Independent Girl

My sweet, compliant little Evie has started to develop a will of her own and she can be very particular about what she wants. She wants to do as much as she can by herself. I can no longer put her in her car seat (well, actually, she's small enough that I can, but if I don't want to physically restrain her while I buckle her in, it's easier if I just let her climb in on her own). Today we went to the zoo and she wanted to push the umbrella stroller on her own. She kept telling me, "You can't help, Mom."

When it comes to her clothing, she has decided that there are certain outfits she won't wear and the same goes for her pjs. I can't talk her into anything. If she doesn't want to wear it then she won't and if I try to put it on her anyway, she has figured out how to get it off all by herself. The other day I changed her diaper and planned to dress her in a bit, so I left her pajama pants off. That was not ok with her. I heard lots of screams in frustration but eventually she got her pj pants back on. She also hates it when her shirt gets pulled up and her tummy is bare. Every time I pick her up, she starts whining and pulling on her shirt. In the winter, when we were all wearing long sleeves, she would get extremely upset if her sleeves were pushed up. Often after washing hands she would start screaming, "I want my sleeves up" (she meant down). The first time I put her in short sleeve pjs, it threw her for a loop. She kept tugging on her sleeves and crying that she wanted them up. And when her shoes come off, so must her socks. Back in January when it was chilly in our house, my mom put socks on Evie and she kept them on for about twenty minutes and then she wanted them off.

She also has strong feelings about the dishes she eats off of. When it comes to plates, she will now only eat off the blue plastic plate or she insists on the blue plates that Dan and I use. With the little plastic bowls, it has to be the light purple one or a regular-sized bowl. I'm not sure she cares as much about cups, but she often insists on using our Snoopy cutlery. I have two sets of a Snoopy spoon and a fork and those are the ones she wants almost every time.

Whenever it's her turn to pray, she almost always insists on thanking Heavenly Father for "Halloween, candy, pumpkins, candy." I am so sorry I mentioned that way back in October because she has totally latched on. Her other favorite phrase these days is "we come back." When Dan heads to work she often says, "You coming back, Daddy?" And if we are leaving some place fun and going home, she'll say, "We come back." Sometimes it comes out as more of a question that she asks as we head to our car.

As much as I wish she'd just wear the clothes I pick out or eat of the plate that's actually clean, I know that as she gets older, her independence will serve her well. So I'm trying to be more tolerant and cooperative, but I admit that there are some days when I did force her in to her car seat.

Four Years Old

Anna turned four at the beginning of this month. She is still my independent kid who wants to do everything her way. For example, yesterday she pulled out my quilt that I've been working on for five or ten years. I told her I wanted her to put it away because I didn't want it to get dirty. When she dilly-dallied, I went to pick it up and that brought on a scream of outrage and the declaration that she would give it to me if I would let go first. Then she added that she wanted to hop around it first. Whenever I tell her to give me something that she shouldn't have, she always responds that I have to let go first and then she'll give it to me. We have very similar personalities--we both want to be in control--so we butt heads often, but it is getting better as I'm figuring out how to talk to her so that she'll listen to me.

Her streak of independence and her natural curiosity probably are part of the reason why she loves to play with worms. In fact she loves playing in the dirt in our backyard and just being outside in general. With all this warm weather we've had this spring, she's been playing in my raised garden beds. She loves pulling out worms and the other day while I was digging out weeds, I pointed one out to her. She picked it up and started talking to it like it was a little baby, in a high pitched voice: "Hey there. Do you want to go back into your home?"

Last Thursday we went to PetSmart for a preschool field trip. I was impressed at Anna's willingness to touch the lizards and she even let them put a rat on her shoulder. He liked to nestle back behind her neck under her ponytail.

She has started to ask to say prayers on her own. Often they are full of lots of "thank thee"s. Tonight she said, "Thank thee that daddy can go visit people and serve. Thank thee that I can clean my room. Thank thee for Heather and Maren. Please help them. Please help Ryan on his mission." There was much more to her prayer, and I wish I could have turned on a tape recorder and caught it all because it's only an hour later and I can't remember most of it.

Recently she figured out how to pump on the swings, which is awesome for me because now I only have one child begging me to push her on the swings. Anna still likes a good push, but she can get herself going if I can't get outside at that moment. She's been taking gymnastics all year and she's finally starting to get the idea behind a cartwheel. Now she wants to do them all over the place. She really likes gymnastics, but since she was still talking about her dance class from last year, I decided to sign her up for dance again.

