Bye-bye.

So, Evie has mastered "bye-bye."
I. mean. MASTERED.
CONQUERED.
Is currently destroying World Record for the most "bye-bye's" said in one week.
When Rob looks over my shoulder as I am changing her morning diaper & he leaves the room, "bye-bye!"
When I get a cup of coffee and exit the kitchen, "bye-bye!"
When she throws away a piece of paper, "bye-bye!"
When Puck walked through the room, the bathtub water goes down the drain, when her shows end.
BUH-BYE.

Asparagus

I made pork tenderloin and steamed asparagus for dinner last night. While cutting up the asparagus, Evie's hand ran along the edge of the kitchen counter, "mah-mah! mah-mah!*"
(*mah-mah is Evie's generic phrase meaning, loosely, "Excuse me mother, what is that you are working on and how might I get involved?")
I tossed a flowery tip her way to get her to stop & to sort of say, "Oh yeah? You want raw asparagus, do you? You want it? OK, here it is. Enjoy!"
Well, she did. She liked it.
Evie also later enjoyed steamed asparagus. By the end of the meal she decided on really enjoying just the tips. After demanding the only remaining tip on MY plate... I lobbed it her way muttering, "here."
Ah, the sacrifices of motherhood.
Its going to be stems and stalks for me from here on in, isn't it?

A parental rite of passage: the midnite run to ER

Evie dozes on me for a morning nap
Well, Evie's "cold" has become so worse - she is now inconsolable.
So was the scene at 1AM last night (Sunday night).
Evie's had a runny nose and "wet" cough for well over 10 days now and only recently (Tuesday and Wednesday nights) did it become dry. Those nights her cough was that sudden, relentless coughing spasm that sends you upright in bed gasping for air only to cough more. It was terrible. She's cry and we'd race. She's rub her eyes and we'd lay her back down. On Thursday we discussed taking her to the doctor Friday if things were still bad.
Of course! thursday night wasn't AS bad so she stayed home all day Friday. When I got home from work, I noticed she had a slight fever (100.1) and Rob said she had been cranky since her nap. Uh-oh.
Friday night was a little rough but we had also become use to rough from this entire past week.
Saturday morning, Evie just looks and seems sick. You must understand one thing - this kid is totally her father's daughter. When she is sick, you can tell but she otherwise tries to continue to act normal. When I'm sick, everybody run for your lives! I want attention, coddling and more attention still.
Back to Saturday morning.
I call the pediatrician at home who thinks it may be RSV (a baby upper-respiratory) as an over-the-phone diagnosis. I inquire about going to an ER or some emergency kid clinic. She recommends one but it doesn't open until 2PM.
By 2PM, Evie seems fine... sick but maybe I'm over-reacting. OK, here's my other sidenote. Rob's really more of the one questioning my over-reaction at this point. I mean, really, ER? She doesn't seem THAT sick but I'm telling you... my mom instincts were up and waiting till Monday could be really bad. In the end, I never went.
Saturday night is... OK. Sunday is OK and we even spend an hour and a half out front playing on the sidewalk.
Sunday night, Evie goes to bed no problem. By 11PM, she's up crying. I console her and leave. She cries again. I go in the room and she stops, so I leave. She cries again, I go in and she stops. She is actually there with eyes closed. Is she faking? I'm a little annoyed and leave. She cries again so I rock her until she falls asleep. I lay her down, she cries. This continues for quite awhile until all are in bed by midnight.
At 1AM, she is UP. Crying. Hysterically. Again, a note - hysterically for all kids is quite bad. This was an Evie hysterical.. much milder than the average tantrum throwing brats you may have witnessed. Evie is REALLY a great trooper when sick so when she cries without stopping.... sticking a spitty hand in her mouth... you know it is the REAL DEAL.
We are getting a little stressed and frankly, pissed at this point. Without knowing what to do, we pull her into bed with us. Terrible idea. She trashes and cries every 10 minutes until its now 2AM.
I tell Rob its time to go to the ER. We obviously are NEVER SLEEPING EVER AGAIN so we might as well get up and hang-out with all the insomniacs and severely sick while we are at it.
We get to the ER (its nearly dead, a good sign that things will move quickly).
Some fumbling for insurance goes on (again, I have only been at my new job for 2 weeks and have no insurance cards yet).
Evie goes through a series of crying spells after each poke & prod... rectal temp (nothing), ear check (nothing), throat swab (no flu or strep throat) and finally, a chest x-ray.
Turns out, bronchitis.
It was nice to have an answer and to justify our midnight run. It was nice to not spend the night resenting Evie for crying & wailing. It was nice to know that it was solvable and maybe now, we could all get some sleep.
One Yo Gabba Gabba CD & Walgreens prescription fill later, we were all home and in bed t 4:40AM.
I am happy to report that after a very listless morning (Evie snoozed on me for 45 minutes! she NEVER falls asleep on people!), she ran laps all around the house before going to bed SOUNDLY.
Phew.

