Top 5 things that Evelyn does that make us laugh

Er, make that 3. I know there are more but I can't think of them right now....

3. When she sees planes or helicopters in the sky, she exclaims "Airplane!" or "Helicopter!" and then pinches her fingers together repeatedly, asking "Hold it?" She also loves pointing out motorcycles and if she sees 2 people on a motorcycle, she'll say "Two mamas motorcycle" or "Two papas motorcyle."

Speaking of which, she basically categorizes all people with the following labels:

• Baby (babies)
  
• Goh Goh (big brother in Chinese, for the little boys)
• Jeh Jeh (big sister in Chinese, for the little girls)
• Mama (women)
• Papa (men)
• Po Po (older women)
• Gong Gong (older men)
  

So she'll often point out "Papa riding bicycle!" when she sees a cyclist, even when she's with Papa, or will ask me "What's Mama doing?" about a woman on the street.

2. When she wants you to get something, she'll say "Mama (Papa), I'll go get it?" (because we say "I'll get it") and when she wants help, she'll say "Mama (Papa), help you?"

One morning, she noticed a parenting book in my nightstand that miraculously reappeared. It's one of those how-to parenting books with lots of pictures of babies, mamas, and papas (her favorite kinds of pictures) and it's thick and heavy and not something you want to leaf through first thing in the morning in bed while she excitedly points at pictures saying "What's that?" or "What's Mama doing" or "What's baby doing?" or "What happened?" and you try to come up with interesting responses to each repetitive question. I keep forgetting to put the book back on the shelf, so one morning I stuck it under the bed before she noticed it again. Days later, John vacuumed and put it back on the nightstand. So the next morning, Evelyn woke up with us (she tends to join us in bed the wee early hours of the morning and finishes sleeping with us these days). She saw the book and exclaimed "Oh baby book! I found it!!" followed by an immediate "Mama, I'll get it?" Groan. I mumbled "No, Evelyn go get it, you're closer." She looked at it again, turned to me and said "Too far away. Mama, I'll get it?"

1. She blames every bump, bruise, and cut on her body on somersaults. If you notice a bruise on her leg, ask her how it happened, and she'll invariably say "Somersault." Sometimes, she'll elaborate and say "Somersault. Bump head." And frankly, I'm not even seeing her do that many somersaults these days.

Let the holiday madness begin

December is always the craziest month of the year, and every year it creeps up on us like we didn't expect it. The gateway to the December madness is, of course, Thanksgiving weekend. This year John and I took the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off (so he could bake pies and I could attempt to clean the house), so that meant we had an unprecedented 5-day weekend! Thanksgiving day started with our traditional girls' beach walk, with Naomi and Milo, and Paula and Rhea, while John, Bert, Ken, Nellie and Keeeth went on their bike ride to the Marin Headlands.




Then the big feast at Paula and Bert's place, with the usual suspects and the usual excessive, delicious food... This is the reason that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. We get together with our good friends and just enjoy each other's company and the food, without all of the stress of Christmas shopping and travelling. It's the quiet before the storm...




And then the traditional Christmas tree hunt the day after Thanksgiving, in the Santa Cruz mountains... this year, with Paula/Bert/Rhea, Ken/Naomi/Milo, and Jamie & Samy for the first time. We're getting better and better at this. I remember years ago when we went up to the mountains, going from tree farm to tree farm hunting for the "perfect" tree with no provisions, and my blood sugar level going so low that all I could do was lie back in the car seat and keep my eyes shut til we made it out of the mountains and into a burrito place. I call it going into standby mode. This time, we were stocked with freshly made turkey sandwiches (with stuffing, mashed potatoes, onions, and cranberry sauce, Barbara-style), delicious leftover lemon tartelettes from Samy, and all sorts of other goodies.

We skipped the tree last year, a decision that I regretted the second we left the Santa Cruz mountains with Paula and Bert, and we wouldn't make that mistake again. Especially not this year when Evelyn is so aware of what's happening. She surprises me with the things she can remember, trivial things that happened months ago (for instance, we were at the pediatrician's recently because of her horrible cough, and as we were checking out, she kept saying "woks! woks!" and I was like, "what?" Then I finally remembered that they let her choose from a basket of smooth colorful rocks, in lieu of a lollipop, 4 months ago for her 2 year checkup, and she was asking for her rock for this visit). Anyway, I think she'll have some pretty clear memories, for a while at least, of this Christmas. The tree hunt, putting up the tree and lights and ornaments, and of course the presents. She's already very interested in that, saying "Christmas present?" or "Happy birthday present?" (the two seem interchangeable) when she sees a gift-wrapped box.

And then there are the December birthdays... Rhea turned 2 just a few days ago (Happy Birthday Rhea! What a fun birthday party), John turns 40 in 2 days (!!) with the party at our place this coming Saturday. (I mentioned to Evelyn once a few weeks ago that Papa's birthday is coming, and ever since then, she's been saying "Papa's happy birthday's coming.") Then we'll have our Fake Christmas on Haight St. the weekend after that, followed by Paula's birthday on the 23rd, and Christmas immediately after that. And we're not even flying to MA this year, for once (boo for that but Yay for Christmas in SF for once!). It's a hectic time of year but we are so lucky to have it be this way.

I take it back, I take it all back!