Anna is a great kid who wants to do what's right. Recently, I started planting in my garden and adding fertilizer. I told her I didn't want her playing in there anymore and she's been great about it. Her favorite primary song is still Follow the Prophet and her favorite food is probably cinnamon toast. She also loves to say, "You're really freaking me out, Mom." She's a great kid and we love her.

Christa's Graduation

Yay! My sister Christa graduated in August from college, earning a BA in English. She immediately began the masters program at BYU the very next month and I've been doing my best to relive my own graduate school experience through her. She's been a good sport about it, although I can't convince her that it really would be worth it to go around dropping my name to her professors. She says she tried it once and the professor obviously only pretended to remember me.

My plan was to show up for the last half of graduation so that I wouldn't spend quite so much time trying to keep my kids quiet but we could still be there to take photos with Christa. The ceremony ended up being much shorter than we expected and then I got stuck in traffic, so we were too late to see any of it and my family had to wait for me to catch up to them. It seemed like such a good idea. Oh well.

Christa decided to ring the Victory Bell at the Marriott Center. Anna who has always been sensitive to noise wasn't a fan.

Two hot, tired kids!

Celebrating with waffles south of campus.

Nutella and strawberries = yum!

Preschool

Last Tuesday (Sept. 13) was Anna's first day of preschool. We are in a group with five other moms and kids and we all take turns teaching the kids. I don't get my first turn to teach until October. Anna gets to go to preschool on Tuesday and Thursday mornings for about two hours and she's really enjoying it. Of course we had to take a picture on the first day, but we forgot to include the obligatory backpack in our photo. 

Anna's first worksheet

While Anna is at school, Evie and I get some one-on-one time together. I try to get Evie to play with me, but she often just goes off and plays by herself. I think she's just thrilled to be able to play without being tackled or having toys ripped out of her hands. I tried to do a little activity with Evie last Thursday to help her with her fine motor skills. I drew dots on a piece of paper and then I gave her cheerios to put on the dots, but she just wanted to eat the cheerios. I can't say I blame her. Then I let her scribble with the markers, which she also loved since she only gets to draw with markers when I can keep an eye on her in order to protect the furniture and to prevent too much body art.

Cell Phone Photos

The other day I uploaded all the photos I've taken on my phone. It's so nice to be able to so easily transfer these photos to my computer.

February

In February, Evie had tubes placed in her ears due to the almost constant ear infections she's had. We had to get to the hospital around seven in the morning. Evie LOVED the fish tank, but we didn't wait long before they took us back and had us dress her in a hospital gown.

Even though it's a little sad to see your baby dressed in a hospital gown, it was also kind of cute. They took her away from us for the surgery and sent us to another room to wait. It felt like we waited ten minutes before we could hear her screaming as they brought her back to us. They kept telling us that she was just disoriented from the anesthesia and that as soon as we walked out of the front doors, she would calm down because she would know that we were leaving the hospital. Not so. She screamed most of the way home until she fell asleep in her car seat. I kept thinking that maybe she was also screaming because they just punched holes in her ear drums, but what do I know?

Since her surgery she's managed to beat the odds and have two more ear infections, but that's a significant improvement over last winter. And now that she has the tubes, as soon as her ears start to drain, I can tell that she's got an ear infection and start giving her drops. She's sleeping through the night so much better now and we all feel better rested. So, despite her two ear infections, I think the surgery was a good idea.

Eating ice cream at Baskin Robbins thanks to a Valentine's Day gift from Grandpa and Sandy.

Anna chose Bubble gum flavor.

Yay for frozen yogurt. It was my addiction from February to May, so the kids benefitted.

March

Evie is playing peek-a-boo with her napkin at the Olive Garden.

April

wearing Mom's lip gloss (applied by Anna)

May

Our friend, Walene, treated us to some frozen treats at Starbucks and Evie totally took over my chocolate drink.

Anna abandoned naps soon after her third birthday, but every now and then she'll get tired enough that she'll bury her head in some pillows and fall asleep. Just yesterday she climbed up on our couch and I found her with her face totally pressed against the pillows, in the fetal position.

June

Evie loves the swings. Once I put her in, I can't get her out, except to switch to another swing.

