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.