What was I talking about, terrible twos? That must have been a blip on the screen, a trip over the threshold to 2-year-hood. John went to San Diego for 4 days a couple of weeks ago, over a weekend no less, but it turned out to be pretty easy. And pleasant! It's really different from spending 4 days alone with a baby... Evelyn's more like the friend who is super demanding, extremely high maintenance, thinks only of herself, and drives you crazy. But she says really funny things and always makes you laugh, you can never stay mad at her, and you can't help but love her.

While John was away, we went to a birthday party in Palo Alto -- Evelyn's friend Nicolas turned 2, just a few weeks after she did. I wish I had photos to post, but being on parent duty alone meant going down the slides every time, pushing swings, shoveling sand, and forgoing the usual party things like chatting with people, taking pictures, eating, etc. But you know, it was still pretty fun. At one point while Evelyn was in the baby swing, she pointed to the one next to her and said "Mama sit there?" I said, "No, Mama can't sit there. That swing is only for babies and little kids." Evelyn shook her finger at it, saying "Babies, kids only. Not Mama, Mama's too big."

We'd talk to John every night on the phone while he was away, and she'd repeat after me saying things like "Hi Papa. How are you? I'm good. I love you, Papa. Night night." A couple of times while John was away, she'd hold up her hands and say "Papa go?" and I'd tell her. Then one night after work, I came home and said "Where's Papa?" and Evelyn said "Papa San Diego!"

Even tonight, when John was working late and I put Evelyn to bed by myself, she said "Papa San Diego." I think she must have really missed him while he was gone, because she asked for him a lot more than I would have thought. A few mornings ago when John rode away on his bike to work, Evelyn looked positively sad as she stood in her customary spot in the window to wave goodbye. The tides are shifting. I wonder if and when she'll go completely to the other side and favor her Papa over me, the way they say kids (girls?) do. But, we're not even close to that right now. I'm still Number 1 and am happy to stay that way.

Good times with Baby Boy in Grandpa's backyard

The star of her birthday party at Nana's house

Trying Times: The Terrible Twos (or, TTTTT)

Evelyn's almost two, and it seems like she's hitting all of her developmental milestones exactly on time. She's been working on her 2nd year molars all month, and I wouldn't be surprised if I finally feel that one tooth breaking through the gums tomorrow. (Yay -- no more teething after this round, I can't believe it!). She has truly hit her terrible twos, it seems right before we left on vacation. We'd been thinking all along that the "Terrible Twos" is a misnomer because she'd been defiant and stubborn and challenging for a while now, but now she's really kicked it up to the next level and I understand what the TTs is all about. She must do everything herself, in the way she wants to do it, right away, or there'd be repercussions. Serious repercussions. It's all about "E'elyn" now (how she says her name... kind of like "Ellen" but there's a silent V in there), as in "E'elyn do it!" "E'elyn have it! (Or "No have it!") "E'elyn try it!" "Mama, get it!" "E'elyn eat!! EAT!!" and so on.

It must be tough being a two-year old. There's so much more she can do now, like going up and down stairs practically unattended, feeding herself with a fork or spoon, running, jumping (off other things with actual height, which can be so nerve-wracking), doing somersaults, knowing a lot more about what she wants and doesn't want (she insisted tonight on having a hot dog for dinner. OK, just this once, but ONLY because we are on vacation, you got it?!). She's singing parts/most of a bunch of songs, like Itsy Bitsy Spider, The Wheels on the Bus, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, The Alphabet Song, My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean, and even the first line to Dream a Little Dream, a song that I'll often sing to her. And of course, the Happy Birthday song.

And she can communicate!! I've tried so hard to pay attention and capture how it is exactly that she's learning to talk, but it happens so quickly it's hard to remember what it was like just a couple of days ago. I remember first marveling at the fact that she was getting gerunds, not just simple verbs or nouns (for example, a couple of months ago, she spied me lying on the couch with my eyes closed, resting after a probably tiring day at work, and she whispered to Papa, "Mama sleeping"). Her vocabulary gets bigger every day, and she can name so many of the everyday objects around her (couch, TV, chair, table, dinner, water, oatmeal, egg, bread, airplane, bird, and on and on) and concepts (outside, sad, mad, surprised, hurt). But it really blows me away when she puts everything together into somewhat coherent sentences. Again I think back to a couple of months ago, when I took Evelyn to our bed for a Saturday morning sleep-in. After a little while, she popped up and saw her Baby lying in the hall, and said "Mama, get it. Baby. Get it." I could not believe my ears. And now she barks off commands like that all the time. Like, "Mama, sit up!" or simply "Mama, up! Mama, up!!" while bringing me my slippers (again, while I'm stalling for time in bed in the mornings). She repeats quite a lot, and says things like "I got it" or "Up we go" in the same sing-songy way I say it. She can repeat some pretty complicated sounding words (e.g. "satellite dish"). She is a little person!!

But there's still so much that she can't do (either very well or safely) and she just does not understand that she can't. And it is exactly this intersection of her assertion of independence and her still-heavy reliance on others where we find ourselves: this is the terrible twos. The more she thinks she can do something herself, the more it is sometimes necessary to step in and either help or stop her, and doing either just really ticks her off. She is impervious to reason and yet we still need to reason with her and explain why we do things and how things work and give her labels for her feelings (I can't count how many times I say "I know it's frustrating that you can't do X....) and alternatives for her to take. Parenting a two-year old is so much easier, and yet so much harder!

