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.