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Resembling Me, Once Again

Yesterday was Thursday, which means there was another concert in the park last night. We went. It was fun. Here's proof:

That ice cream Mike is holding wasn't his—it belonged to our friend who was taking the picture. And Eva, because the longing is in her blood, could not look away from the ice cream in order to smile for the camera. Poor girl, I know her pain.

Happy Friday, everyone. Enjoy the long weekend. Perhaps with an ice cream cone?

Watch What You Say

In the past month, Eva's vocabulary has absolutely exploded. She repeats (or tries to repeat) almost everything we say. You should hear her say Peanut Butter. You will melt.

Lately, she's begun to keep kind of a running commentary of whatever she happens to be looking at or doing throughout the day. It sounds something like this: "Up! Duck! Bank-ee! Nigh-Nigh. Mama-Dada. KITTEH!" And so on and so on.

I dare you to try to tell me that's not cute. Go on. Dare you.

There have been a few, um, unfortunate incidents also. Such as the evening in which she spent the entire dinner hour attempting to say "Fork."

For me though, the most entertaining day has been when she found her nose sucky thing (for when she has a stuffy nose) in the bathroom drawer. And I called it that too—the nose sucky thing—I told her that's what it was. Which is why she spent the next 4 hours carrying it around with her and saying "Suck, suck, suck, suck."

Oops.

To the Great Outdoors

Daddy, here—filling in for Eva’s mom. Yesterday morning, I was doing something kind of similar as it was “time for Shannon to take a little break” day, so she could get “a little breather from her daily routine of chasing after our kid and not going insane as she tries to hold the house together.” I rearranged work to stay at home in the morning, so Shannon could get out and interact with people who don’t screech if she leaves the room. You know—people who don’t poop in their pants and expect Shannon to clean it up.

So, I was wondering what to do with my beautiful little daughter that might not drive her bonkers with boredom. Luckily, Eva pitched in on the brainstorming and suggested we walk-a-walk-a-walk-walk!

What a great idea. We loaded up the stroller and Eva pointed the way. (She pointed into the middle of the street, so I tabled that suggestion and took off towards the cemetery down the street instead.) We had a great time rushing between patches of shade until we got to the tree-lined cemetery path. Afterwards, I gave Eva some leftover pasta, string cheese, and pickles for lunch. So, it was a pretty good morning. Shannon was home before we knew it and Daddy Morning was over. Good times.

Daddy's in Charge of Bathtime...

...which is why we have pictures like this:

 

MC Eva

Grandma and Grandpa B. have this god-awful totally rockin' toy at their house, featuring Elmo and his friends and many, many, MANY (loud) songs about things like colors and letters and noses.

Eva is in love with this toy. When she wakes up in the morning at Grandma's house, she greets it with far more enthusiasm than she shows for her own mother. Because, let's face it, I'm around all the time, and also I am conspicuously lacking a button she can push whenever she has a hankering for a song about a triangle.

But Elmo! Oh glorious Elmo! (Who, incidently, she seems to be enamored with so long as he's in any form other than, you know, on the actual show he's famous for. Weirdo.) Elmo has a triangle song button, yes he does. And this weekend Eva treated us to an endless stream of Elmo music as she layed down track after totally sweet track.

Wiki-wiki-wiki.

Kitty Taxi Service

At dinnertime, we move one of the kitchen chairs into the next room and pull Eva's highchair up to the table. Every night, Karl (the jerk) plops down on that chair and snoozes while we eat. A couple days ago, Eva realized that the kitchen chairs are much fun to push around.

Do you see where this is going?

For the past two nights, Eva's spent a good 10 minutes pushing Karl around the living room.

We're still not sure whether Karl actually enjoys this game or is just too much of a lump to bother to get off the chair. 

A Conversation with Eva

Ok. Here's what happened:

Eva and Mike and I were hanging out on the floor, and I was snapping some pictures. I wanted to put the camera down somewhere out of one-year-old range, but I wasn't ready to get up yet, so I slid it to the back of the couch cushion where it kind of fell down a bit behind the cushion.

Eva witnessed all this, and she was very, very concerned about the camera. And that kid would not let it go. She talked about it so much that I dug the camera out from behind the cushion to show her that it was ok.

Yeah. Didn't work. We talked about how I dropped the camera for a Very. Long. Time. In fact, STILL when she hears me say the word camera, she launches into a monologue about how I dropped it that one time, remember?

Just watch for yourselves (and be prepared for The Face. Which is what she does whenever someone or something leaves her field of view.) (Also keep in mind that the camera she's so concerned about is the one I was using to take this video. Which means it was directly in front of her face. NOT dropped. At all.):

Still Raining.

Ok, I'm all for rainy, gray, cozy weather, but this is getting ridiculous. Yesterday was Day 5 in a string of rainy days, and it appears we're in for at least 3 more. I'm running out of indoor activities.

Help! Anyone have any good "rainy day" game suggestions they want to share? Um...please? (I don't care if you don't have kids. Think back. What was your favorite thing to do when you were small and stuck inside?) I'm desperate here, people.

Eva Falls Over All the Time

It’s Daddy, here to say this: it sure is hard figuring out the line between “not being overprotective” and “not letting Eva break her nose on the coffee table and send blood shooting up onto the curtains.” Seriously, who drew that line, and did they make a map? I really, really, really don’t want to be an overprotective parent, but damn – she sure looks like she’s about to smack her face on the edge of that table when she decides to sit down after a long session of “slide all the coasters and magazines onto the floor.” I mostly hold myself back and pray that she misses. (She almost always misses it, although Shannon’s seen a few bloody lips.) But then I feel guilty, like I should be defending her more from the world’s evil family room furniture. At the same time, I’m so afraid that if I catch her every time it looks like she’s about to fall into a pit of certain doom, that she’ll never learn to not fall over sideways every morning when she gets out of bed.

I guess I’ll just have faith that, if billions of people can somehow learn to walk around their house without crashing into stuff, so can Eva.

Stuck Inside

Was it rainy where you are? Because this weekend at the Paulus house we were treated to a dark, rainy, cozy couple of days in the house. (Which means there was a lot of good pajama-wearing done.) Some highlights:

• Eva broke in the new Unicorn/Pegasus/Rainbow/Cloud/Moon/Star/Planet (aka "Freakin' Awesome") jammies that Grandma and Grandpa bought her last weekend while they were in town.

• We made soft pretzels (in nugget form: plain, cheese-filled, and jalepeno-cheese-filled. Oh, yeah.) And Eva, upon tasting them dipped into the honey mustard her Daddy whipped up, proved she is indeed our daughter by immediately saying "Beer!" She's a smart one, that Eva. (No, we did not give her a beer.)

• Eva said "peanut butter." Yes. She did. I heard it. She hasn't said it since that one time, but she did say it! I swear! And it was cu-ute.

• I got to eat Hagen Dazs. Yes. Extra Rich Light Caramel Cone. If you haven't tried this ever, stop reading and go directly to the store to buy some. You will not be sorry. (Plus, it's Light ice cream. Which, in ice-cream logic, pretty much equals Healthy.)

• Daddy cooked (no really—cooked!) Eva breakfast...TWICE! He made her a scrambled egg one day, and special peanut butter/mashed banana toast the next. Eva gave him rave reviews.

• By Sunday night, Eva had a pretty good handle on pronouncing "Dark" (dak) and "Rainy" (rah.) Ok. She's got some work to do, but WE can understand her, and we're the parents.