Which leads me to the last of my reasons for being happy to be on vacation in Massachusetts:

5) Evelyn's in a challenging time of her life right now, navigating her new abilities and many limitations, and I'm so grateful that the timing worked out perfectly that she is going through this now, while we're on vacation and I can be with her every day, all day, to help her understand her tough emotions and guide her while letting her figure things out for herself. It's really hard to know when to step in and when to back off, but I do know that Evelyn really needs me, needs us, to be around, especially now. I know it's not going to end when our vacation ends, and it kills me to think of us going back to work full time after this. My mom loves Evelyn and does her best with her, but she's of the old school, and is a Chinese Grandma through and through, and I don't think is able to understand the nuances of the parenting that we're trying to do with Evelyn. (Heck, do WE even know?! We're figuring this out as we go along. Our guiding principal is to do better than just "the best we can" -- a totally attainable goal right?)

When we get home, we need to seriously start making changes to our schedules. It's unacceptable how little we see Evelyn during the day - about an hour to 1.5 hours in the morning at most, then about the same in the evenings in our mad rush to get home, play quickly, and give Evelyn her dinner, bath, book, nursing, and bed. Then we have all sorts of time in the evening to veg out in front of the TV (or work, as has been the case lately). And yet both of our jobs are as flexible as you can hope for. We stick with our 9-5 schedules like we have no choice, but we haven't even tried to do anything creative in order to get more time in with Evelyn during the day. So we've been talking and will be talking and thinking some more, to come up with some creative ways to make to make it work. Maybe John will do four 10-hour days and take one day off. Maybe I can work a couple of extra long, 12-hour days and do half days the rest of the week. It sounds a little daunting, but the idea of this time of Evelyn's life passing so quickly will push us to try. Before we know it, she'll be starting preschool, then elementary school... these unstructured days, full of possibilities and ideas that I haven't been able to executive with Evelyn, are literally numbered. What are we waiting for?

Little Miss Birthday

Evelyn turns 2 years old tomorrow!! The Big 2. We're currently in Massachusetts, enjoying a visit with John's family and our friends in the summer for once. We didn't expect to be here at the beginning of the month, but somehow all of the stars aligned and here we are, at Nana's house, planning tomorrow's party.



I'm really excited to be here for a number of reasons (in no particular order):

1) Work has been a little too stressful for too long, and I realized that aside from a short and extremely exhausting trip to visit my Dad in Arizona in April, which I would hardly call a vacation between the bad sleep, extreme heat/constant air conditioning, and Evelyn being in Monkey-Overdrive mode, I haven't had a vacation all year.

2) Being here in the summertime gives us a chance to give Evelyn what she can't have at home in the city -- lots and lots of outdoor space to run around in (watch out for mosquitoes though!), sunshine, the sound of crickets, delicious corn and apples. And maybe most poignantly, a little taste of the endless summers of John's childhood. When you can just run around in the woods unattended all day long. Something that I never had growing up in San Francisco, and that Evelyn won't have either as long as we stay in the city. Yesterday we were at the Red Apple Farm and there were 2 kids riding around on dirt bikes all on their own. Driving down the road, two other little boys were walking in the opposite direction, baseball caps on and who knows what kind of mischief on their minds. Maybe it's a very idealized vision of "country living" but for some reason it's really appealing to me right now. Sometimes the city can be so tiring.

3) Paula and Rhea have been here all month, staying with Rhea's Grammy and Grandpa. We were sad to realize that they would have to miss Evelyn's birthday party at home, which happened to coincide with Paula's 20th high school reunion. But, like I said the stars aligned... I realized that if I didn't have a vacation soon, I'd fall apart at the seams. Paula's brother Scott was also flying out from Costa Rica for the last week of August. Bert was flying out on 8/20. John's family is all here and we see them only in the dead of winter (which I'll admit is quite beautiful here but I've never experienced a Massachusetts summer - see #2 above). And somehow or another, it eventually seemed crazy NOT to go to MA and celebrate Evelyn's birthday there. So while we were expecting to throw a big party (at home) on the 23rd, we're instead having a big party here in MA, with Evelyn's Nana & Grandpa Jim, Grandpa & Memere, Aunt Taryn & Uncle Chris and cousins Luke and Amelia, Paula, Rhea, Bert, Scotty, Grammy & Grandpa (Rhea's), Aunt Nellie, maybe Trent and maybe Great-Aunt Francine. Then when we get home, we'll have another party sometime in September with the SF family and friends. Evelyn's such a rock star, partying on both coasts for her birthday. But seriously... she is, and we are, so lucky to have this wealth of family and friends.

4) It is hot here! But not unpleasantly so! I was expecting heavy humidity and my clothes sticking to me, but it's actually been relatively dry, hot in the sun but pleasant in the shade, and just beautiful. I guess it had been raining for weeks before we arrived, and while I am grateful for the summer that has finally arrived here, I wouldn't mind seeing a thunder and lightning storm before we head home. Hopefully Evelyn won't mind either...

We just got here a couple of days ago and already it feels like our vacation is too short. We're at Nana and Grandpa Jim's for a few days, then heading over to Grandpa and Memere's for a few days, and then off to Grammy's and Grandpa's, our extended Pralinsky family, for the last few days and then we fly home. Somehow booking 10 days seemed like plenty of time, at the time.

