothes

Evan entertained himself by destroying my piles. I enjoyed myself by holding up his tiny baby clothes and saying, "Can you believe he was ever this small?" David attempted to ignore us both. I found one treasure for Evan-- these legwarmers used to cover his entire legs. I kept singing, "Let's get physical. Physical!..." and he ran around like he was wearing something fancy.



Nothing more precious than a dad and his jazzercizer. 
And the finished product was 8 vacuum bags that take up about as much space as two kitchen trash bags.


It rained. That made the boooooooredom even worse. So, I took his whiney butt out in the rain. That was entertaining for about 5 minutes.



He was obsessed with touching the car. Daddy's boy. 
We had a good weekend, though. We shopped, cooked out with friends, went to the park, played in the rain, and built a house out of a cardboard box. What more can you ask for?