Do a Little Dance

My mom has told me that I have a lower pain threshold than my sisters. I think she says this in large part because of how I reacted to getting my wisdom teeth out as opposed to how my sisters reacted. Apparently I was more of a wimp than they were. My mom also theorizes that my lower pain tolerance is because I'm the oldest and so whenever I fell down, I got a reaction. My sisters didn't get the same sort of attention and now they are tougher than me. I like to think that I really did experience more pain when I got my wisdom teeth out rather than believe that I am more of a wimp.

But ideas sink in and so with Anna, whenever she fell, we would cheer for her, and we taught her to say, "I'm a tough girl!" We didn't do so well with Evie. Most of her early pain came from her sister, like when Anna would deliberately smack her to get our attention. Horrified by Anna's behavior, we would always focus on Evie and try to comfort her. Now, Evie can take several hard falls and not bat an eye, but if Anna touches her and Evie sees a sympathetic look on my face than she bursts into tears. Evie's temperament might also be such that she's a little more sensitive to injustice, but I wonder if we've also warped her a bit with all our attention (not that I regret trying to sooth her after one of Anna's attacks).

On top of all this abuse, Evie also gets lots of things ripped out of her hands. If Evie has it, Anna wants it even if I gave Evie a toy to distract her from the toy Anna was pushing Evie away from. I've noticed recently that Evie has developed a little dance for whenever Anna takes something from her. She turns in a circle, lays down on the ground, and throws her arms up over her head while letting out a howl. Her moves remind me of the stereotypical fit being thrown by a small child, although I can't blame her for feeling frustrated. Soon enough I'm sure Evie will be big enough to take toys from Anna herself. I have to admit that I'm not really looking forward to that day, but at least things won't seem quite so unfair for Evie.

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.

Getting Dressed

Lately it's been a fight almost every morning to get Anna dressed. I'm sure part of the problem is that there are many days when I leave her in her pjs until after lunch. Evie is still waking up most nights, whether it's an ear infection or teething, so we're back to slow mornings as I try to sleep as long as possible.

Last week I wanted to run some errands and Anna refused to let me put her clothes on her. I was exhausted from a bad cold and too many three a.m. parties with Evie, so after trying to persuade her for several minutes, I decided that I'd rather just go lock myself in my room than sit on her and force her into her clothes. I'm not sure that was a better parenting decision since it was, in a sense, manipulative, even if at the time, I did it more for her own protection. Once Anna talked me into coming out, she did let me put her clothes on.

A few weeks ago as we were having this discussion about why she couldn't wear her pajamas to Costco, I told her that it's not acceptable in our society to wear pjs to the store. I told her that people would laugh at us if she wore her pjs to the store. I don't think that actually convinced her, and I forgot about the conversation.

Then last Tuesday I had to take Anna and Evie with me to the Church. Dan was going to meet us there and take the kids home for me. Evie had just had another leaky diaper, so rather than put her in a new outfit, I figured I'd just dress her in her pajamas. Anna looked at her and said, "People laugh at Evie, huh Mama." She said it so matter-of-factly, and at first, I didn't know what she was talking about.

I guess it was an instance of my own words coming back to haunt me because I don't want Anna to grow up afraid of people laughing at her. I want her to be herself and feel free to experiment (within some limits, of course). But maybe I really shouldn't worry, because I don't think she's that worried about people laughing at her or Evie or me, for that matter. I think in her world that's just something that happens if you wear pjs in public and maybe we'll all have a good laugh together.

So I've decided to take the modesty and self-respect angle now when we revisit this discussion and I'm sure it's just as abstract to her, but these days I'm not sure I could really say anything she'd find convincing.

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.

Christmas Day

Yes our tree only has lights and ornaments on the top half, and even then we still had a few broken ornaments.

Checking out the stockings

Anna with the gift she "gave" Evie.

This Cinderella doll from Grandpa and Sandy was clearly the highlight of the morning. Anna loved it! Santa gave Anna two puppets: a princess puppet and a monster puppet. With the princess puppet, Anna can change her hair from blond to brown, choose a pink or purple dress, and various accessories. The monster puppet lets her choose what sort of eyes, ears, nose, horns, arms, etc. she wants on him. When she first opened it though, she told us she was afraid of the monster puppet. Oops! Luckily, she now loves the monster which she has named Murray (I suggested it because of Sesame Street). She asked me what the princess was named and I told her she could name her anything, like Anna, Evie, Helga. So Anna picked Helga, but then she also decided to name her Sandy. So the princess is Helga Sandy.

Evie loves the paper more than the toys, which is good because Anna thinks the toys are all hers anyway.

My mom gave Anna one of those dolls that talk. The thing was chattering away while Anna opened the gift. I personally find them to be a little creepy, but Anna loves her. I'm just glad there's an off switch.

We raced down to my parents' house after opening presents at our house, to try and be there when my parents called my brother on his mission. We got to chat with Ryan for just a few minutes and then we spent the rest of the day at my parents' house.

Lauren gave my dad some dart guns. Anna discovered them at the end of the day and had a lot of fun with them, but she liked the point-blank method of shooting. She was nice enough to insist that we hold books in front of our faces, but every now and then she'd peak around the book with the gun.

Christmas Eve

 In the morning Anna and I made sugar cookies to set out for Santa. Anna loved cutting out the cookies and we used colored sugar for decorating--much easier than helping a two-year old frost a cookie.

 Dan thought it was funny that Anna clearly gave me some pats on the back during our cooking.

 After Anna went down for her nap, I couldn't resist making some frosting, but since I wasn't very well prepared, the cookies were very pastel and spring-looking.

We had dinner at my parents' home and afterwards, my dad read the Christmas story to us from the Bible. We dressed Anna up as Mary, but no one else really wanted to dress up. We did talk Dan into being Mary's donkey.

 I think she looks more like a little babushka than Mary, but she had fun.

My parents' dog, Carter, loved Evie and kept trying to lick her face. Poor Evie had a hard time getting away from him, but eventually learned to swat him away.

We got home around nine or so and opened our Christmas Eve present: Christmas pjs for Anna and Evie. We tried to take a picture of them in front of our Christmas tree, but Evie didn't want to hold still despite Anna's efforts.

After setting out Santa's cookies, we put Anna and Evie to bed. Anna had a hard time settling down because she was pretty sure she could hear Santa out in the living room, but eventually she did fall asleep.

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.