I wish I could post pictures but I didn't think to bring the USB port for the camera, so I'll have to pummel the blog with MA pics when we get home. Along with videos that I took before the trip that I haven't had time to edit, including one of Evelyn singing, very fittingly, the Happy Birthday song. She's been doing it for a couple of weeks now and nowadays she's pretty much got it (the words anyway... she still sounds like a bad American Idol audition). We always start off singing it to her, and as soon as we sing "Happy Birthday to Evelyn..." she shoots off the name of the next person to sing to. Milo is usually at the top of the list, then by association, Ken, "Nomamie" (Naomi), then Rhea, Paula, etc... Or sometimes Mama, Papa, or Paw-Paw. Yesterday, she would sing it and then blow out pretend candles. She must be practicing for the big day.

8-8-08

With the Summer Olympics starting today, Evelyn has become inspired to start her gymnastics training. First we have her tumbling floor routine that she's been developing this week, without any coaching at all:



She's also been practicing for when she finally gets on those uneven bars:

What part of "No" don't you understand?

Of the many new words that Evelyn has learned and uses, "No" has got to be in her Top 5. Maybe Top 3. And she uses it in a wide range of situations... for example:

"No eat!" (or one time, "No hungy!")

"No bathtime!"

"No pee pee!!" (in response to my telling her that I am going to go pee pee before I read her a book)

"No sit!" (refusing to sit in her highchair)

"No di di!!" (refusing a diaper change)

My personal favorite was when she whispered "Byyyee.... No night night....." while shaking her head and grinning as she slid down the side of our bed one afternoon.

And sometimes, there's nothing like the general, all purpose "NOOOOOO!!!"

She applies this approach to getting dressed sometimes, too. Usually, when she refuses to let me put a shirt on her, all it takes is offering her a choice between that shirt and another one, and she'll happily choose and let me continue dressing her. One time though, she would not budge. I tried appealing to her emerging girly-girl side (where she likes to put on something cute, run to the mirror, and exclaim "Oh! Pretty!!"). So after a rigorous bout of "No"s from Evelyn, I pulled out a shirt with flowers on it and said, "Look, how pretty! Do you want to try it?" and she shook her head vehemently and sobbed "NO PRETTY!!!!"

The worst, though, is when we get ready for work in the mornings. Evelyn has been saying "Papa work. Mama work" in the mornings, and then as evening approaches, before we get home, she says "Papa home. Mama home." You think that's sad enough? Lately, as we bustle around getting ready to go, she'll say "Mama work" and I'll say "Yes, Mama is going to work today" and she'll say "No work!!!"

This morning, I was all dressed and ready to go (and already late for a meeting). Evelyn started looking for ways to delay me, and ran to the couch with book in hand yelling "Mama sit! Mama boot! (book)" So I sat down and said, "OK, let's read this book and then Mama's going to work." So she nestled close to me, thumb in mouth, and we read for a little while (she's into pretty long books these days, like The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham). Halfway through the book, I gave her a big squeeze and kissed her on the head. As if suddenly remembering something, she pulled away from me, turned to face me, and started shaking her head. After a few seconds of continued shaking, I stopped reading and said "What's the matter, honey?" She quietly replied, "No work."

Heartbreak.

All Quiet on the Western Front

So we went to our friends Matthew and Wolfgang's house in Monte Rio this past weekend for a couple of days. We got there on Saturday afternoon. This is only the second time going there since Evelyn's birth nearly 2 years ago. We used to go often.

Evelyn really seems to like it up there.She's got much more freedom than she does in SF since the humongous backyard is all fenced in from the street. It's very satisfying to let Evelyn run around nearly unattended. It reminds me of when I was a kid and most of what I remember about playing NEVER-EVER involved our parents! Unfortunately when kids play outside in SF, it's under their parents ever watchful Sauron-like eye(s). Even in playgrounds! Oh well... I'm sure there'll be benefits to growing up here that I can't imagine which will outweigh the costs.

Bedtime Saturday night was particularly tough for poor ol' Evelyn.Hai-Nhu'd spent more time than usual trying to get her to sleep, and ended up having to pry her out of her arms to get her into the pack-n-play. Evelyn was crying and crying! Hai-Nhu was upset. I with my usual cold exterior trying to pretend everything was OK was trying to stop Hai-Nhu from crying herself. Finally Hai-Nhu couldn't stand it and went back in for a while. I don't think it helped.... much. Many minutes later, Hai-Nhu came out of the room and Evelyn was still quite upset! She quieted down shortly after that thankfully (for Hai-Nhu).

This is where the 10PM fireworks come in. In Monte Rio, they set them off about 500 yards or so away from Matthew's house in the river. They WERE amazing alright. Amazing and really freaking LOUD!

So we're outside digging a trench and getting ready to face the Germans with Ernest Borgnine and John Boy, while the Monte Rio artillery division (a.k.a. the Monte Rio volunteer FIRE DEPARTMENT!) mortar shells are going off above Matthew's house.

Hai-Nhu's very nervous about Evelyn waking up. I have my usual uncaring cold exterior on again... trying to reassure Hai-Nhu with complacency. This time however I feel quite bad for Evelyn... and really don't enjoy the fireworks at all. STUPID PARENTAL EMPATHY! Ah for the days of only caring about myself.

The celebrations didn't stop when the Monte Rio fireworks stopped. There were explosions going until early Sunday morning, 4AM or so is my guess. Through all of this Evelyn slept. At least we think so. Maybe she was in her crib paralized with fear. Only Evelyn will be able to tell us (Evelyn?). She slept through the night. It's not unusual for her to wake up when we're not sleeping at home. Maybe she was an infantry solder in her last life?

