BlankieSweater

There is a new obsession in town… and its (or her) name is BlankieSweater. (Evie’s name, not mine) BlankieSweater’s genesis was innocent enough, a good, gotta love it sale at Summit Hut and a nice new (and I’ll be the first to admit) soft and cozy sweater. In fact BlankieSweater was my favorite “lovey” for a week or so before my daughter usurped her. Like many other follies that start out innocently, I was foolhardy enough to take off the sweater and give it to Evie to use as her thumb-sucking prop one particularly stormy (in the emotional not the meteorological) morning. It was all downhill from there.

First, Evie chose this sweater of mine as the occasional prop; one of many objects that sated her need for something to hold on to while she sucks her thumb. Then, as most things seem to, it escalated to the decidedly favorite lovey, complete with a chewed through hole around the neckline (her way of laying claim on it I guess… never going to be able to wear that one out in public again). Now, about a month after its first appearance on the scene, BlankieSweater it is positively the must have accessory for every outing, and I do mean every outing. Why, just this evening we got ourselves into a little bit of a quasi-meltdown situation because Evie was tired at the end of the day and we decided to walk to the grocery store without BlankieSweater… fortunately though she can (usually) be reasoned with and was ok with the promise that she could have BlankieSweater as soon as we returned home.

I have, however, become a bit concerned about the inevitable, only because Patrick and I can be a wee bit scattered sometimes, loss of the all-important BlankieSweater. I therefore took it upon myself this evening to do a little web reconnaissance to see if I could possible find a back up copy of Miss BlankieSweater. I must admit I entered this mission with a heavy heart… If I had bought the sweater on sale lo these many moons ago, what were the chances of finding it hanging around on the Internets? Well I am very pleased to report that I (hope) I have found BlankieSweater’s twin sister (and for a steal to boot!) and will just have to get to work chewing a new hole in it myself so she will be ready for her eventual debut ☺ And… should it not be a carbon copy, heck I just acquired a new lovey for myself!

At Blue with the crew

Last weekend we decided (even though it was a pretty long haul for just a weekend) to go up to the cabin with Alicia, Cristof and their crew. I had a flex day so Alicia, the kids and I drove up Friday morningish (and let me just tell you I am now a big fan of their super comfy, satellite radio playing car) and the guys drove up after work on Friday.

The highlights of the weekend included:
-The airplane zip line, which the kids must have rode (taking turns nicely most of the time) at least 100 times.
-The hot tub, complete with a bunch of pool toys that Alicia brought
-The bathtub, complete with four too cute little naked bodies
-The hammock, which Evie loved playing in with Issac and Eva until Issac decided "dumping" was more fun than swinging.
-Fishing on the Blue, which I didn't even know was possible anymore, and actually catching fish! Issac caught his first ever, honest-to-goodness fish and so we grilled it up and everyone took a bite.


It was really neat for me to see Evie up at the cabin and playing with friends there. I have very fond memories of doing the same with my friends when I was growing up. Of course I imagine she won't remember this trip but then again you never know... she seems to have an uncanny ability to remember (and remind) us of things we told her we would do weeks (and weeks!) later.

Fruits of labor

This week Evie enjoyed the first fruit of our labor of garden love. It has been a bit of time in the coming (since November really) but man was it worth the wait! I must admit that the success of our garden really has very little to do with either Evie or myself. Our success can be attributed to two very important things:
1) Patrick and Monique who put it together for us in November (here is the garden genesis) and
2) An automatic watering system (the reason why our first fruits come a bit belated is because the watering system is a relatively recent development... in other words the whole thing didn't work out too well until I found away around my chronic oh-my-gawd-it-has-been-a-week-since-I-watered-the-garden problem)


My favorite part about the garden right now are the squash that have decided not only to take over my garden but also so go traveling around my side yard in general. They have these great primordial looking leaves and, much like Evie, require constant vigilance or they will get themselves into trouble by attaching onto my other plants and trying to drag them down. They are totally the bulls in my garden china shop. Evie's favorite part of the garden is definitely the tomatoes. For the past week she has been watching them like a hawk waiting for the moment one turned red so she could snarf it down. She was so excited about getting this first ripe one that she wouldn't even share with me!

