Evan goes back to Brooklyn

Brit and Josh had a little housewarming party and so my mom, aunties, cousins and Uncle Dan drove up to see her beautiful little place one Sunday. Evan and I drove up sans Mike who had to leave for a business trip that day. I have to say that Evan is at a very easy age. Traveling is a breeze with him now. His clothes are so little and take up hardly any space. We only need a couple of diapers that he only uses at bedtime. He doesn't require baby food or booboo milk. Plus he loves to travel. We've been doing it since he's been 3 weeks old and we pretty much have it down now. So I didn't think twice about driving to NYC with just me and him. The trip was uneventful and Evan was beyond excited to see his Aunt Brittany and Josh and their house (Evan likes to pray for Aunt Brittany and Josh's house during our bedtime ritual and his sandbox and sometimes for the ceiling fan that "spins around and around").

We arrived immediately to Evan's harem (and Jeff). This kid needs a sibling before he turns spoiled rotten.

We all ate and ate and ate. Brittany made a delicious salad with strawberries, raspberries, candied walnuts (she candied them herself), expensive bleu cheese and a homemade poppyseed dressing. There were yummy hoagies and my mom brought up homemade choc chip cookies that we turned into ice cream sandwiches.


We all took a walk to go shopping. Some of the group loved it. Some hated it.


At one point Jeff, Josh and Uncle Dan broke off and went to a bar to get some drinks. Jeffie Doodles is NOT 21.


Evan and I slept over and Brittany made a special bed for him in her and Josh's room.


Josh let Evan play with his special flashlight that you wear on your forehead.




We bummed around the next day and played around fountain while Josh was working. That night Josh was working on his friend's motorcycle so Brittany, Evan and I sat down at a little corner Italian restaurant for dinner. It was so authentic that the waiters barely spoke English and couldn't even explain the specials to us. The food was incredibly delicious... I got this pasta dish with mussels, clams and calamari that I still think about to this day. The most awesome part was that Mike met us there! He came into Penn Station after his trip then took the subway to Brittany's neighborhood. So we were all able to eat dinner together then we all drove home together as a family.

Birthday Fun

Mike, Evan and I walked to one of Evan's friend's birthday party. I was very happy because Mike was finally able to meet Evan's friends and their parents. Mike (and Brittany) have said that when they take Evan for a stroll around Roxborough without me total strangers stop and say "hi Evan!". Now Mike was able to put some names to the faces.

This is during the "bug hunt" when the kids had bags and had to search for plastic buggies in the bag yard. Evan and his friend were wearing the same awesome shirt... The Star Wars one that Aunt Kelly, Uncle Mike and Jack got him.

Marti Party

This is going back a few weeks, but Marti invited us over her new house one night for a bbq and I wanted to show off my old roommates' beautiful kids. Of course there was Marti and her 3. Then Janna with Giordana and Gavin and Toni with Jake. The husbands and other friends were there too and it was a great time once we got there. We got lost on the way and what should've been a 20 minute drive ended up taking almost an hour and a half. We arrived smack in the middle of when we usually would've started putting Evan to bed. So we ended up staying until 10pm and drove directly to - what else - my parents' house! Our home away from home. Here are some party highlights from Marti's beautiful new home...

Yes, there was a pinata!





Jake's on a sugar high!


During the party, Evan kept running out on the back porch with these crazy goggle/glasses and doing dances for a bunch of people he didn't even know. He's like "Look at me dance!" It was hilarious.

Now it's late and the kids came in to play Wii.

Now everyone is getting so tired.

Night in Venice

Damn, how beautiful!


Ryan and Jen had a party at their awesome house on the bay for OC's Night in Venice. Jen even had glow necklaces and ice pops for the kids. Those two are awesome! Evan loves Jen and when she told Evan she would leave Ryan for him, Ryan said, "I'm standing right here!" Sorry Ry!

Here's Evan and Alicia's son, Logan playing badminton. They actually had a volley going here!

Becky let Evan use her video camera and Evan actually filmed one of the girl's chests whose sitting on the lawn. He had it fixed on her boobies.


Ryan and Jen had the party catered, with all sorts of homemade stuff that people brought. Becky was making mojitos with mint leaves crushed on the spot with a mortar and pestle and with a pitcher of lemonade attractively infused with ginger. Honestly the best mojito I've ever had. My mom stole mine so I had to get another.

Uncle Larry, Aunt Wanda, Aunt Genie & Bob.