The next morning she woke up at 5:30 which isn't uncommon. By 6 it was clear that she was UP and didn't want to stay in bed with us. I got up with her to let Hai-Nhu sleep in. Evelyn and I hung out with Matthew and did some exploring of the back yard and the tennis courts across the street. As we shuffled through the exploded ordinances of freedom debris, there was a post climactic calm in the air.

We headed back to Matthew's around 8 to eat. I started making oatmeal in the kitchen chatting with Matthew and giving rasins to Evelyn (which for some reason she calls "¡EEEYAHHH!"). At one point Evelyn trips clumsily over my foot and is splayed dramatically across the kitchen floor. The look on her face is one of, "hmmm... should I make a big deal out of this or not?". I calmly tell her to get up and get some more ¡EEEYYAHHHH! and she ignores me. So... I ignore her! I continue talking to Matthew and then he heads outside for a while. I'm waiting for the oatmeal and Evelyn is still on the floor, now picking at some debris that's stuck to it. I'm slightly worried she might eat it... but not enough to say anything.

Matthew comes back in eventually and she's STILL on the floor. He thinks that she's starting to fall asleep. I'm inclined to agree with him at this point, as strange as it seems. Within minutes she's breathing heavy, face in hands... and now SNORING!

Evelyn catching some Z's on the kitchen floor, red thigh-high boots and all.

Nellie comes into the kitchen now and looks down at Evelyn. So I say, "Don't worry Nellie, she just tripped over my foot and fell asleep!". Nellie's like, "YOU SURE SHE'S OK!?". I realize that my story sounds a bit... bad... and I explain to her what happened, "she's fine, she's really just asleep!". Eventually everyone was up. Keeeth, Nellie, Matthew, Hai-Nhu, and I all stood in the kitchen laughing at poor ol' Evelyn sleeping on the floor and drinking coffee.

She slept for an hour.

La Petite Baleen

Every Thursday morning, John takes Evelyn to her 8:45am class at La Petite Baleen. I can't believe she's already had a month's worth of lessons. I went to her first class and was blown away by the facilities -- from the gorgeous setting of Crissy Field, near the Warming Hut and the beach with Golden Gate Bridge as the backdrop, to the miles of new changing tables in the pristine changing rooms. And let's face it, that cute little whale slide had me at hello.

Evelyn had a pretty good time on her first day, smiling and laughing and going along with the activities with a pretty open mind. They put on flippers, sang songs, swam through tunnels, practiced climbing out of the pool (or at least, learned about the concept, with lots of parental help), and learned how to walk their hands along the wall to get around the perimeter of the pool. The only thing I remember her not liking was lying on her back in the water.











I missed her next two lessons because of work, and was finally able to go last Thursday. In such a short time, she's become so much more comfortable in the water. First off, she's willing to keep goggles on the entire time, which is just about the most hilarious thing. And instead of being coaxed into "jumping" (i.e. being lifted by Papa) off the edge of the pool and into the water, she's jumping in herself without hesitation, and doesn't mind it when her face and head go under water.



One of my favorite activities of the class, and definitely one of Evelyn's, is where they set up a floaty thing as a sort of walkway and have the kids run off it and into the water:



And that whale slide... On the first day, I looked at that and thought, Wow, Evelyn's going to go down that slide one day. Maybe upon graduation or something. How naive of me.



What more can I say? I am just loving this swim class.

Then and now, Part 2

Well, any good clip show has 2 parts, right? That'll be my excuse for forgetting another set of pictures I was going to include in my last posting. I swear, I can only hold 2 things in my head at one time these days. A 3rd set of pictures popped into my head at the last minute, and I could not remember one of the two I already had in mind...

So here they are. These are pictures I took of portraits of Evelyn that John had taken, for Mother's Day last year and this year. He couldn't have come up with a better gift. Last year, he came home at lunchtime while I was at work, took Evelyn (forgoing her nap!), dressed her up in an outfit of his own choosing, and swept her away to the magical world of the Sears portrait studio. It all would have been the biggest surprise ever if my mom had been able to keep the secret. She was just bursting at the seams when I got home and let slip that John dressed Evelyn up and took her out earlier. (Hmph). But still, I had no idea what he was really up to til he presented me with this:



And a little less surprising this year, but not any less special, was my 2nd Mother's Day portrait of my favorite little person:



What a difference a year makes! These are the best gifts ever from the best husband ever...

Every now and then, it's time to look at the then and now

Has it really been over 1 month since my last posting?! Could this be the longest I've neglected the blog? Thank goodness I don't make a living from blogging -- I'd have lost my entire readership by now (or maybe I have anyway!). Yeah, phew, thank goodness I don't make money writing about how cute and funny my child is, geez how awful that would be...

So, what does a writer do when she's short on time and creative energy (that being totally sapped by work)? I'll do what TV writers do -- have a clip show! A retrospective.

I've noticed some funny parallels in the pictures I've taken in the 21 months since Evelyn was born, and now's a good a time as any to do the compare and contrast...

In the photo on the left, Evelyn was just 3 days old! She was 8lbs, 5oz at birth and never really looked like a wrinkly newborn. You can see the yellow tinge of her skin, and if you could zoom in, you'd see the yellow in the whites of her eyes -- her jaundice had moved in and gotten comfortable, and we would remain prisoners of it and the hospital for another 3 days. My recollection is that we took this picture in the middle of the night - all was quiet on the hospital floor except the humming of Evelyn's incubator in our room and our own strung out nerves.