Belated Memorial Day pics

It has been a busy few weeks, first memorial day weekend at the cabin and then my big three day trip to Chicago and Madison last weekend (farthest away I've ever been from Evie girl).

Memorial Day was great! (not to mention rainy... which in Arizona is great!) The theme of the weekend was definitely water. On Sunday Evie spent at least 4 of her 10 waking hours in water, the day went something like this: started the day in the hot tub, followed by a bath to rinse her off, nap, another trip to the hot tub (and subsequent bath to rinse her off) and then a play, splash in the Blue River and finally a good semi-wallow in a nice muddy puddle (and then a bath to rinse her off).


Then last weekend I left Patrick and Evie in Tucson and traveled to Chicago and then Madison to spend time with my friends from college for my college friend Lara's bridal shower. (The trip included an obligatory stop at Culver's, a Chicago pizza joint near Rachel's house and (of course) a nice pint or two of Spotted Cow) It was hard to be so far away for the weekend, but the trip was a blast. Patrick had his own little adventure with Evie last weekend but I'll write more about that later!

Sunshine

Evie's new favorite song...



She usually ends with "oh please don't take Evie's sunshine away" but I couldn't get her to do that part on camera... In fact this video demonstrates perfectly the amount of time she is prepared to follow a request... fleeting at best :)

It is May and man is it Hot

Summer is here and the pool is out!

In other news, Evie was looking pretty raggedy and refused to keep a ponytail in her hair so she received her first honest-to-goodness haircut. All things considered, I think it turned out quite well. A nice little bob that barely needs to be brushed suits her much better than an attempt at long hair :)

We also had a bit of tragedy in our house last week... a coyote got two of our chickens, one of which was Evie's black fuzzy footed gal (and my personal favorite) All week the other hens haven't been laying very well.. I think it is PTSD, but the consensus among the other coop carers is that chickens are too dumb to be traumatized and it is more likely that it is just because it is so darn hot out. The villain was seen again on Monday and Tuesday but fortunately no other hens were taken...

Mother's Day Camping

Pretty much ever since we got back from our last camping trip with the Ericksons in February we had been planning to go camping again... Well it took a couple of months but was no less fabulous than the previous trip!

On Friday we all left work early and headed out toward Willcox. We decided to buy groceries there and decide where exactly we would camp (we are just crazy like that) In the end, a nice bumpy dirt road about 5 miles from a state prison sounded like just the spot, so we packed up the kids, brats and s'mores and headed up the road.

About 1/2 hour out of Willcox there it was, the Fort Grant prison, actually pretty nice as prisons go, given that it backed right up to the Pinaleno Mountains. We weaved our way through the prison guard housing and found a nice little dirt road to explore that looked, more or less, like it would take us to the mountains. Sure enough, just like topo map (kinda) said the road headed up into the hills and crossed a glorious little stream, Grant Creek. About 5 miles in the road got pretty rough but fortunately both cars were able to boulder climb enough to get us up into the oaks and junipers enough to find just about the most wonderful campsite I have ever stayed at. It was right near the creek and even had enough space for Garantor, aka, the Lacroix tent.


The next 30 some odd hours were spent playing in the freezing cold creek, getting dirty and the occasional quasi-walk up the road to explore. It was pretty hot during the day but the creek was super cold, which did not seem to deter Evie from spending time in it totally naked or Patrick, Issac and Eva from building a nice little pool to keep all of our beverages just right. The beverage pool also served as a handy place for Evie and Daddy to play. On Saturday night campfire brats and corn were made (and another failed attempt at cheesy potatoes) as well as the all important s'mores, which were pretty close to the highlight of the weekend for Evie.


