Happy

Today as I was changing Evvie, I asked her if she was happy or sad.

"Happy", she replied. "Happy." Good, I thought.

"Happy, happy, happy, happy." she averred.

I was pleased and finished the task of getting her bum cleaned, all the while listening the her chirping good humor. "Happy, happy, happy, happy," she repeated.

Back on her feet, she headed out of the room. As she trundled away the magical words faded into the distance,
"Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy..."



It was a good day.

---

Sometimes I think I spend too much time taking pictures of the girl. I try to be mindful of being directly involved in her life and interactions, rather than being concerned with getting every moment documented and shared with others. There are just so many contradictions. I feel selfish wheneasch of her small wondrous moments during the course of an ordinary day can only be witnessed by me. Should I write them down for her baby book? Should I put them on the blog? Should I just not think about them and let our lives flow unencumbered by self-reflexivity? Yes to all, no to all.

I think about taking photos this way: I want to have a lot of photos with Evvie and as a family. Things happen, and as morbid as it may seem, I may not be here tomorrow. I remember nothing from my time as a baby, but I want her to remember me. I want Evvie to be able to see how much her parents love her, and how hard we try to make the best choices for her. I want to give her this blog as a book on her 18th birthday so she can see all the struggles, fun, actions and musings of her well-intentioned yet foolish dad & mom.


You are my favorite person!

Back to the grind

I realize the focus is a bit soft, but I just loved the expression in this one. I think she looks a lot like her cousin Sammy in this one. (chek out his blog here).

Well, Hallie's vacation is over, and we're grinding out another week in the ol'routine. Evvie's been gradually increasng her diet- she enthusiastically wolfed a veggie burger with cheese for me, and remains a sucker for turkey burger. We've just found out that she's been getting "straight" juice at her daycare...no wonder she's been so excited about drinking out of our glasses recently. One of her most oft-used words is "drink". Now that she's back to half-strength or less, I wonder if she'll remain as enthusiastic...

Weekend at the Grandparents

We all had a great time with Grammy and Grandpa Prince this past weekend. Evvie got a chance to use Grampa's ducky bathmat and Grammy bought her a new shory robe for drying off that is unbelievably cute.

Hal & I got some shopping time in while Evvie entertained the old folks of Turner. (Although she did get a bit confused when Pokey stopped by and the "twin grammy" puzzle went into effect.)

The highlight of the weekend was giving her dolly a bath (athough Evvie ended up about as soaked as her baby!)

Pumping (the) Iron

Well, the results of her blood test are all good- no lead bogging down that budding brain, but she is the slightest bit anemic. We've got a prescription for iron drops (I hope they're not too heavy) to boost her iron levels up. Of course, we get this information and Evvie starts pounding the iron-skillet-cooked ground turkey. Too bad Grammy Kitty isn't around to cook up some dandelion greens. As we've all been told and told, they've got a lot of iron in 'em.

Mama is on vacation this week, so Evvie's been getting some solid 1-on-1 time. Here they try on a new outfit that Grandmama sent up for the warmer months. There was no occasion. No birthday. It wasn't Christmas. Grandma's are funny that way.

Toy Box

At Long last, we finally purchased the toy box that promises to keep our living room clutter-free (yeah, right.) Here Evvie demonstrates where the toys go.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Evelyn picked out this card especially for mom last week. We drew pictures on the inside with her new washable markers and decorated the envelope in bright happy scribbles. (We tried crayons, but she kept biting the tips off.) The funny wiggly jiggly googly eyes were so appealing that I was barely able to get the card into the envelope intact.

Needless to say that upon opening, Evvie remembered the owl's famous gaze and his poor peepers weren't long for this world. Mama was kind enough to allow her to experiment a bit with her ocular fascination, and low and behold, she has perfected her eye transplant skills and given daddy a gift of his own for V-day.

Movin' Out

Another good weekend in Turner- Evvie got to spend some quality time with her grammy and grandpa while Hal, Ruby & I got out on the snow for some good X-Country skiing. Evvie's shown that walking around really improves her mood and she's living in the moment like we all should.

(The red tongue in the next post, by the way, is caused by the cold icicles that she was obsessing over after daddy pulled one down to sample)

BLOOD!

Evelyn had a 15month checkup today. No shots this time around (yayyyy!) but don't get too excited. You see, they had to draw blood for labs.

Evelyn did wonderfully, though. She didn;t flinch, whimper or cry. (If only the same could be said for dad.) She watched the red tube siphon off her blood with a bit of wonder and fascination. She definitely gets that from her mother.

Dr. Tracy was impressed with Evvie today. She was walking abour and babbling a comfortable conversation with the doctor. She also enjoyed putting her finger over the little light on the ear-peeker.

New Stats:

Weight: 19 lbs. 2 oz
3%

Length: 30"
34%

Head: 18.24"
61%

I mentioned my concern at the 3%, and how it doesn't necessarily jibe with her pudgy belly, double chin and cheeks. Dr. Tracy agreed and basically said not to worry about the numbers- Evvie is very healthy. She was also impressed by Evvie's taste for curry and garlic.

Refining the Palate

Lately, Evvie's been prone to not eating as well as she had been. She's suddenly unwilling to try new things, which is moderately frustrating. A new trick we've learned, though, is to have her watch us take something off the stove and eat it. She's always interested in food that way. I took last nights refused chicken bits and cooked them up is a pan with a it of milk and curry. Now, the food was warm, yellow (her favorite color for food ie:mac & cheese, scrambled eggs, banana bits, etc.) and fresh off the stove. She really strained to get to it after I tried a piece, so lunch today was curried chicken- and a lot of it.

In other news, she's walking all over the place now. No more tentative 4 and 5 step meanders- she's got to travel living room to back bedroom on just two feet now. She's been taking several steps for months now, but finally made the big leap to it being her primamary way of getting around. We've been waiting for her to really make the move to being a walker...she has just been too efficient a crawler to care! Now she's discovered that she can walk with items in both hands unimpeded, though (try that on all fours!)