The picture on the right is in a nearly identical room in the same hospital where we had Evelyn - St. Luke's -- 3.5 months later. This was in Paula and Rhea's recovery room the day after Rhea was born. Evelyn was a whopping 18 or 19lbs. See how much more relaxed John looks? (though I think it was still all a facade at that point...) It was super hot in the room, so Evelyn was just in her diaper, and only after did I notice these mirror images.

Ah... swim class. In the picture on the left, Evelyn was 14 months old and it was the first day of swim class at the Janet Pomeroy Center. She gazed in wonder at what that giant blue area might be. The picture on the right was taken about 2 weeks ago, at 21 months, on Evelyn's first day at La Petite Baleen -- a swim school for babies, toddlers and young kids that exceeded my wildest expectations and hopes for a swim class.

Words cannot describe how excited I was on the first day of class as they went through 30 minutes full of activities that were not only fun and well-organized but that would really help develop skills in the water. Having no fear of water is such a gift and luckily, Evelyn probably won't ever realize it!

So you think you can dance?

This is from the beginning of our current heat wave... it's been so hot the last couple of days, that Evelyn's just running around the house naked, and she STILL feels too hot.

I actually have a completely hilarious video of Evelyn dancing completely in the nude (for obvious reasons, I'm not posting it, but maybe we'll have a screening of it for Evelyn's 16th birthday. So just stick around -- it'll be worth it!). I forget that Evelyn moves completely differently when she has no clothes on...

Pee pee in the potty!!

We've just had a monumental event -- Evelyn went pee in the potty tonight for the first time!! If you're wondering how excited we were, just imagine John and me doing a conga line around the house chanting "Pee pee in the pot-TEE! Pee pee in the pot-TEE!..."

For months now, we've had Evelyn's little pink Baby Bjorn potty in the bathroom under the sink, collecting dust. She has a tendency to pee right around bathtime, be it in her diaper, on the floor, or right in the bath. So we figure, OK, we'll break this thing out every night so she gets the idea and we won't pressure her and we'll see what she does. We knew that she understood what we meant when we said "pee pee" and she often made the "Sssssss" sound in response.

Once, back in December, when I was waiting for her to pee at the doctor's office so they could get a urine sample (she had a high fever that turned out to be roseola), I could not get her to drink anything. Desperate to get out of there, I finally said "Evelyn, do you want to go pee pee?" She responded by saying "Ssssssss" and lo and behold, the little clear plastic bag hanging out of her diaper filled with fluid. I thought, OK, this is going to be easy!

Not so much. She refused to sit on the potty. She'd look semi-interested and would lower herself almost to the point of sitting, and then stand right up, shaking her head and saying "Nooooo?" There was plenty of peeing in front of the potty, but not quite in the potty.

Then last week, we were in her room looking through one of her Baby Sign books (which she has loved for as long as she's enjoyed books) and came across a picture of a girl sitting on a potty. She said "Try it?" and I said, "Really? Try the potty? OK... " (skeptically, I might add.) She led the way into the bathroom and I took her pants and diaper off, and she sat right down! Then she looked through her book again and found the girl on the potty, pointed to it and said "Try it?"

Try it? You bet your ass you can try it!

She didn't pee in the potty that day (and in fact peed in front of it again, looking down at the dribbling puddle at her feet and saying "uh oh...") but I was revitalized with hope that we'd get this potty training going. The next day, whenever we were in the bathroom, she'd say "Try it?" and we'd try, and sit there and read her book. Yesterday, she refused to sit until we located the book, which my mom had so recklessly removed from the potty area! And today, at last, she did it! And I missed it! I was getting her clothes out while John drew the bath, and I heard him call out excitedly "She's going pee in the potty!" Never have I heard sweeter words...

Papa and Evelyn in conversation

In the bath one night, while Evelyn was playing with an empty soap bottle:

Evelyn: Bah-dul
Papa: BOTT-le
Evelyn: Bah-Lo
Papa: BOT-tle
Evelyn: Bah-Po
Papa: BAHT-TLE
Evelyn: No more!

"Just because you can reach it doesn't mean it's a good idea"

Advice that I overhead Papa giving Evelyn the other day. And he said it so earnestly too, that I just couldn't help but laugh...

Another tidbit of wisdom from Papa: "Just eat it, don't squeeze it."

Where has the time, and my chubby little baby, gone? I can't believe I completely skipped over the entire month of April in this blog! Back then, I got cheap thrills by getting my baby to say my name. Now, she blows me away with new words that she picks up every day. On Sunday, after John made chicken stock AND oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from scratch (yes, he is the best husband ever), Evelyn said "Tong tong!" (Chinese for soup). By now, I'm actually only mildly surprised when she breaks out with new words like that. I know my mom often gives her soup and of course narrates the whole soup eating affair for her. It's another one of those things where I'd tell my mom about it, and she'd say "Oh yeah, she's been saying that all week!" (Ahem, this is one of those things she should be telling me when I come home from work and ask "How was Evelyn today?" -- am I right?!).

To the cookies, Evelyn exclaimed "Bite? Bite?" (And yes, it's official, we are letting her have sweets, so she had several bites. I think her first sanctioned sweet was Rhea's birthday cake in fact - another delicious John creation.)