Now it's getting dark... Already past Evan's bedtime.


Evan's favorite boat was the one with Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" blaring from it.

Becky and Chris


Janice snuggles up with Uncle Larry... Wait a minute!


We all watch the boats. There were a lot of Michael Jackson themed boats this year. There was even a Richie Cunningham float with people behind bars dancing.


Aunt Wanda and my mom missed most of the boats. They were sitting behind me, Mike and Evan, chatting it up about important things... Like Shop Rite and stuff.


Evan shows the boats his belly.


We all left as Ryan and Jen's friends starting arriving for the real party. My mom was like, "There weren't that many boats!"

Lucy

This is actually a blog post from almost a month ago... a couple of days after we returned from San Antonio. I started it, but had no photos. I finally got the pics off of my mom's camera....


Mom, Evan and I visited Lucy the Elephant on Sunday in Margate while Mike fished with Timmy. It was actually Lucy's birthday party and the 90-some year old woman who single-handedly saved her from demolition attended and helped cut the cake. There was a moonbounce, a bouncy slide, cotton candy, music and face painting.


Evan's first taste of cotton candy. He loved it.


I LOVE this picture. He looked through all the possible face-painting options and immediately chose the fire truck. We tried to convince him to get it on his arm, but he had already seen all of the kids get it on their faces. He was very still during the painting itself, surprising the face painter. What a good boy! He was so proud...


Here's mom and Evan at the top of Lucy. This was after we took the tour inside her belly, hiney and head. We had to climb up her inside her leg on these tiny, spiral wooden stairs.


We also ate lunch across the street and had a breakthrough food-wise. First of all, Evan's eating tuna fish again after refusing to eat it for a month. Not only that but it was mixed with onion and celery and was on bread with lettuce. I can't remember the last time he ate tuna without picking or spitting out the chunks of mixed in celery, onion and/or carrots. After he took a few bites I asked him "Did you know you just ate lettuce - like a pigmy marmoset?" Lettuce and leaves growing in the wild are the same to Evan. He took another bite "Mmm. Lettuce. I eat like pigmy marmoset." He's never purposely eaten lettuce before! YAY! Today I made him tuna with carrots and he didn't pick ANY of them out. I'm sure he'll be super picky again next week, but oh well. We'll keep on trying.

Here's my mom and Evan from the restaurant across the street.


O ya - and free birthday cake! Evan is sitting on Lucy's toenail eating it. You know my mother... She wrestled her way into the cake line giving Evan the second piece of cake cut - the first went to the woman who saved Lucy. I feed Evan with my big, meaty arm.

Phila Zoo

Jin is awesome for getting us a membership to the zoo as a wedding gift. We've gone a bunch of times this summer and still only got through half of it. Mostly because I couldn't get Evan out of the petting zoo portion. Between that, the camel ride and the little train (that he rides by himself btw) it's hard to see everything there is to see. Good thing it's a 10 minute drive away, because we're going to have to squeeze as many trips as we can until our membership expires this fall.

So this week my mom, Olivia and Jessica met us there and we rode the zoo balloon! We always see it over the trees as we drive down 76 and now this is our first time actually riding it.

Here we are on our way up. Evan's carrying his spray bottle which he sprayed the entire time at the zoo. He especially liked attacking Olivia with it.


The cousins look like they're up to no good.


The view from the top. You could see Manayunk from up there.


Here's a view of 76 in the background. Evan's squirting water on my mom's cleavage. I swear the boy has a boobie obsession. When Brittany was over last weekend. He would poke her in the chest and sing "I touch boobies. Touch. Touch. Touch." He does the same to me. That should go over well in school. Little pervie.


Evan's looking at a pygmy marmoset. We had to point it out because it had made an appearance on Diego and is the sole reason why Evan eats lettuce and spinach now. "I eat leaves like a pygmy marmoset!" It's much smaller than I imagined. Evan was only half interested in the animals and much more interested in spraying us all with water and the little zoo vehicles throughout the place. "I see a truck!"


Here's the zoo balloon from the polar bear habitat.


Here's everybody in front of the tropical bird place. Right after this Evan hugged and kissed everyone goodbye. He held on tight to Jessica and didn't want to let her go. Then he and I left so we could both go home and take a nap.