We left Sunday morning for Tucson, where somehow miraculously (or not so depending on your opinion of heat) the brief spring had transformed itself into sweltering summer and it was 100 degrees...

Excelling

(To those of you who are not utter nerds, I have ask your forgiveness from the get go on this one.)

It is not very often that I see similarities between my two occupations (mom and water geek) but I tell you what, over the past month I have noticed a striking resemblance in one area: Evie reminds me of an excel spreadsheet.

1) Now maybe I am slow, but when I first started working in excel I’ll be dammed if I couldn’t figure out how to sort by column while keeping all of the rows together. (Don’t worry, after about a year of putting something in access and then re-exporting it to excel I took the time to figure this one out) Evie has presented a similar dilemma. Try as I might, I cannot get her to put away items (sort them) in the way I would like. I have been quite successful with getting her to put away her toys, but almost never will she put them in the receptacle that I ask her to. Thus, my whole idea of one chest for dolls, one for music instruments and one for blocks (which I thought was wonderful) has turned into three chests (and two kitchen cabinets) for whatever sort of toy Evie decides should go there on any given day (this, of course, includes the occasional stray pb&j sandwich).

2) When you are trying to write a formula in excel, if you don’t get it exactly right you receive a totally unhelpful error message, and a rather annoying tip-tap-tap from our friend the paperclip. You can search through the help file till your heart’s content but you won’t find exactly the answer for your situation. I swear, Evie is the same way! If the formula, i.e., situation, is just a little off she may just freak out on you, and you have little, if no, idea of what you did wrong. Going to the “help file” i.e., toddler self-help books (for you, not the toddler) rarely tell you how to deal with a tot who inexplicably is face down on the ground crying because she (by god) wanted the blue cup, not the green cup… when she doesn’t even know blue from green! How on earth do you come up with the right formula as to avoid that melt down next time? (well actually, although through no real help from a book, I have found at least a partial solution to this one… never let the belly go a-wanting for food)

3) Finally, and most similarly, is the error message you get in excel for “circular references.” Although sometimes this happens inexplicably, it is usually because you try to include the “question” as part of the answer when writing a formula. (Like defining a word with the word itself). Evie is a textbook example of the circular reference right now…. She intentionally spills her milk after we asked her not to. I ask “Evie why did you spill your milk?” She replies, “Because I spill my milk.” Or, “Evie, why are you afraid to sit in the bathtub with the water running?” Evie: “Because I am afraid to sit in the bathtub with the water running.” This little back and forth occurs ad nauseam in our house everyday. I guess rationale for actions is a developmental milestone we have yet to reach… go figure!

The Evie Show, Take I

It appears that our daughter has a penchant for dramatics. (Yes in that sense too but here I am talking about the type that occurs on stage) She is very fond of performing and will happily take any opportunity, with any audience, to do a little show.

Breakfast time now consists of the “Evie Show,” which always starts with Evie standing on her blue carpet and proclaiming “It’s the Evie Show!” and then doing a jig of some sort, ending, of course with an arm-flapping flourish. She then requests us to participate by announcing “It’s the Mommy Show” or “It’s the Daddy Show” and gets rather peeved if we don’t hop up and do a little dance of some sort. (Clearly she has more energy in the morning than either Patrick or myself.)

The performances are not limited to breakfast. She had been known to announce a show in her bedroom, run over to her piano start a song playing and then dance around, running over to the piano to restart the song every time it stops. The best performance to date, however, was last week during dinner. (Nothing quite like dinner and a show!)