Now this long and lean little girl is making up new dance moves, running laps around the house, and showing off her newest trick of a few weeks now -- jumping! (video of that later...)

Here's a video of Evelyn and Milo showing off their moves on West Portal almost a month ago:



Here's another one of Evelyn dancing, to James Brown of course, from around the same time. Now when she hears the song, she sings along to the chorus, "Be be Be be Be be..."



Here's a video from a few days ago. I particularly love Evelyn's WWF-style body slam of Baby towards the end of Ring Around the Rosy. We caved and bought a Flip video camera recently, and she cannot just let me tape her. The second I break it out, she comes right over saying "Cam-ah! Cam-ah!" Just like how she says "Peek-ah!" (picture) whenever she see John's iPhone...

Hummus and Milo

Evelyn continues to chatter away at home, saying more and more real words (mostly Chinese words!) and words of her own special creation. There is one particular and long combination of sounds starting with "Ma!" and a pause, followed by a crazy sound that she makes with her tongue and then a few more syllables. She repeats it often and at random (as far as we can tell) and we still can't figure out what it means.

I call my mom "Ma" (in the Cantonese way, not the Italian mobster guy way, just so you know...) and often I kind of yell it to get her attention. Now, Evelyn sometimes says "Ma!" either to me or to my mom. Today while working at home, I could hear Evelyn yelling "Ma! Ma!" across the house and my mom saying "No, call me Paw Paw." (I'm still trying to figure out how to spell Grandmother in Cantonese phonetically! Paw Paw is probably more accurate than Po Po.)

Of course, once we're around a bunch of people or if I'm trying to get her to say something on cue, she completely shuts up and just stares at you like you just sprouted a second head. So I decided to take some video of her saying a few funny things... humma (for hummus), Milo (who we just saw on Easter Sunday), and what else, my name! She hasn't said it in a while but clearly she still remembers.






Other Evelyn news... before I forget her growth stats from her 18 month checkup (which was a month ago!), she was 28lbs, 8oz (90th percentile in weight), and 33.5 inches tall (80th percentile in height). She is over half my height already, so she is surely going to tower over me at some early point in her youth. As it is, when I hold her and she wants to snuggle and rest her head on my shoulder, she has to scrunch down a bit, like the tall girl during a middle school slow dance.

The picture on the left is from Christmas in Massachusetts (obviously) and the picture on the right is from last Thursday. The pants she's wearing on the right were a Christmas gift from Grammy - they were long at the time but are already too short for her!

Say what?!

Evelyn has learned how to say my name! No, not Mama. She's saying Hai Nhu. She's been such a chatterbox lately, chatting away at the lights and her books, launching into big long monologues at Peets, pointing emphatically and punctuating with multiple exclamation marks. I can't even imagine what she has to say so much about!

She's also been mimicking a lot, so for fun, John started to say my name yesterday. Almost right away, she caught on, saying "Hi Nooo." "Hi Noooo!" At first she only did it when we said it, but today she's just saying it on her own. This morning she was wandering around, chanting "Hi Nooo! Hi Nooo!"

It's so hilarious, and somehow a little heartbreaking... I know that sounds crazy, but there's something about hearing my little girl sounding out my real name, instead of Mama...

She also said "Jah!" for John, but for whatever reason she isn't as tickled with it. She says "di di" for diaper, cha dai (for sit down), and we think she says "there!" when she's jabbing the center of her high chair tray as we get her food ready. It seems like she's learning English and Chinese at about the same rate. I can't believe she is really going to start talking soon, like really talking! I should probably enjoy the relative quiet now.

Mothering the mother

I have come down with a flu of seemingly epic proportions. Alternating between chills and boiling hot temperatures, my skin literally hurts. This is the kind of flu where you just want to chug a hot mug of Theraflu and pass in and out of consciousness all day on the couch and watch bad daytime television.

But, I can't. Not the way I'd like to, because Evelyn's here and won't leave me alone. Friday I stayed home from work and managed to have a fitful nap while my mom took Evelyn out for a walk, during which time they visited a friend and Evelyn had a little catnap. That afternoon, Evelyn took a very unusual second nap with me. In retrospect, that probably wasn't the best idea but it was so comforting to have her with me. To help her fall asleep, I recited some of her favorite books that I've committed to memory... Goodnight Moon, of course, and a few really sweet books by Mem Fox, like Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge and Whoever You Are.

Evelyn's become such a book lover, more than ever. I've always read books to her, right from the beginning, and she's always enjoyed them, but now she has a newfound appreciation of them -- she's actually beginning to understand them. Funny how that makes reading so much more fun, for both her and me. She's mostly moved past board books, preferring the bigger books with regular pages. Reading books is now interactive -- she anticipates certain parts and excitedly points out and names things as we go. One of her latest favorites, Whoever You Are, is about how there are all different kinds of people in the world but that deep down we're all alike. There's a line that says "They smile like you, and they laugh like you too" and she always throws back her head and yells "ha ha!"

Which reminds me of a video John took about a month ago:


Evelyn loves the How Do Dinosaurs... series (so far, we have How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? and How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon?). Friday morning, lying on the floor in Evelyn's room at 7am and feeling sorry for myself, I mumbled to Evelyn, "Mama needs to get well soon." Evelyn promptly extricated herself from me, went to the stack of books on her toy chest, rifled through them and came back with How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon?. So maybe I can't be mothered the way I'd like to while I'm sick like this, but I can't think of a nicer thing that anyone can do for me.