Anna in June

Like most three-year-olds, Anna has entered the "all by myself" phase, although what she usually tells me is, "I want to do it." This usually means lots of tears when I do something that Anna wanted to do, like close a door, click a buckle shut, or turn off the water. Then I have to re-open the door, undo the buckle, or turn the water back on so that Anna can do it. But Anna's new independence also means that she has become my little buddy and my helper. I feel like this is an age that I'm better at because we can do activities together.

A few days ago, when my Martha Stewart Living Magazine came in the mail, Anna started asking if we could make the fireworks cookies on the front of the magazine. It took me several days, but I finally got around to making the dough for the cookies and yesterday we tried it out. Anna wanted to help with it all: sprinkling the flour, rolling out the dough, cutting out the cookies, putting them on the cookie sheet, frosting them, licking the frosting off the cookies.

On a side note, Anna loves dough, whether it's bread dough or cookie dough, but I told her once that we don't eat cookie dough because it has raw eggs in it and they can make us sick. So now whenever I make something in the mixer she'll ask, "Does this have eggs in it?" but what she really wants to know is if she can stick her finger in and eat a chunk.

She really likes to take care of Evie and make sure that Evie doesn't have things she shouldn't have or that she doesn't go places she shouldn't, like out the garage door. This means a lot of frustration for Evie as Anna drags her across the house or rips things out of her hands. I admit that I get pretty tired of all the crying and sometimes I accuse Anna of hurting Evie when really, Anna was only trying to help. Anna also likes to protect Evie from bigger kids who, ironically, often do the same things to Evie that Anna does, like take away her toys or push or hit Evie. I often hear Anna saying, "Noooo, we don't hit. Okay, buddy?"

These days Anna is a big fan of the Disney princesses and she loves to turn on Disney CDs, dress up in her Cinderella dress, and dance to the music. We're going to Disneyland soon, so I've been checking out Disney movies from the library so that she'll actually know who Peter Pan and Dumbo are. I think Dumbo has been her favorite movie so far. Anna also LOVES the park and being outside. She is always asking me if we can go to the park with the swings or if we can go swimming. Our neighborhood pool is open, but I need it to be in the nineties before I want to go swimming, so I've been trying to keep her busy with the park. She usually likes to start off with the swings and she'll say, "I want to go high to the sky, Mom." Then after a few pushes she'll say, "too much." I haven't quite figured out where that magic middle is.

So here are some other cute things Anna says often:
"Is that going to DI?" I keep a Deseret Industries (thrift store) pile in my basement and she often likes to bring things up from the basement and ask me if it's going to DI. A month ago, I also made the mistake of saying, in front of Anna, that I wanted to sort through her toys and take some of them to DI. Several times that morning she told me, "You aren't taking any of my toys to DI!"

"Sils" is her new nickname for Evie. It's a short version of Silly Evie.

On Memorial Day we went to the cemetery in Brigham City to put flowers on my grandmother's grave. Since then Anna has been a bit fixated on cemeteries. As we were waiting at a stoplight next to the Sandy cemetary Anna asked, "Is that where you go when you're killed?" She's also asked me if my grandma died in the cemetery.

"I'm still working on it." That's her response when we talk about pooping on the potty. If only I could get her to poop on the potty then I think we could make progress with potty training, but she won't do it and I have no idea how to get her to. I've tried to ease the pressure by telling her that I know she's working on it and I'll put her in a diaper if she needs to go poop, but so far that hasn't worked. Whenever we try panties, we usually end up with an accident and then I put her in a diaper because I don't want to mess with it and I start to think that she'll never be potty trained. Sigh.

"Snoot Snacks" I've probably mentioned this before, but I absolutely love that this is how she says fruit snacks.

Just recently she's starting using "I don't know how" as a way to avoid or protest or get attention. Today she wanted me to carry her, but when I told her she needed to walk because I couldn't carry her and push the stroller she said, "But I don't know how to walk."

Anna is at the age where I can ask her to go get things for me and she'll gladly do it. She wants to help and to please. She loves reading books and I have a hard time turning her down when she asks me to read her a story. She might be a little rough with Evie but it's only because she's so enthusiastic in her affection of Evie. Sometimes I get a little overwhelmed with all the "whys" but for the most part, I love hearing her thoughts and getting a peak into how her little brain is working and learning.