In an attempt to enjoy the last of the nice weather before the heat we were eating dinner outside. Evie was naked, also frequent evening activity, and we were eating our minestrone soup. It all started out well enough with everyone peacefully eating the soup. But peaceful is just too darn boring for Evie so she decided to start smearing her soup all over her body, all the while proclaiming, “Look guys I am wearing my soup!” This, of course, made us laugh and she saw the opening for a grand performance, smeared more soup on herself and then ran into the grass and proceeded to do a little dance. It was quite a sight, naked, soup-covered toddler singing, jumping, spinning and running around the backyard. The finale was her running to the edge of the grass putting her hands on her lower back and yelling, “shake your booty” while wiggling her butt. Of course by this point we were in stitches which, I am afraid means that we are going to have to keep a close eye on her and soup so that this doesn’t become a repeat performance….

While the soup incident was not caught on film we did (sort of) catch her doing a show about a week or two ago. We have found now that when we take out the camera she is more interested in watching herself on it than creating new material :)

Pima County Fair

Last Saturday Evie, Edie, Bridget and I went to the Pima County Fair. We saw cows and goats, a sheep here and there and even chickens. (I now know what prize chickens look like and let me tell you, although I adore our "girls", they are not fair material... these were some mighty fancy chickens). Evie got to pet my co-worker's steer who was outside getting a bath a brush before his showtime, watch a little sheep exhibition while eating a snack and go to the petting zoo (complete with a wallaby!), but the highlight was definitely the pony ride. It was a bit pricey for just a circle walk with a horse-like creature but once Evie saw it, and asked so nicely to ride them, I decided hey you only live once; mine as well live if even a small portion of that life on the back of a fine steed. The ride did not disappoint, and I am afraid that now we will be saddled with many more horse ridding requests....

Birthday and Easter Pics

Here are a few more pictures from Evie's birthday party... it was such a blast and thanks to everyone who came to spend the afternoon with us! (Yes I made that cake all by myself... I know you were thinking we catered the affair :P)



We were so worn out from all the fun that last weekend we barely made it off the couch (Evie included). The only thing we managed was to go to the annual egg hunt at a colleagues house.... great lesson in don't touch the cacti for young Arizonans.

Kisses

Given the terrible sleep Evie gifted me for the first year of her life; my most recent sleeping “complaint” is really no problem at all but it bears recognition nonetheless.

Evie, of late, has required a plethora of pecks, a surfeit of smooches, a king’s ransom of kisses every night before she will give up the daily ghost. It started out innocently enough. One night, before I left the room, she requested that I not just give her a kiss on the forehead but also provide a comparable kiss to her blanket. I, seeing no harm in it, complied and laid a nice big wet kiss on her blanket and then bid her good night. The next night, however, an escalation occurred; and she requested not just a kiss for herself and her blanket but also one for each knee. I, still naïve to the arms race of kisses that was to befall me, gave in and provided not one, not two but four kisses that night. No big deal, not too much of an indulgence I thought. On the third night I provided each of the aforementioned kisses plus one for each foot and hand. I started to suspect I had made myself a brand new delay-the-bedtime-for-as-long-as-possible bed and by god was Evie going to make me sleep in it.

On the fourth night it became clear that I had started down a road that I did not want to be on when she asked not only for a kiss for her, for her blanket, for her knees, hands, and feet but also her bed, doll, mattress, belly, ear and nose. What was I to do? I had become so accustomed to her just lying down in bed with out a peep that I couldn’t face leaving the room with her crying… especially not calling after me for more kisses! I hate to admit it but that night I complied. The next night, not wanting to face a smooch showdown I had Patrick put her to bed. (He, of course, was only required to do the usual amount of kisses, Evie knows a sucker when she sees one) The night after I put her to bed but put my foot down after 10 kisses… and then left her to complain.

Now, I am afraid that this little tale has yet to achieve happy ending status. For the past two weeks I have been stuck providing a rather silly amount of kisses to my daughter each and every night and then inevitably leaving her wanting for more. But I will tell you this; in the grand scheme of sleep issues I’ll take a minute of crying after me for more kisses over waking me up every two hours any day!

