Uncouth

If you were told that Evie is a bit uncouth would it surprise you? If not, how about this one for ya... I walked in to pick up Evie from preschool yesterday and she was inside washing her hands with her teacher instead of out on the playground. Her teacher turns to me and very embarrassed says "Oh, we just found Evie over in the corner on the playground peeing on a tree." Now of course my first reaction is raucous laughter, because, clearly, Evie is not the only uncouth Lacroix. But I bit my lip and in a very serious face told Evie that is was not OK to pee on trees at school... that this is only something she can do while she is camping. Her teacher at this point now is trying not to crack up too, having realized that I am no puritanical pee enforcer. I asked her why she didn't just go inside and she proclaimed, quite matter of factly "Because I didn't want to and the tree was right there."

Evie kept questioning me why she could pee on trees while camping and not at school and I ran through a litany of reasons, it is yucky, it might make people sick, school has different rules than the woods... I think those were my three best. In the end I proclaimed, "Well Evie it is OK, you were just confused." To which she replied "No mommy I wasn't, I just wanted to pee on the tree." I can see that we are going to have to be more rigid with where we permit peeing...

Preschool and Snow!

A long anticipated event occurred this past week... Evie is now officially a preschooler! She started school last week in a French immersion program. She seems to be enjoying it... on the first day I practically had to peel her off the playground, I'll take that as a good sign. She also provided us with a lovely round of her new favorite song "S'il vous plait" which consists of the phrase said over and over again with different intonations. I am not sure if this is a school song or an Evie original, I'll have to ask her teacher :)

I half expected her first week to be really traumatic, new school, no diapers to fall back on and all in a language she really doesn't know. I know that I would be, at the very least, totally stressed if I were her. All I could think of during that first day after we dropped her off was how I felt when I went to China in high school and didn't understand a word that was being said to me for 3/4 of the day... But, so far as I can tell hanging out all morning with people who speak a language you don't understand doesn't faze her, pretty neat really. I am now fascinated with second language acquisition in little kids and have started gobbling up all sorts of info (for better or for worse) on the internet.


Anyway... the other fabulous event of the past week has been a ton of rain and SNOW! OK well the snow wasn't exactly in town... but we sure could see it from town. It was so lovely that we really just spent most of Saturday at my parents house staring out their huge windows at the mountains. We did manage to muster a short hike up one of the washes near my mom's place in the afternoon. It was actually quite cold even in Tucson (in the 40s... which, in my opinion, is about as cold as it should ever get, anything less is inhuman :)

Oh and just in case you can't quite see it in the photo collage...here is a close up of Evie's take on the appropriate clothes to wear hiking...

San Diego

Last Wednesday, for the second year in a row, we packed it up and drove the 7 hours to San Diego for New Years. This year was extra special (or was supposed to be at least) because Patrick scored tickets for all of us to go to see U of A play in the Holiday Bowl on Wednesday night. So there we were, all full of excitement on Wednesday at the crack of dawn loading up the car and going to the big game. All the way to San Diego we saw excited wildcats fans, flags flying from cars, bedecked folks at each gas/pee stop... and the excitement continued at 4 pm when we piled into first a bus and then the most crowded trolley/train that I had ever been on in this country. The opening to the game was a blast (well it was for geeky ex-band people like me, lots of marching band goodness) but, I am sad to say, the fun all ended in the first few minutes of the game when Nebraska began what was to be a terrible, terrible cat massacre. The only redeeming value to the remainder of the spectacle was the half-time show... after which not only was U of A doing terribly on the scoreboard but it started to drizzle. Oh well, luckily for us with Evie around even a sad game can be a hilarious and fun event! At around 9:30 we called it a game and stood in line for over 1/2 hour to get back on the trolley to head home. Once we were all repacked like sardines we started socializing and ended up getting a troop of tipsy dads on a night out to sing some pretty rousing choruses of Supercalafragalisticexpialadocious, Tomorrow and Do, Re, Mi. By the time we got home (around midnight Tucson time) Evie was decidedly pooped but in amazingly good spirits!


The next morning we decided that a trip to Sea World would be fun... and let me tell ya it didn't disappoint. What was a bit disappointing was the hour plus it took us to take the bus to Sea World. Fortunately we had Evie to entertain us both while we waited for the bus and on the bus. (The next day we went back to Sea World, this time in our car, and it took a whopping 3 minutes door to door... I kid you not)


Evie loved Sea World! The highlights were (of course) the Shamu show, a 4-D Polar Express movie and the sesame street play area made just for people like her, i.e., under four feet tall.

New Year's Eve was pretty low key. We took a little walk along the beach and then ended at a little bodega for butter (necessary for scrambled eggs and forgotten in Tucson) and the nice owner gave Evie a lollipop. (She periodically reminded us of this act of kindness for the rest of the trip) On New Years Day we went back to Sea World which was just as fun as the first day... except there were a quarter of the people there.



Saturday the fun continued with a trip to the San Diego Zoo and, the highlight of Evie's trip, the old Carousel near the Zoo. She actually remembered this carousel from last year... when we started talking about the trip she asked if we would go back there and ride on it again. It made for a lovely ending to a fabulous trip... I thought it closed at 5 pm and so as we made our way back to the zoo (after a much needed nap for all) at 5 pm I was sure it would be closed. But, as it turned out, it was still running when we pulled up so Patrick and Evie jumped out of the car while I parked and made a b-line for it. As it turned out it closed at 5:30 so we were in time for a ride! Later that night we were all in a silly, happy mood and Evie asked that I take some pictures of her "faces" from left to right they are: playful, happy and "mad"... too funny!

Belated Christmas

Merry (belated) Christmas! We had a whole heck of a lot of fun celebrating Christmas at my parent's new Tucson digs. Patrick was a bit under the weather so we let him unwrap a present on Christmas Eve... fabulous footie pjs. I bought them as a joke but now as I watch him cozy up in them every night I feel myself very envious and may just have to buy my own set.


Santa brought Evie a train set. (Which somehow she knew was recycled... she commented to me on Christmas morning that "This train set used to be uncle Brendy's but now Santa gave it to me.") She also received a super cool doll house from Mina and Papa. Then after all the presents were opened we journeyed up to Phoenix (but poor Patrick stayed home) for the large Rimsza Christmas dinner. This was our first year having to make the trek. It was really nice to see all of my family but it made for an exhausting Christmas! Evie's favorite part of the Phoenix trip was my cousin's trampoline, which we had to peel her off. She didn't take a nap at all and ended up getting so tired that she actually (first time I can remember) asked to be put to sleep around 4 pm. Unfortunately this meant she missed the second coming of the Christmas gifts, but was very excited when we got back to Tucson that night and she had more presents to open....