Words

One of the reasons why we decided to have tubes put in Evie's ears back in February was the fact that she wasn't learning to say new words. She had figured out how to say "momma" and "dadda" before the blight of ear infections, but after awhile she stopped saying even those words. We figured with all that fluid in her ears, she probably was experiencing some hearing loss.

Such was my faith in Evie that I assumed that as soon as she had those tubes put in her ears and her hearing was restored that she'd almost immediately start speaking in sentences. Instead her silence continued much longer than I expected and it was almost as she had to start all over again with momma and dadda. But in the last two weeks she's started saying several new words. Of course one would almost have to have the gift of interpretation of tongues to know what she's saying and it's taken me longer than Dan to recognize her words, but she's showing consistency, so that convinces me that what she says correlates with actual words.

So far, her vocabulary includes:

gog gog = dog
get down= she always says this when she's done eating
want that or what's that=meaning that she wants me to hand her something
crackers=refers to crackers, cookies, any type of food

I think she probably also has a word for cup and I'm still convinced that her first word, other than momma and dadda was shoe, but dadda is still probably her favorite.

Update (June, 8): After writing this post, I listened to Evie a bit more closely and realized that what she is really saying is "unt down." She says this anytime she wants to be moved up or down. This morning she woke up at 6:30 but because she was happily babbling and because I was tired, I left her in her crib. Around seven she started to moan, "unt down, unt down, unt down." So I got her up. Yesterday we went to the park and I put the kids in the swings. When Anna was done, I tried to get Evie down, but all she wanted to do was swing. When I tried to put her down either on the playground or the grass, she would arch her back and fuss. Then she would reach for the swings and say, "unt down."

Now that she's got a few phrases, it narrows down what she's trying to communicate, but there are still times when I have no idea what she really wants. Still it's nice to have a clue.

Happy Birthday Evie!

Evie turned one last Thursday. At her well-baby check up, she is now in the 61% for weight and the 37% for height. I guess she's due for a growth spurt any day now. Now that she can walk, she is perfectly happy to just toddle about the house, which is a good thing since Anna has taken possession of most of Evie's birthday presents. Twice last week I caught Evie sticking one of Anna's cast off shirts on her head and walking around with it like it was a hat. Every now and then it would slip down in front of her eyes and she'd be blinded. Evie has also started climbing. I often find her standing on Anna's little rocking chair or trying to climb the step ladder or anything else she can get up on to. She's got this great little Ernie laugh--a soft, throaty hiss. Whenever I read Sandra Boynton's book Blue Hat, Green Hat, she always laughs when I say "oops!" She also loves to play peek-a-boo with us, holding a blanket or whatever in front of her face until we say, "peek-a-boo."When she hears music, she's just now starting to bounce while standing, but most of the time she prefers to sit and rock back and forth to the music while bouncing her knees. She's decided that she likes to eat raw carrots, but her favorite food is definitely applesauce and she gets excited whenever she sees us get it out.

On the day of her birthday, we let Evie open her gifts from us and from Dan's parents.

 As usual, Evie likes the bows and ribbons the most.

 Anna had a really hard time not opening Evie's presents for her, especially when Evie didn't seem all that concerned about actually unwrapping them.

Walking!

With Evie, it feels like we can watch her figure out new skills. She is persistent, diligent and focused, and it’s easy to see her progress.

Almost as soon as Evie mastered crawling, she began pulling herself up and by early October she was using furniture or a wall to support her while she cruised about the house. She reminded me of someone learning to roller skate for the first time, who hugs the wall constantly. She also started pushing her high chair or our kitchen table chairs around to support her while she walked. She’s strong!

 Last Wednesday (Jan. 5) she stood up all by herself and took her first tentative step. Then she started playing a game where she would stand up holding a stuffed animal or a toy, throw it on the floor and pick it up. Only, she’d usually end up diving towards the object rather than bending down. She might take a few steps before sliding into first, but usually she ended up on the ground and had to stand up all over again.

Since then she’s been adding a few more steps, and yesterday I noticed her standing up, taking a few steps, and then falling down. Sometimes she belly flops and sometimes she sits down. Every day she adds a few more steps. Of course, I get so excited to see her walking and Anna, my little mimic, often says to Evie “Look at you walking!” She’s not ready for a 5K yet, but she’s certainly on her way.