A great set of lines from that book is:

Does he push back each drink,
Spit his pills in the sink,
Does he make a big stink?
Is that what you think?
No...

Evelyn jumps in at exactly the right time to say "Nooooo!" with me. She even did it when I was explaining to John what she did and recited those lines to him.

So obviously, "no" is one of her new words. She's also saying "hum" or "humma" for hummus, mo mo (Chinese for hat), purple, and my personal favorite, mao mo (Chinese for cat fur). Last week she started blowing at a tiny bit of cat fur, then she pointed at it and quietly declared "Mao mo." It's not too surprising really - my mom probably curses the existence of mao mo all over the house all day long.

Anyway, as this Mama tries to get well soon, I'll just continue drawing from the theurapeutic benefits of simply being with my hilarious, animated, happy little baby girl.

Dance machine

If there's one thing that Evelyn loves, it's music and dancing to music. OK, two things. She can be in the crabbiest trantrumiest mood, but the second we put on one of her favorite tunes, she immediately stops what she's doing and starts bobbing and bouncing.

Generally she likes the music we listen to, especially anything with a good beat, preferring it over the few kids' songs that we've played for her. One of her absolute favorites has to be a song by Peter Bjorn and John called Paris 2004. The second this song comes on, all is right in Evelyn's world. Years from now, hearing that opening beat will forever bring me back to this time. I wonder if it'll do the same for her in some way?

James Brown is a huge favorite for her. Evelyn can be in the other end of the house, but if we put on Sex Machine, she'll come running into the kitchen and start getting down. Kind of like this (with New Order):



Her dancing is irresistible, and soon after she starts, she's got everyone in the room dancing... Mama, Papa, Po Po, and when she's there, Jennifer. She doesn't even let Baby sit still for too long! Here, Evelyn's administering a little bit of Shaken Baby Syndrome:



And let's not forget Evelyn's jazz hands...

Eighteen months

Evelyn is 18 months old now, as of yesterday! I can officially say she's a year and a half old. She's becoming such a kid, such a lovely girl, and getting to be less and less of a baby. Already I'm mourning those baby days!


She seems to be in a transition period right now, crossing and recrossing the boundary between baby and kid multiple times a day. I guess that's toddlerhood in a nutshell. She understands more than we realize and can communicate fairly well between her mix of English words, Chinese words, and signs (and plenty of intuitive mind-reading and lucky guessing on my part). But she throws herself face down on the floor when she doesn't get what she wants, kicking and crying and getting up and throwing herself down again a few feet away. She has learned how to use her little spoon and fork to feed herself, doing a fairly good job of scooping up food with her utensil and guiding it to her mouth in one piece (usually sideways or upside down). But she still puts her utensil aside mid-meal to shovel food in with her hands, and still occasionally throws some on the floor, fully knowing that she shouldn't.

As always, Evelyn can be the funniest kid, with her ever growing range of expressions and mannerisms... her Evelynisms. She screams "Mao Mao!" (Chinese for cat) at the top of her lungs when she sees Puddin, and tries her best to hug and pick her up, attempts that invariably end with Puddin running away. She loves shoes, and I mean loves them. Not known for her patience, she can sit quietly while I lace up a pair of Converses on her or try to shove a pair of boots on right, and will entertain herself endlessly in the kids' shoe section at Marshalls, trying on pair after pair with help from Papa while Mama does some much needed shopping for herself. But, I digress. My point is, she loves any footwear, even of the animal variety.


These times are punctuated by periods of crabbiness and temper tantrums. Evelyn can definitely have a short fuse -- we've seen her temper flare up plenty of times, and sometimes at the slightest provocation. This is especially true when she's teething, and you can imagine what a bear she's been lately with her first canine(s) on the way (she has 12 teeth so far, including 4 molars, and has been working on those eye teeth for weeks it seems).



Evelyn is doing such kid-like things lately. We're starting to see her imagination emerge, as she pretends to do things, such as eating or putting lotion on her hands. From bottles, tables, bath water, whatever, she plucks imaginary food and plops it in her mouth repeatedly in rapid succession. And she's not greedy -- she insists on offering us food, of both the real and imagined variety, and sometimes she doesn't take no for an answer.

She's learning new words steadily - every few days, it seems, I notice her using a new word. In English, she says bottle, apple (improved from the previous "app," though "apple" still refers to most fruit in general), hot, night night, ball, book, hi, bye bye, baby, bubble, ouch... probably some others I can't think of now, and of course Mama, Papa, and "uh oh." In Chinese, she says "dung dung" (light), "nai nai" (milk), "Po Po" (my mom), "Mao Mao," "hai hai" (shoes, of course!), and again, probably more that I can't think of. I'm sure there are plenty of made-up words as she babbles with such intention and conviction, but I know of one -- her word for "bath." She says "Da!" while simultaneously raising her right hand like she's taking an oath. Who knows where that came from. She has lots of sounds to signify things, like revving sounds for cars and airplanes, grunting "oh oh oh" for dog, and saying "Bah! ba ba ba ba" for chicken (as in Bock! bock bock bock bock). And she has said her first phrases (yelling "Mao Mao bye!" and signing "more please").

There's so much more to say but it is time for me to go to bed! Work's been insane and sleep has been short (with Evelyn waking up around 6:12am every single day and me going to bed way too late). So I'll have to end this posting with a few of my absolute most favorite bathtime pictures of late.