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.