Evie at 2 years

Height: 35 inches
Weight: 26.5 pounds
Naps: Once daily, 2-3 hours
Bedtime: Between 7:30 and 8:00 pm
Best Friend: Riley
Favorite Phrase (du jour): "I have an idea"
Favorite Foods: Rasins, cheese, cucumber, oatmeal (with lots of blueberries) and pizza
Favorite Drink: "Chocolate milk" (really it is just plain soy milk but don't tell her that)
Favorite Books: Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed and Babar
Favorite Activities: Playing in the backyard with water and playing with her kitchen toys
Favorite Shoes: Blue Crocs
Favorite Animal: Kitty

Happy Birthday Genevieve!

Friends and Adventures

Evie has had some great adventures over the past few weeks... we have just been too busy to share them! After my birthday (at the beginning of March) we went up to visit Mina and Papa for the annual British Car show. While visiting Papa and his cars Evie, Patrick, Mina and I went to the Arizona Science Center. I think Evie's favorite part was the test your balance bridge... her least favorite was the huge nose that sneezes balls out at you...

In the middle of the month she went to the Tucson International School's international day festival where she got to meet some of the kids she will get to go to school with, play some games and see both Chinese dragon dancers and a bagpipe troupe!


Then last Friday we took a trip to the Tucson botanical gardens to see the butterflies. (I won't subject you to my scads of butterfly photos here... but there were some really cool ones!) Saturday morning we all got up early for Patrick to race in a 5k obstacle course race with a crew of folks from his firm. Evie just had to do the warm ups with her daddy (and would have done the mud pit too if we had let her!) On Saturday night Evie went with us to a dinner party with some other attorneys from Patrick's firm. She was the only kid there and did a great job of just going with the flow (the seven cats that lived in the house certainly helped her mood... Evie is just a little kitty obsessed these days)


But the best part about the past month has been time with friends! Evie got to spend time with Isaac and Eva both at international day and at the racquetball club last Friday night. Evie and Eva were so cute running around and hiding in the trees... Genevieve followed her around like a little lost puppy... too cute. She also got to spend a whole day with Edie last Sunday while Bridget and Hampton went rock climbing. And last, but certainly, not least, is all the time she spends with her BFF Riley during the day (and during the weekend at the beginning of the month while we watched Riley so Nicole could work at a rummage sale unencumbered). As Evie would say "Hip Hop Hooray" for friends!

Cousin ABCs for Dylan's Birthday

Happy Birthday (tomorrow) Dylan! Included here is a preview of your 2nd birthday gift... arriving soon for you in real honest to goodness book form. (The book was slowing down the page so a link to it is below...)
ABCs Small

Grass

Yup I gave in... Over the past month our backyard has been totally transformed from a pretty cool place to be to a super awesome place to really just spend all of our free time. As some of you know I have long seen grass (especially the large amount we had) as backyard enemy number one. Given this, it is no surprise that I lobbied pretty hard for the no grass, just xeriscape, option when it came time to redo the backyard. Well, suffice to say I did not win the debate against my attorney husband (no surprise there) and we ended up with less grass than he wanted and more than I wanted... ahh no one wins... a perfect mediation (right Patrick?)

Well I am here to tell you that (gasp) now that it is in I really do like the grass. Not for myself though but for the obvious joy it gives the other people in my world. Once it was in Evie jetted out into the backyard, flung off her shoes and proceeded to run around and around in circles proclaiming "I love my grass". Kita's reaction was quite similar, except she didn't have any shoes to throw off, and she put in the extra touch of a snout/body rub along the length of the grass. Patrick has also taken to spending copious amounts of time lying on it and waxing poetic about its wonderfulness.


To celebrate our new backyard we spent the lion's share of this past weekend in it. Starting on Friday night with a make your own pizza (or rather have chef Bridget over to help make your own pizza) and sit in the backyard and ending on Sunday night with nachos al fresco on the patio. In between there was plenty of relaxing, admiring and (of course) shoeless frolicking... ah grass.

