Travel and Pumpkins and 15 Months

I took my first post-Evan solo work trip this week. It was a 3-day trip to Los Angeles. I psyched myself up ahead of time about the relaxing and the things I'd accomplish. I'm trying to work on a major picture organization project (because, as you might guess, I have a bajillion of them), so that was on the top of my list. The plan was to spend the whole time in my room except for the meeting. Well, the plan worked but only because I was sick as a dog. It was a miserable trip. Nothing like extreme sinus congestion on an airplane. Four airplanes, actually. Plenty of cabin pressure changes to make me think my brain was going to explode. I didn't get anything productive done and I didn't get any good rest either. Luckily, I was too busy being miserable to be missing my boys too much.

The plan for the weekend (besides continuing to die from this head cold) was to carve the pumpkin we got a couple weekends ago. It was a total bust. It was really cold outside so we had to do it inside. I put the pumpkin in the middle of the kitchen floor and tried to get Evan to sit with it. He was scared. He got up, pointed at it and ran away. He finally got close to it when I added the baby pumpkins. He wouldn't have anything to do with the guts and, of course, I handled all the cutting. So I carved a pumpkin this weekend. I even put the candle in it and had Evan join me in the dark bathroom so he could see it glowing. He looked at it, said "no" and ran away. What a turd...ruining my Halloween fun!

I even put his monster pants on him for the occasion!
And no shirt because I was sure he was getting messy.

That's as close as he got to the goop. 

Our My Masterpiece

Evan turned 15 months yesterday. Each month he gains so much more personality. Let me just list off the month 15 highlights.
He loves books.
He runs.
He's currently working on jumping, which is so adorable.
He's not climbing yet, but he lifts his leg like it's coming soon.
If we do the stabbing, he can feed himself with a fork. He's about 50/50 on doing the stabbing himself.
His favorite food is still Daddy's spaghetti, which we have every Sunday.
He had my lasagna for the first time last week; he ate an obscene amount.
He takes his dishes to the dish bucket at daycare.
He likes putting smaller things in containers and has recently gotten the hang of putting things away. (Woo!)
Unfortunately, that means we've found remotes in his drawers and toy bins and found toys in the kitchen cabinets.
He has a weird mix of words, signs and sounds. He moos, baas, and makes elephant sounds. He makes signs for and says duck and dog. He says bear and purple. He signs and says red and brown. He makes wings and says "waddle, waddle" for a penguin. He acts like a monkey and says "hoo hoo ha ha". That's on top of the oldies-- more, all done, milk, water and the ever popular "NO!"
He understands the things we say, like breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, bath, put it away, sit down, stand up, diaper change, everybody out, come here, and luckily "no".
He's become more social at daycare but still prefers his alone time.
He's awesome in public. Contrary to what you might think, if he's having a cranky day at home, we take him out in public. He just likes the stimulation.
He's become a champion fit-thrower. Not exactly a milestone I'm happy about.
He loves all animals. We're going to take him to the zoo if we get a good warmish fall weekend soon.

Most of all, he's just awesome and fun and smart.