A Focused Sixteen-month-old

Evie has always shown a great deal of focus. We could almost see her figure out how to sit up, crawl, walk, etc. as she worked on it day after day. But lately that focus has become less convenient for me. Evie still isn't talking, but she's learning that she can communicate and she wants what she wants. The other day, she grabbed a red sippy cup, which Anna had already claimed. So I tried to give her an orange one that was exactly the same except for the color, but Evie just threw the orange cup. Only the red one would do. And if I dare to give her food that she doesn't want, it goes on the floor. She will usually look me in the eye as she drops it over the side of her high chair. Of course, I try to limit that by grabbing her tray as soon as I see that she's rejected her food.

For a few days last week, she was extremely moody. One morning she was trying to pull one of her blankets out of her crib, but it got wedged between the slats and she just couldn't get it out. She was screaming at it, but it took me awhile to get in there to help her and by the time I did, she was so upset, she cried for several minutes even after I got her blanket out for her. I tried to cuddle her on the couch, but she preferred to do laps around the love seat, crying as she went.

She also gets easily frustrated with her new hobby of climbing onto our kitchen chairs. She has finally figured out how to pull herself up onto a chair, but sometimes she's so excited about being up on a chair that she doesn't pay attention and she falls off, dropping like a bag of rocks. I don't like to see her fall off and I don't like to see her sitting on top of my kitchen table either, so I usually get her down and push all the chairs under the table. Of course then she gets frustrated when she manages to pull her body onto the chair, but can't lift her head without bumping into the table. Sometimes she will just lie on her tummy with her head on her hands and cry. It looks like a classic temper tantrum.

I was starting to worry that she'd hit her terrible twos several months early (she turned 16 months last week), but then on Sunday afternoon, her ear started to drain--an ear infection. This has been a pretty ferocious cold. She first started acting sick about ten days ago. Thursday night she woke up with a fever. I took her to the doctor on Friday morning, sure that she had an ear infection, but the doctor couldn't find any signs. Then once her ear started to drain, I gave her the antibiotic ear drops I have, and her ear infection seems to be gone. Then for the past three days, she's started coughing and she seems to choke on the phlegm in her throat, causing her to throw up. Still she seems to be showing some signs of progress.

Despite Evie's temper tantrums, she's still a pretty easy going kid. Lately she's been great about falling asleep at Church. If she wants a nap, she just takes one, no matter what else is going on around her. These days she also loves dancing to music. She will usually turn in circles with a big grin on her face when she hears music. Her favorite food right now is fruit. Last night while I was slicing strawberries, I handed her five or six and she would take it over to the kitchen table, stuff it in her mouth, and then come back for another one. She has also decided she loves grapes and she would gladly stuff them in her mouth, but I do try to slice them in half first.

She also seems to have some favorite books these days. She really likes Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown and insists that I read it every time we sit down to read books. She also likes to look at Anna's library books and for the most part she's pretty good about not ripping the pages, but we've had a few incidents.

This little girl also loves hair bows. I hang them on a ribbon on the back of our bathroom door and she's always pointing at them and grunting for me to get one down for her. Except usually she doesn't want just one--she wants two or three or four. And then after I put it in her hair, she'll pull it out to look at it again.

Today I decided to try and cut off some of her shaggy ends in the back. Like most babies, she rubbed a bald spot on the back of her head, but she has some strands on top that have now grown down over the shorter hair that grew in where her bald spot was. These longer strands hang down past the rest of her hair and tend to snarl up. So I wanted to trim them off, but when I got her out of the bathtub it was hard to tell which were the longer pieces--mostly because I couldn't her to hold still. I decided to live recklessly though. I grabbed my sewing scissors and hacked away at the back, while Evie crawled all over the bathroom floor. It's not the most even hair cut, but when it dried, it turned out okay. At least it doesn't look like it was Anna who cut her hair instead of me. Now she looks so much older to me.

 Evie's hair yesterday before the hair cut

Evie's hair this afternoon after the hair cut

Anna's Haircut

Today I took Anna to get her first real hair cut. I've cut her bangs a few times, but this was the first time we actually changed her hairstyle. 

 The before photo--it was hard to get her to hold still for it.

