Evan and His Grandpa Newhall

This past week Evan and I both succumbed to a nasty cold and sore throat. Thursday we were on the mend, but there was still some remaining remnants. While standing in my parents’ driveway Thursday morning, I was holding Evan and he watched me spit out some of those remaining remnants (I know. Gross. But the story’s worth it). Evan immediately started trying to spit too. He leaned over out of my arms and sounded like he was blowing a raspberry, but he just couldn’t get the hang of it. I eventually spit again, and he practiced again, but with no success. Grandpa Newhall grabbed him to give him a good-bye kiss, I spit again, and Evan perfected his spit. Right onto his Grandpa Newhall. Now my dad’s threatening revenge by teaching Evan the “Farmer’s Blow.”

Evan and his Grandpa Newhall are inseparable when we’re up at the ranch. Sunday night, after a day of 90 degree weather, my dad put Evan in his new pool – fully clothed, diaper and all. When Evan tired of his pool, my dad pulled him out, undressed him, wrapped him in a towel, and gave him a big hug. See that laugh? That’s my dad’s reaction to Evan peeing on him.

Evan Update - May 2009

Once Evan and I finally recovered from our recent sore throat/cold he was in a better mood than I’ve ever seen him. I think it was one of those things where after feeling horrible for so long, once he finally felt normal again, he realized just how great normal really is. That lasted for about three days, until his molars started acting up again. Not only are the top two swollen and trying to push through, there’s the emergence of a nasty little one on the bottom that has his gums sore and his disposition straight up nasty.

Other than the tooth frontier, Evan’s had quite a few other developments and adventures.

The biggest news is he went swimming for the first time last weekend. He was pretty apprehensive at first, but once he got used to it, he loved it. We went swimming as part of our godson Kaiya’s birthday party so not only did Evan swim; he sat at the table with the big kids and devoured 2 slices of pizza. Sorry, no pictures of the swimming. Brad and I were both in the water and we haven’t invested in a waterproof camera yet. Maybe someday, but probably not.

Evan’s finally gotten used to wearing his sun hats and his new sunglasses, so he’s one stylin’ baby.

His newest favorite game is tickle. It used to be us tickling him, but the game has recently evolved into him tickling us.

His other favorite game is pinch and bite. So we’re working on that.

We’re also working on blowing kisses. He gets halfway there, smooshing his hand to his face, but he hasn’t gotten the other half down. So he just keeps his hand there, with a big grin on his face.

Evan’s also been practicing walking a lot more. He may have finally associated all the bruises on his legs with crawling. We fully expect him to be walking by the time we visit his grandparents in Indiana this August.

In other news, Evan is continuing his mimicry…

Every morning he mimics putting on lotion when he sees me do it.

He’s achieved a limitedly successful version of snapping his fingers.

When I tell Levi to get out of the kitchen and point in the direction I expect him to go, Evan points in the same direction and gives Levi a stream of babble, presumably something along the lines of “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times…”

And last week, while I was drinking a glass of iced tea, Evan reached over to take a sip. I gave him the straw, thinking he would just chew on it, but he immediately started sucking down my drink. After a couple of gulps I realized the tea was caffeinated and quickly put a stop to it. But what can I say, the boy was born to use a straw.

As of last night, Evan has another shiner. He was taking a bath and taunting a shampoo bottle sitting on the shower shelf. Just as Brad got out the words, “Careful kid, that’s going to fall,” it fell and hit Evan right in the face. Evan wants everyone to know that the shampoo bottle was at least 50 pounds and 6 feet tall and it sucker punched him when he wasn’t looking.

Evan has also learned how to throw a ball (Brad’s ecstatic), and Brad swears Evan hit a ball with his mini baseball bat. Brad’s convinced Evan’s a baseball prodigy. I remain skeptical. My money’s on a career in the telecommunications field. To Evan, everything’s a phone. He holds spoons, bottles, Levi’s toys, spatulas, anything and everything up to his ear and says “low.”

And Nanny Amy is, as always, a blessing and the best surrogate parent we could have ever dreamed of having. She took these and sent them to each of our phones while she was giving Evan a bath.

Sleep Tease

Evan has periodically slept through the night in his own bed, interspersed with not sleeping at all, so we’re not sure what’s going on.

Coincidently, the first night he slept in his own bed, I had been out with some girlfriends who were on the verge of convincing me to let Evan cry it out. He must have telepathically sensed the threat, because that night we didn’t hear a peep from him. Brad and I both woke up feeling like completely new people. Of course, when we woke up, Brad shot out of bed like it was on fire and ran into Evan’s room to make sure he was okay. But after the initial shock wore off, we both realized what we’ve been missing for the past year. Sleep. A full, uninterrupted night’s sleep. It was beautiful.

We were determined to keep the momentum going, but unfortunately the next night Evan didn’t sleep at all – in his bed or in ours.

Since then he’s teased us a couple of times by sleeping through the night in his own bed, just to remind us what we’re missing.

You’d think with how much he loves to mimic us, that would be one of the first things on his list of things to do, but no such luck.

He enjoys teasing us and watching us dance like his little puppets. That’s right. Evan is the Puppet Master and we are his toys.

Our baby is Boss and we are his minions.

Black-Eyed Pee

Evan had quite the week. After the blueberry and the black eye, he had a slight reaction to the sour cream he smeared on his face at dinner last night.

It's hard for a picture to do this rash justice. As two concerned parents, what Brad and I saw was:

After Evan's bath, we let him play for a minute in the kitchen. He made his rounds from Levi's bowls... to the dishwasher...

to his special drawer...
and on to the kitchen table...

where he promply peed on the floor.

Immediately afterwards, Evan stepped in it, slipped, landed in it, crawled through it, and then Levi came to lick it up.

Black-Eyed Baby

You should see the other baby though. He totally kicked her ass...

Just kidding. It's just another bump from one of Evan's many tumbles. This time he was crawling through the kitchen and bumped his face on Levi's bowl. If there's a way to bruise himself, Evan will find a way to do it.

Not a Bloody Nose

Evan tried shoving a blueberry up his left nostril. He tells me Legos are next.