Winter, please go away

He wants nobody, but Mommy when he's sick...

So just when I was emailing Danielle Daly that we were all well and that it might be fun to hang out with her and Avery soon, Evan got a cold as my hands were typing on the keys. A virus that lasted a week. It started last Sunday. I put Evan down for his nap at my parents' house when Aunt Genie, Jess, Aunt Ella, Aunt Wanda & Sarah came over to visit (they wanted to visit Evan, not Mike and I). Evan was just laying in the bed, staring at the ceiling... even an hour after I put him there! Mike was trying to pack so I could take him to the train station in AC. We kept asking him if he wanted us to hold him or bring him downstairs, but no, he wanted to sleep. But he couldn't. Brittany made him a bed in the living room and brought him down to see everyone when Mike and I were gone. So we had a week long sickness following that. I stayed at my parents' the week since Mike was in NY state for business. Then Thursday (a nice warm day) when Evan seemed to be feeling better he said he wanted to go outside. I was so grateful since we've been indoors for so long that I was actually starting to feel a little depressed. We walked to his favorite place the Middle School where Brittany, Chris, Sarah, Jeff, Jess and I went - And Aunt Donna too! He usually likes walking in the back by the soccer fields and runs around the baseball dugouts. That day he was walking slow and instead of heading out by the fields he wanted me to pick him up. Then he asked for an apple. I told him we had to walk back to Grandmom's and Pop's to get an apple and he was cool with that. I knew he had to be still be sick... he always tries to stay out as long as possible. Later on we went to lunch with Aunt Ella and Aunt Genie and he just sat in the high chair quietly and didn't want to come out! I felt so bad. I took him to the doctor yesterday and she said he had a virus and had a bunch of ulcers in the back of his mouth - which explains why he would cringe after a sip of orange juice. We also stopped going on the potty for the week and just went back to diapers. In all honesty, he started peeing in his training pants a few days before the sickness and I was getting so frustrated. So it's Saturday and Evan seems to be almost himself, so he's back in the underpants. We all walked to Rite Aid in the morning and went out to dinner at Le Bus on Main Street earlier tonight. Evan was so happy to be out and about again that he was dancing happy dances down the sidewalk.

Here we are at Rite Aid, but I have to add that he did clean up the toys when he was done.


Here's Evan dancing in his Ralph Lauren shirt from Mima and PoPo.


Now he's sick of the pictures and just wants to play with trucks.


Before dinner


After dinner


He's getting so good at helping pick up his toys. He picked up his instruments and put them in the toy box with me before bed. Then he picked up his books in his room and put them on the shelf before our bedtime story - without me even asking! I had asked him to give me the book he picked out to read and he responded, "Books away, Momma!". And there he was. This was the first time after months of me asking him to please help me put away all the stuff he took out, that he took the initiative to do it himself. It made Mike and I feel so good. We really feel like we've done a pretty good job at raising our boy so far. Can you believe it? Now for the potty training... we're not so good at that. If Evan is anything like me he'll be potty trained by 8 years old. hehehe. Actually I was potty trained before that, but I was a notorious bed wetter. I'm going to drink my wine and watch a movie with my husband now...

Gym Class!

Here are some shots of Evan's Mommy & Me gym class... Mike came at lunch to check out the class for the first time, which happened to be the same day that the class also had a valentines day party.

When Mike came in Evan was on the balance beam. This is what he does with his face when you ask him to smile.


Evan loves the trampoline. Aunt Kelly gave Evan the awesome sweatshirt... Also... If you happened to notice the stamps on your very late Christmas cards, Kelly took that beautiful shot. She also took the shot of Mike holding a beer with Elmo at the birthday!


The kiddies shake the maracas to the music.




We played follow the leader. Here I am encouraging Evan to follow Miss Jackie.


notice the lovely hole in my pants? Yummy snacks and then we walked home...

Terrible Twos

Hey Daddy - where's the snowpants and long johns???