Observation

In Evie’s first year the changes and milestones were very pronounced. One day she was a baby blob and the next she was rolling over, then a few months later crawling and then amazingly a few months after that walking. Her development over her second year of life has been subtler but no less amazing. The “milestone” that has amazed me the most over this past year is her gradually, but miraculously, going from baby to little kid.

In the process of going for baby to little kid Evie is also teaching me a few things. My favorite lesson of late is observation. Evie is phenomenally (of course I have a biased opinion) observant. Time and time again I will be out and about with her and she will say something like, “Look mommy a bunny.” Initially I would glance over and not see anything and, therefore, just assume that she was pretending. After doing this a couple of times I decided to slow down and really look at where she was looking/pointing and by god if there wasn’t almost always something there. I, in my foolish adultness, was just moving too darn fast to see it.

My favorite story of her acuity is just last week when she stopped me from making dinner to show me a bug on the floor. I, having learned my lesson, stopped and squatted down with her to see it. I looked and looked and didn’t see anything until, about a minute later, the little baby cricket hopped. Now I am not much of a fan of crickets in my house, but seeing how Evie had just found it and was excited about it, I figured I would do my best emulation of Albert Schweitzer and help Evie move him outside. I am sorry to say that I am a clumsy activist and managed to kill the poor cricket in my relocation attempt. Evie, however, did not notice this (observant yes, perceptive perhaps not) so we went through the motions of putting the cricket outside in his new home; saving that all things die lesson for another day.

Desert Camping

Last weekend we decided it was time to get out of town... because we had been at home for all of one weekend and heaven knows we hate to relax and do nothing :) Christof and Alicia invited us to go camping with their family and man are we glad we agreed!

Christof planned the whole thing, including buying all the yummy camp food, so it really was a great stress-free weekend for us. We left Tucson at about 4 pm on Friday and drove to mile 45.6 on Interstate 8 where we were supposed to find a dirt road and a fence.... well, after driving along the shoulder of the interstate and not finding anything we got back on the freeway and looked for a place to turn around. As we did that there was the fence and dirt road (go figure) So flipping a couple of not so kosher u-ies on the freeway we made it to more like mile 47.6, and our gate into the South Maricopa Wilderness Area. We drove about 2 miles in and found a lovely spot to set up our kingdom just as it was getting dark. It was perfect.


The first night was freezing cold, so not much sleep was had by Patrick and I. Evie, of course, sleeping on top of the two of us and with most of the covers, slept great. A nice round of mimosas in the morning and a little hike up to some nearby mountains cured us of any sleep depravity though. That afternoon we hung around camp while the kids explored, which was great fun for all of us. Evie particularly enjoyed the wash next to our camp, and sat there alone for a good hour just digging in the sand and talking to herself (or maybe Gaga).


Thankfully the second night was about 10 degrees warmer, so we all got a really good (for camping and sharing a bed with a 22 month old) night sleep. After a quickie breakfast we packed up camp and headed home. It was only 36 hours or so but I tell you what it felt like a week. Three cheers for desert camping!

Mmm dirt

Over a year ago I wrote a blog about the evolutionary oddity that is a peewee’s penchant to put everything (including dirt and cat poo) in his/her mouth. I was thoroughly convinced that this was some sort of evolutionary malfunction and that it is only by the grace of some sort of deity that we humans are still around.

Well it turns out that a baby’s fondness for putting anything (and everything) in his or her mouth is indeed an evolutionary function, not, as I had thought, a malfunction. There is a great article in the NY Times about it. The gist is that research has found that the goodness of dirt itself as well as all the heretofore thought nasties like bacteria, viruses and worms(!) stimulate the development of a healthy immune system. Therefore, back in the prehistoric day, it was the kids who weren’t eating dirt who didn’t make it and thus the genetic propensity for it. (The article doesn’t say this of course but heck it isn’t too much of a stretch now is it?)

So celebrate all ye dirt loving babes… that worm you just ate (eeewwwe) is actually good for you!