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.

Anna at Thirty-Eight Months

Last Saturday Anna had her dance recital. Her dance class performed with all the other dance classes at her studio, but I have to admit that we left as soon as Anna's dance was done, mostly because Evie wasn't all that interested in watching the dancing. Anna's class danced to the "Lollipop" song and they got to hold plastic suckers. Anna loved dancing on the stage and loved the plastic suckers. I had to take her to a dress rehearsal at 8:30 that morning and then the recital began at 7:30. She asked me all day when she could dance on the stage again.

Lately Anna has seemed to move out of the terrible twos. For awhile there I thought the terrible twos were just going to continue until she was four or five, but then one days, she woke up and became rather reasonable. It's a good thing for all of us that she made this transition about the same time that Evie started throwing tantrums.

Now it's no longer a huge fight to get her into her car seat. Sometimes we still have to do some negotiating. And when I'm trying to get her to do something, if I can explain why, in terms that she understands, I need it to be done a certain way, she's often pretty willing to cooperate. Of course, posting this probably means that I've just jinxed myself. Lately, she really wants to do everything herself and she gets upset if I push open a door instead of letting her or throw something away that she wanted to throw away, but it's nice to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Spring Mud

In late February, the weather was nice enough that we decided to go outside and play in our backyard. Evie promptly fell in the mud in one of my flower beds and kept falling in the mud until we decided to go inside. I'm just glad I thought to put her in her Croc knock offs.

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

Living Seas Aquarium

In February I bought a season pass to the aquarium, knowing I'd have to go at least three times for it to be worth it. We managed to visit the aquarium four times before Anna turned three (and I'd have to start paying for her admission). It became one of our favorite places to go, especially in the winter.

 Anna and I loved the penguin exhibit.

 Evie was just thrilled to run around.

 I love that dirty face!

 I don't think Anna ever had any intention of actually touching the sting rays but she sure likes putting her hands in the water and then washing them off at the sink nearby.

 Evie loved growling at the fish and she especially enjoyed these little tanks that were right at her eye level.

We also met up with Heather on one of our visits. Anna asked Heather, "Where are your friends?" meaning Heather's parents. I guess she wanted them to come too.

Photos from February

 Thursday mornings Anna has dance class and Evie always falls asleep on the way home. When I took this photo, I decided to stop at the library for story time for Anna. Evie stayed asleep most of the time, but she looked like it was taking a lot of concentration to stay asleep, so I took a picture of her cute face.

 While I was looking for something else in the basement, I found this hat in Dan's box of mission stuff. It's a Peruvian hat or chullo. I thought it would be fun to take a photo of Evie in it, but she didn't want to keep it on.

 Eating tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches

 When Anna was getting ready for bed, she decided to wear her pj pants like a shirt and her shirt like pants. It was pretty funny and she managed to stay up later, so it was a win-win for her.

 Anna loves vanilla shakes at In-and-Out

 Anna loves "naked" quesadillas, or in other words a tortilla. 

 This kid also loves prunes. I don't understand it but I try not to discourage it. She's great about eating fruit--much better than I ever was as a kid.

Tulip Festival 2011

This past week of warm weather and longer days has been fabulous. We went to the Tulip Festival twice. I took the kids with a friend on Wednesday and then we all went as a family on Saturday afternoon.

 Anna loves rolling down the big hill at the top of the garden. She also likes running all through the garden and throwing sticks, rocks, etc. into any available water.

I finally pulled the sorts out for Evie.