O poop. It seems that no long after Evan turned two, that it all started. Our sweet-tempered baby boy is now a toddler/preschooler and he's acting every bit of it. Here's just one of our stories... Yesterday we walked to Starbucks, which we often do on the bitterly cold days when there is no library story hour or Mommy & Me gym class. What's cool is that we always find our stay-at-home moms and dads from the playground there. We really, REALLY miss our playground. Anyway, Starbucks was out of soy milk, which is just as well since Evan started screaming to go back outside. We left Starbucks and as I started wheeling him toward the little, independent coffee shop a quarter mile down the street, he started screaming that he wanted to go back in Starbucks. "Too late," I said as he struggled like a little hyena to get out of the jogging stroller. "Do you want to walk?" I asked. NOOOO! he screamed. Ok. Whatever... we are on our way to the coffee shop anyway. We got to the place and I guiltily started talking with the barrista, who was questioning why we hadn't been there in so long. Evan answered for me screaming "STARBUCKS! STARBUCKS! WHAAAAA!". At this point the little Houdini was halfway hanging out of the bottom of the stroller, under the tray. As anyone with a 2 year old knows... You do NOT give in to tantrums, nor do you try to appease the kid by making a thousand suggestions. Appeasing makes everything worse... Everything is NO! NO! NOOOOOO! No matter what you say, it's the wrong thing to them. The only thing that makes it better is a time out... or a nice long nap. Neither of which you can do when you're out. So what can you do in a public place? The whole place was staring at us, making me feel like a cold, uncaring parent as I ignored him, got my coffee, apologized for coming in, then got out of there. Evan and I argued outside the shop for a few minutes, then we went to the playground to blow off some steam. Luckily there were some other kids there and all was well with the world (Gorgas Park is like a cult- seriously! There's a park group of moms and dads who also go to the library and gym classes... It's actually pretty wonderful and it's cool to run into kids you know around town that Evan recognizes and plays with).

As for some good news... we are finally having incredible success with the potty training. Not that I can say that Evan is potty trained. He sometimes wakes up with a huge poop in his diaper. But we are well on our way. He stays dry all day- even during a nap, as long as you put him on the potty every once in a while. He goes first thing in the morning, after each meal, before we go out, before we leave for home, once we get home, and before bed. However, Evan will not tell you if he has to pee. If a long amount of time goes by and you forget to stick him on the potty, he'll pee his pants and say "Mommy! I'm all wet." He will tell you if he has to poop though, which he did when we were all at the PHL dinner on Sunday night at Springfield Country Club. The speaker was giving a heart-felt speech and Evan yelled "Poop! Mommy - poop!" He enjoys peeing in public places like Starbucks, Target, etc. but has yet to poop in a public bathroom. I'm going to buy him a special travel potty seat for those occasions and see what happens. I'll keep everyone posted on that hehehe. I do think our success so far is 1) a book called The Baby Whisperer that Mima gave us. It really helped us get into a great bedtime/nap schedule and also a potty schedule. Just as a note - when you first read it and the techniques don't work at first, you're going to feel like the worst parent ever! Especially when you read that a baby could start potty training by 9 months and that they're usually all trained by 18 mos in every other country in the world except the USA due to the evils of disposable diapers and pull-ups. But after a few thousand tries and you get success, you'll feel like Super Mom. This brings us to 2) Not using pull-ups. I put Evan in cloth training pants, which are basically briefs with extra padding in the front and back. It allows him to feel the wet and poopiness. It's very messy when starting out, but we have easy to clean hardwood floors. We just went through a lot of disinfectant and paper towels. Just recently I did buy pull-ups for when we go out... undoing a diaper to go potty was too frustrating and the training pants would leak if Evan has an accident.

Another thing we've been struggling with lately is the tv. Evan would watch Diego all day if we let him and he wants to watch nothing else. Not Sesame Street, not Blues Clues - nothing but Diego. You all know Diego - bad animation, repetitive scenes that take up a third of every episode - pretty much a show that was made solely to sell Diego merchandise. It's driving me crazy and I don't want him to watch a lot of tv. The crappy thing is that it's winter, and when I'm trying to clean or make a meal, it's just way too easy to turn on the tv. So now I only put it on at breakfast and dinner. That's bad - I know- but at least he's already sitting still and it's not taking away from his playtime. Plus it makes him eat more. I know I'm setting Evan up for mindless tv eating, just like I do. But hey, I figure I'll be honest here.

So that wraps up another looong Evan update. You should see the big hands and feet on our two year old. They were always big on his little body, and it's so funny to see those long fingers, toes - and legs too. In fact Mike was watching Evan's feet dangling from his booster seat the other day and said "Where did those legs come from?" They can't be our baby's. I wonder if he'll grow into them like a puppy.

(Some Diego time after playing out in the snow with Daddy)