Minutiae

In the mornings, when Evelyn is first "released" from her bedroom into the rest of the house, she goes bellowing down the hall into the living room. We call it her war cry.

Last Sunday afternoon, exhausted from an early start and a long day at yet another 1st birthday party, John and I collapsed into a brief sleep on the rug in Evelyn's room while she played by herself, walking back and forth around and between us. I woke up to find the drawers opened and emptied, the floor covered with blankets, crib sheets, washcloths, and bibs. Evelyn looked very pleased.

On a recent night, I did the bedtime routine solo. John, who usually dresses her after the bath, had to work late. Freshly bathed and dressed, she looked at me with wide eyes and said "Pa" in the soft whispery way that she says his name. (It used to be "Bop!" - yes, with the exclamation point.)

Sometimes when Evelyn's just walking around, I start pretending to chase her, chanting, "I'm gonna get you... I'm gonna get you..." She gets really excited, starts to giggle, picks up speed, and then suddenly flops down onto the floor, belly and face down, like she's totally given up. If she's holding anything in her hands, she'll chuck them like she's getting rid of all excess weight.

When we're out grocery shopping, Evelyn sits in the cart and tries her best to win over the other shoppers. She watches unsuspecting passersby and when they get near enough, she turns on the Evelyn charm. Basically, she opens her mouth as wide as possible in a look of uncontained excitement and reaches out a hand, sometimes waving. It's always disappointing, for both of us, when people walk right by without noticing. Conversely, when people stop to try to get her attention, she just stares at them blankly. I guess she likes the thrill of the chase.

When Evelyn wakes up in the morning, John goes into her room first to change her diaper while I drag myself out of bed and brush my teeth. When I enter her room, I usually find the two of them watching the door expectantly. Evelyn gets very excited and calls me "Ball." Funny, she only calls me this in the mornings.

But I really can't fault her because the way she says it is too cute:

Music appreciation

Almost every weekend, we walk to West Portal and do the following:

• Sit in front of Peet's to have our coffee/tea and sometimes bagels from Noah's.
• Walk to the bookstore where Evelyn heads straight to the baby/kid section, with its carpeted bench, toys, and other babies and kids (and books!).
• Visit Ambassador Toys, where John, carrying Evelyn in the backpack, gets giggles out of her by playing with the various puppets and different variations of jack-in-a-box.

Jennifer (aka Evelyn's biggest fan) is occasionally with us on these excursions and, being the honorary aunt that she is, she got a beautiful snowy owl puppet and a jack-in-a-box for Evelyn for her birthday. Here, Evelyn's showing a more subtle appreciation of the latter.



(She has not moved like this before or since this single time that I happened to catch on video.)

Thanks Jennifer!

Pitter patter

I'm at home today, working in the "office" downstairs, and realized that there's a new sound coming from upstairs. It's the sound of Evelyn walking around the house! Funny how the pitter patter of little feet can make your heart go pitter patter.

Look who's walking

I am really swamped at work (still!) and both Evelyn and I have been suffering from a cold for the last week. But I can't let another day go by without at least posting some videos of our girl walking! Actually, truly walking.

She started on her birthday, on the 23rd. Leading up to this day, she'd been standing on her own for longer periods, taken tiny steps here and there, and taken 2-3 clumsy steps between me and John. That's what she was doing here, until she decided it was time to venture out on her own path:



(You can ignore the high-pitched squealing from me :) I just couldn't contain my excitement.)

In just the span of a week, walking got easier and easier for her. Already, she's lost that look of astonished happiness at her new mode of locomotion. Here she is about 1 week after she started walking:



She was kind of waddling and swaying as she walked, with arms out in front of her, like a drunken Frankenstein. The drunken aspect of her walking is mostly gone now, and she is managing to pivot and side-step in addition to just going forward. In fact, lately she's been pivoting and pacing back and forth, sometimes going in a small tight circle. This past weekend, she was doing that around a prone John -- she was just pacing around him and cracking up every time she caught sight of him lying face down on the rug.

Now, almost 2 weeks after she started, she's already begun to prefer walking to crawling. At first, she walked til she fell, then crawled from there. Now, she tends to get back up after falling and continues on her way on foot. And she is getting plenty of bumps and scrapes along the way (a couple of pretty nasty ones too, including a spectacular face plant on her chin which I thankfully did not personally witness).

Happy Birthday Evelyn!

Happy 1st Birthday, Evelyn! We made it through the first year! I have to admit there were times when John and I both seriously doubted we'd see this day in one piece.