And several photos of her new haircut. I wasn't sure how she'd do, but they put in Toy Story (the original) for her and she held still. In fact, she was so excited to sit in the pink car that I don't think she really gave her actual hair cut much thought. We keep asking her if she likes it and she keeps looking at us like, "what's the big deal?"

After her haircut, she got a balloon, which then floated up to our ceiling. That's why she's looking up.

Back in October, Anna got an orange balloon at the Gardner Village Witch Festival. She had it tied around her wrist while she was out in the backyard with me, but it somehow slipped off and floated away. To try and ease her disappointment, we told her how great it was that she shared her balloon with the angels. We prevented a torrent of tears, but she was clearly still devastated because she talked about sharing her balloon with the angels for weeks afterwards and today when she got to pick a balloon, she picked orange. She didn't panic when it ended up on our ceiling, but she was focused on getting it down, which we did with a long stick and some tape. Then a little while later, she popped it. Oh well. Such is life with a balloon and a toddler.

 She was also eating Goldfish while I was trying to take her photo.

licking those fingers

This is a photo from Christmas Eve last year when her hair was about the same length it is now.

Anna loves to help these days, and I try to be a good sport about letting her help. Last weekend when she asked to help, Dan put her to work dusting off our DVD player and I guess they had a chat about dust bunnies. She's been talking a lot about dust bunnies lately and a few times last week told me she was scared of them. I think she's scared of them because of an Abby Cadabby cartoon on Sesame Street where the dust bunnies wreak havoc in the classroom.

She also got to see Toy Story 3 last week. I think she might be the last kid on the planet to have seen the movie, and we are doing our best to deprive her. She's become a big fan. Yesterday while we were waiting for Anna's friend Ryelle to come over and play, she asked me where Ryelle was. We often play this game. She'll see a dump truck or a bus as we're driving and ask me where they're going. I'll suggest the grocery store, or the school, or running away to join the circus. Anna usually has an opinion on which is the true answer. Ryelle wasn't supposed to arrive until six-thirty and it was about four when Anna asked where she was, so I said she was probably at home. Anna replied, "Or she's at Wal-mart buying Toy Story." I think those are Anna's two loves right now.

Love This Face

 Evie is on the move and I'm having a hard time keeping up with her. She is also cutting her top two teeth and puts everything she can find in her mouth. Hours after I vacuum, she finds crumbs in my carpet and enjoys a little snack (I'm sure Anna has something to do with the crumbs despite the rule that she eat at the table). Like Anna, Evie also loves pulling books off our shelves, but unlike Anna, Evie often puts those books in her mouth. I've found more than one book cover that Evie nibbled on and mangled, although now I'm getting better at taking those books away immediately since I now know what she's capable of.

Love those teeth!

 I also love Evie's morning hair. I do my best to keep it out of her eyes, during the day, but each morning, I can't resist a little bed head.

I thought Evie had given up the binky a few months ago when she had her first bout of teething. She didn't like sucking on anything, so we gave up the binky. I felt like it was an easy victory, since Anna still calls out at night when her binky falls out of her mouth. But recently Evie has rediscovered the binky and although I avoid giving it to her, Anna frequently leaves her binky lying around. So this is a photo of Evie sucking on Anna's binky. For Evie's own safety, I usually try to take Anna's binky's away from Evie as soon as I notice she's got one. Hell hath no fury like a two year old who sees her binky in her baby sister's mouth.

Christa's wedding photographer took this photo of Evie.

Fun Hair

Sunday night hair

Post-nap--post-swimming hair

Keeping the hair out of breakfast

More Hair

Now that Anna's hair is longer, and she's become more patient with me playing with it, I've had some fun trying out new hairdos on her. Most of the time, we just stick to pigtails, but on Sundays and when I feel like I have some extra time, I try something new. There's a gal in my ward who has a hair blog and it's been a great resource since my hair knowledge is pretty limited.

Mindy calls the hairstyle below "Twistbacks."

These are just two french braids around the crown of the head.

I still don't know what to do with Evie's hair, mostly because I love how it sticks up. I've had some success with putting a clip in, but I thought it might be fun to try a little ponytail. She doesn't seem to mind.