sidewalk chalk

I picked up this little tub of sidewalk chalk for $1 at Target. A stupid impulse buy much like every weekly $10 expenditure I have at the Target Hot Spot area. Besides, we still have a whole cart of chalk from Evie's birthday last year... but this was only $1! I had to have it.
Evie's really been into going outside.
Sun, wind, cold, hail... it doesn't stop her. She's a driving force who insists on being out in nature.
We went outside Sunday after lunch despite this pesky cold she's had for over a week (she's been waking up all night coughing and, in turn, waking us up all night, too).
I thought she'd race for the park but she sat on the front steps instead. Tap, tap, tapping her toes (she can reach the next step with her feet now).
I went back side and got the chalk.
She loved it. Well, I loved it. I drew unicorns and hearts and stars... all the girliest stuff I could think of.
Evie then spent the next hour sitting on each drawing while defacing another... er, I mean to say, coloring in the shapes I had made.
Scribble, scribble, swipe, swipe! She doesn't have any form to her writings yet and she still switches hands but it is noteworthy that she didn't eat the chalk nor did she snub it like last summer. I can't wait till spring when we can do more activities like this!

happy valentine's day!

Delicious puzzle from grandma...

lazy.

baby baby BABY!

OMG.
I'm getting baby crazy. I don't know if its because all of my closest friends are recent new moms, my kid is now a toddler and beginning to become more independent or that its spring... but I am baby crazy. My clock is ticking and its absolutely WIERD. I feel like a crazy person. Who really sits aroun d crunching numbers in their head all day like I've been doing? Let's see, if I got pregnant in June then that would mean the baby would be born in March so Evie and it would be almost 3 years apart... ah!

New Park: Bryan Park

Leaps and Bounds, More Learned Tricks

At the school playground yesterday, Evie began walking up the steps to the slide... on her feet! She usually crawls but this day was one for taking actual big-girl steps. It was later continued today by going up and down the steps to the house - alone! Wow!

Evie says "hot!" and blows on her food. The really funny part is when it is clearly NOT hot and she does it anyway. She then sideways glances and giggles wildly. I think Evie is beginning to understand the art of obvious humor. She does things like this to see if you are paying attention... and then shakes her head like a monkey with laughter. Its great. Its like Vaudeville.

She knows "cheese!" but not really in the sense of taking a picture. When you take a picture you have to tell her to smile and her smile is not worth asking her to smile. She closes here eyes and juts out her lips with teeth clenched... she looks like she's straining. Its better to catch her off guard.

Current vocabulary: Doggie, Puck, Pwee (please), meh-meh (Moo Cow), muh-ma (mom), da-da, dish (What's this?), dat (I want that), cheese, chews (shoes), zocks (socks), pap (pacifier), hot!, two (she counts 1-6 by always saying "two"), uh-oh, wow, whoa!, happy, hi.

At the park, Evie can go down slides by herself. She is starting to learn how to hold on to the chains on the swing. She picks up trash (of course!).

Evie knows how to turn on and off light switches. How to close doors. How to pick up things mom drops or hand over things mom/dad ask for. She knows when to wait if we are outside (don't run off!). She will help clean up her toys in the bathtub and stand waiting to be wrapped in a towel afterward. She knows how to wash and dry her hands after meals (with help, of course). Evie can point out almost every body part (ex: taps her teeth when you ask where her teeth are and stomps her feet when you ask where her feet are). Evie understands how to get specific things like coats or shoes and will then race to the door when you suggest going outside. Evie signals she is done eating by steadily lining up the rest of her food off to the far right side of her placemat. She will shake her head 'no' whenever I suggest eating anything she ate just last week (we seem to be getting pickier as we get older). Evie will get messy but likes to have her hands cleaned off. Evie still hates anything put in her hair.

Trash Collector

Evie has learned a new trick of throwing things away.
I filled the laundry basket with clothes from the dryer and hauled it out to the couch for folding. Evie sometimes takes an interest in knocking over the freshly folded piles of shirts. In my attempts to deflect her grabs, a pair of my underwear hit the floor. She immediately grabbed them and ran off. I decided not to pursue since I could now fold in peace.
Visions of guests coming over to find a pair of my panties laying about began flooding my mind... so I stopped folding to go on the hunt.
Evie stood in the corner behind the chair.
After asking her where the goods were (and realizing she doesn't have a clue what I am asking about) I figured they'd show up.
They did.
In the swing-top trash can in the kitchen.
Part of me finds this funny and part of me is beginning to wonder what else I've lost or soon will lose.

t-i-r-e-d

Today was my second day at my new job. Its always hard to concentrate for 8hrs a day when you have no idea what it is you should be doing let alone concentrating on. But, I'm still full of excitement to dive in. I just need to know when to dive.

Today Evie repeated "happy! happy! happy!" at the end of her nearly touched dinner (yes, nearly). We then took a bath in which she giggled at the bar of soap touching every part of her body. After pointing out Moo-Cow on the towel bar, "Ma! Ma! Ma!", I scooped her up & out of the tub. Dad got her dressed for bed before she zoned out on my lap during the nightly news. I simply love the weight of her sitting on my lap at moments like this.
Evie used to wave her hand in front of her mouth when I'd ask, "Want to go brush your teeth? C,mon! Let's go brush your teeth!" Now, she screams in horror. Ah, the many phases.