It's funny how her first birthday really does feel special, not just your average run of the mill day, even as we go about our normal routine. It feels like the events of the past year, big and small, daunting and easy, have all been running their course and are culminating in this one point in time, and now we can take a moment to just be still and take stock of all that's happened. As John put it, Evelyn's birth day feels like it was just yesterday, and it also feels like it was 10 years ago. We have been through so much, and yet it's just the tip of the iceberg.
I don't think either of us was fully prepared to become a parent, or even had a single clue about what that really meant. While I absolutely loved being pregnant, and even have only the fondest of memories of labor (thanks to those memory-erasing hormones!), I was (we were) completely unprepared for what came next. And boy did we find out.

But I guess those memory-erasing hormones last quite a while, because the long sleepless nights, the endless diaper explosions, the fear, the doubt, the panic... they are all but a distant memory. What stands out to me are:

• The early morning light in the hospital room right after Evelyn was born (at 8:42am). I had labored through the night and all was dark and peaceful, and when Evelyn was born, it was as if I were opening my eyes for the first time. Blinking in that grey light, nursing Evelyn for the first time, I watched the hustle and bustle around me suddenly come into sharp focus -- John, who hadn't left my side for even a single second all night, finally sitting down and looking happy and shocked. Paula (pregnant and exhausted, having been with us throughout labor) stalling my aunt and uncle who were anxiously waiting outside, to give me a little more time.
• Watching with amazement as my little girl grew, and grew, and grew... she was a chunky little Buddha baby whose chubby cheeks and perpetually surprised expression drew attention everywhere we went.
• The shock and surprising sadness when I held Evelyn one day and realized that her torso was no longer the solidly squishy ball of fat it once was, and I could actually feel her ribs! She lengthened as she slimmed, and suddenly I saw a little girl emerging from the folds.
  

And now of course, we have this beautiful, blossoming one year old girl (a toddler I guess!), who makes us laugh every day and also continues to surprise us every day. For instance, on the very day of her birthday, she took her first extended walk across half the living room! Unbelievable timing. (video pending)

While I once questioned whether I'd be a good mom, now I know that I am, no matter how much time I have to be away from her during the day or how little I know about child development -- I am learning, and I won't let her down. John is learning too, and has a special connection with Evelyn that even I don't have. She has this special level of excitement that she reserves only for him, and sometimes literally screams with joy when he comes home from work.

We're growing into the roles we have laid out for us, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

Class of 2006

This past Sunday, we had our 3rd Bradley class reunion, and it is really amazing to see how much all of the babies have grown in the past year. There is nothing like a growing child to really make you feel the passage of time.

The babies are now between 10 and 14 months old, with Evelyn just about in the middle, though she is probably the biggest and tallest of the bunch. It was with a touch of sadness when I realized that we have moved beyond the cute baby lineups on the couches, where they all slumped together and depended on each other's squishy bodies to keep themselves upright. This time, between all 6 cameras going at once (with one family missing), I think probably someone out there got a good picture of all the kids before they quickly scattered. I wonder how the next reunion pictures will look?!

We had these reunions when Evelyn was:

• 3.5 months old -- she is missing from the first picture because we were all at the hospital waiting to meet Rhea!
• 7 months old -- battered by babies on all sides, feverish with a cold, and just reunited with her Mama who just returned from her last-minute trip to New York... yes I am still feeling guilty about that.
  
• 4 days shy of 1 year old!

About halfway through the reunion, as the room got more crowded with arriving parents and babies, Evelyn started to get really fussy and clingy. She's got 5 teeth out now, with 3 more simultaneously on their way, and has definitely been a bit out of sorts lately because of it. She had a great time early on, when there were fewer babies and parents to contend with, but I think she was starting to get a little overwhelmed and overstimulated towards the end. Eventually she found her way to the baby's room and was happily playing with a box of toys in there by herself, away from the crowded living room.

Though I know that this is totally normal, I wonder if she'd be more comfortable in a roomful of strangers if I took her out more on playdates and things like that. Yes, this is mommy guilt rearing its ugly head again, as I tell myself that if I were home more, and took her out more, she'd be better equipped to handle all of life's challenges! When all it is is probably her teething discomfort exacerbated by an understandably overwhelming environment. After all, both John and I found the gathering totally exhausting, as introverts tend to do, even though we had fun.

Evelyn's big birthday party is this Saturday (and it is definitely getting big by the looks of the evite so far), and I wonder if it will be the worst possible way for Evelyn to celebrate her birthday. Hopefully she won't burst into tears when we all sing Happy Birthday to her!

Who's that girl?

What I lack in quality entries, I make up in quantity. Here's another pseudo blog entry. This video was taken just today of Evelyn discovering herself in the mirror. It's jam-packed with lots of Evelynisms - it's like condensing the entire Evelyn experience into a minute or so. Well, almost.