Weekend with Aunt Brittany

Brittany came last weekend, because she missed her big sister. Ya right! She was pining away for Evan. And when Brittany is around, Evan could care less about me. He just wants his aunt. Here they are with the shark slip n slide Mike bought him. Evan only hung out in the pool part behind the shark head, plus he loved the 3D goggles it came with. Brittany on the other hand, slid down the slide many times.
Mike threw a surprise birthday celebration. He had balloons, a sponge bob cake and presents wrapped in Hanna Montanna wrapping paper!

The confetti...

Evan kept pointing to all the Hannah pics on the paper. He was saying "Dat my girlfriend and dat my girlfriend and dat my girlfriend and dat..."

I gave Mike a hug and kiss for being so wonderful and Evan jumped in to get in on the hug.


Brittany put Evan to bed that night while Mike and I went out for a night on the town. It's really great to have a babysitter.

On another note, Evan has really been suffering from the heat. We don't have central air in our hot rowhouse and he has been waking up drenched in sweat. It was so bad that his little head had a vinegar smell to it for a couple of days, even after a bath. Evan has never had a scent before ... on his head, feet, anything - except his hiney after a poop. Then he started breaking out in a super itchy heat rash. He starts tearing at his head, face, belly, back and arms yelling "OH MOMMY I ITCH! I ITCH SO BAD!" His skin would feel really rough, not like his usual baby smooth skin - even the skin where there seemed to be no rash. A cool bath made it even worse. The only thing that seemed to help was this all natural witch hazel mix that someone gave me for Evan's baby shower. I'd lay him down naked in mine and Mike's room and spritz him all over and he would sigh in relief. Now we have a air conditioning unit in Evan's room. Mike and I continue to suffer in the heat, but Evan seems to be doing much better. The doctor had suggested corisol cream so I bought that too. Plus she said to keep his skin moisturized, so now I'm sch-mearing lotion on him constantly.

School!

I cannot believe we're doing this but...

We signed up Evan for school! 2 days a week from 8:30 - noon. He'll even eat lunch there...

I so hope we are doing the right thing... I keep telling myself it will be fine. Evan has stayed in the babysitting room at the YMCA for about an hour and a half at a time while I worked out. That setup eventually worked out after a few days, but preschool is a much longer day.

We've been preparing for this day for a long time. Not only with letters, numbers and stuff, but Mike and I have been trying to teach our Evan social stuff from the start. He has his little group of friends that he sees weekly. He knows that he has to help pick up his toys at the end of the day. He has to say "please" and "thank you" when he asks for stuff. If someone greets him he has to respond back, "hi", wave or whatever. He's shares his toys when we have kids over. He's not allowed to hit, but he hits Mike and I anyway. I thankfully haven't seen him hit another kid.

He's pretty good at entertaining himself, like when I need time to finish balancing the checkbook or mop the floors. He even helps clean with his spray bottle and scrub brush. He helps me weed outside and "mows" the lawn. We don't indulge him when he has a tantrum, but have him wait it out by himself until he's calm down. He knows his full name and says it constantly. "I not a monkey, Mommy. I E'an Donus Tonen!" But this stuff means nothing. Evan is always with his mommy. We go food shopping together, to the drycleaner once a week, to the bank, to the post office - all together. The whole neighborhood knows us, but how is my baby going to be without me? He's only 2.5 - is he ready for this? If he hates it, he's out. I'm doing this for him and so I can start figuring out what to do for work. If he's unhappy, I won't think twice about pulling him out and waiting until he's older.

The good thing is that every parent I know that sends their kids there loves it. A lot of our playground friends go there. Plus it's a 5 minute walk away and has an open door policy (so I can cry in the coat closet while Evan's in class). Originally we were on a waiting list since we applied so late, but they called us with an opening and that was it. I had checked out 2 other schools by this point and didn't like either one. One was way too strict with a very structured day and the other didn't have any structure and had a lot of kids with behavior problems.

When Evan and I visited the school we finally chose, there was a summer camp going on in the front each time. There were about 20 kids in their bathing suits all playing with water stuff. All the kids were friendly and came running up to talk with us. One little girl asked Evan if he was going to go to school there. The teachers were a few feet away so I quietly asked a few of the kids, "Do you like it here?" I got 2 "YES" and one "uh-huh". Everybody seemed to be friends with each other and they all seemed to play well together. Another time when we visited, the little girl who asked Evan if he was coming said "I remember you! Do you remember me?" Awww, that was so cute!

So class starts Sept. 10. In the meantime Evan is super excited to find a Diego backpack. We'll see if he's equally excited about hanging out 7 hours/wk with people he doesn't know. My baby!

He looks ready for school, right?