And Our Second Attempt Is Over

We let Crawley go this morning. He did not eat any of the leaves we gave him and was looking a little sad in his jar. Evan was against the idea at first, but we explained that Crawley wasn't happy in the jar and that we couldn't find the right food for him. So we walked back to the neighbor's house and placed Crawley on a leafy bush. Evan said good bye and we left - very anticlimactic.

Our Second Attempt at Keeping a Caterpillar

Many months ago we found a caterpillar scaling our sliding door, so we bottled him up and tried to keep him to show Evan the cocoon and hopefully a beautiful butterfly. Well, I got too anal and cleaned his bottle too much - there was poop everywhere; it looked nasty. But I think it stressed him out and he ended up dying.

Today we were at our neighbor's house and we came across another caterpillar. This is one of those super hairy ones. Our last one was pretty nondescript. You could almost mistake it for a worm, it was so plain. But this new caterpillar is quite the sight. Our neighbor and Evan decided to name him "Crawley" and we brought him home and made him a little house in a jar. We got a few kinds of leaves cause we don't know what he likes to eat, and hopefully we have better results this time around. I will resist the urge to clean... Ok, I'll TRY and resist the urge to clean.

So here's Evan with his new buddy, Crawley. We read books about caterpillars at naptime today: The Very Hungry Caterpillar and How Spider Saved Valentine's Day.

The Staller is Back

I forgot how creative Evan can be to stall at bedtime cause he's been pretty good about falling asleep on his own. Tonight's episode was too funny.

After putting him down, Evan called out to me saying, "Momma Momma Momma Momma Momma!" I went in to check on him and found him sitting up in bed.

He pointed to his nose and asked, "Where is it?"

Momma: "Huh? Where's what?"

Evan: "My nose. Where is it?"

Momma: "It's right there. You're touching it. Go to sleep."

Evan: "But where's my other nose?"

Momma: "You mean your nostrils? The holes?"

Evan: "Yeah, the holes. Where is it?"

I point to his other nostril. "There, it's right there."

Evan: "I need to go check it in the mirror."

Momma: "Are you serious? You're going to look in the mirror?"

Evan gets out of bed and walks away. I hand him a mirror and turn on the light.

Momma: "See, it's right there. One, two. Two nostrils. Now go to bed."

Evan's First Joke

Yesterday I think Evan made up his first joke. It went something like this:

We were dropping books off at the library. I ran out and tried to put the books in the slot. It was broken, so I ended up taking it inside. Evan and Pops were watching me and I dashed back in the car (as fast as a preggo can dash.)

When I got back to the car, Evan said, "It was jammed." Yup, the book return was jammed.

Alluding to PB&J, Evan then said, "Was it peanut-jammed or butter-jammed? Ha ha ha ha!!!"

Roofer Man Part II

The roofers came and went last week. We were very impressed with the team (8 of them!) and their process. They came in, ripped off the old roof, laid down the new roof and was gone by early afternoon the first day. The second day they laid the new "shingles" and cleaned up - out by 4 PM. The inspector was in the area, so he came by that evening and made sure that everything was done properly. Climbed up on the roof, checked the gutters, and did another walk-around the house to clean up additional debris that was missed the first time around. Very thorough! We went with Cornerstone Roofing cause of their price, availability, professionalism, the products they used, and the high ranking they received in service, which we read about in the Seattle Times last year. Haven't been disappointed yet. We'll see after the rainy season, I guess!

Yesterday Evan wanted to wear his roofer man outfit again. It was getting sunny so I asked if he wanted to wear shorts or jeans. He replied in a silly voice, "Jeans. Roofer man doesn't wear shorts! That'd be crazy!"

The inspector wore a blue bandana on his head, so Evan has taken to wearing one, too. This kid cracks me up! Here he is, with his own twist on the blue bandana... bunny ears, too.

Think Pink!

I'm still getting my head wrapped around the idea of having a little girl. After Evan, everything was so blue, sporty, rough and tough, etc... so BOY! So when it came time to set up Lil' Babe's room, it was hard to come up with a color palette that we liked. There are some colors that Pops does NOT like - purple/lavender and green. We were leaning towards red, but wasn't sure if that would be too much to take in every day. We were going to do pastel colors - one on each wall, but thought that might be too distracting. (If you saw our bedroom, you'd realize where we're coming from... as monochromatic as you can get.) After a few trips to Home Depot, we decided on using the Disney Behr paints. They had a cute two-toned design that we liked (from their "Princesses" line, no less!) So in the end, we went with PINK! It was a day and a half of intense painting, but we got it done and I am in love with the little pink room.

Through it all, Evan has been fantastic. He loved helping and wanted to paint, tape, clean up... anything to help us. When it was time to wrap up the first night to get to a friend's birthday dinner, Evan was sad. "I don't want to go to Uncle's Happy Birthday... I want to PAINT!" The only thing that sent up a warning flag was an incident last night. With his old crib set up in Lil' Babe's room, Evan started climbing up the front. "Evan, please get down. It's not safe to climb." Evan replied, "But it's MY crib!" Uh... no.

Here's a pic of Evan's room before he was born. Pops made those stencils - flower, leaves, and two kanji characters: Chinese 'good luck' and Japanese 'love'.



Here's Evan painting Lil' Babe's room. Big helper!



And here's the finished product. PINK!



Here's a closer look at the stencil (cherry blossom design) and the cute clock we found at Target.

Open My Door!

We've been having some fairly nice weather lately and Evan has discovered the joys of riding in the car with the window down. Only thing is, he calls it a door and not a window - which can get confusing. And me, being the preggo running way waayyyy HOT, I'm always in need of fresh air. Every time I crack my window just a little, Evan shouts out, "Open my door too, Pops!"

What Could It Be?

Remember this game you'd play as a child where you're shown a picture that is zoomed in really close and you would have to guess what the big picture was? We're going to play that game today.

So here is the zoomed in picture. Guesses anyone?

Yes, the ladybug is to throw you off! Tricky, I know!

Ok, here is the zoomed out picture.

It's a 30-week pregnant belly! It's Lil' Babe! Evan got some fun bug stickers from the doctor's office and he was handing them out tonight. He was so cute - he made sure to include Lil' Babe, too - thus, the ladybug sticker on my belly. So here is Evan pointing to the ladybug sticker that he placed on Lil' Babe... And there I am in all of my glory.

Shout Out to Aunty Susan

Here's a shout out to Evan's Aunty Susan, who works with Pops and is an avid reader of our little blog.

Today I called Pops at work because we were chatting online and the computer fritzed out in the middle of our convo. When we got off the phone, Evan asked, "Who was that?" I told him it was Pops. He asked where Pops was and I told him he was at work. Evan then said, "With... Aunty... uhhh... umm... Aunty Susan?" Yup, with Aunty Susan. And recalling some fond memories of Aunty Susan, Evan said, "Aunty Susan makes bracelets for Evan." Susan makes special bracelets for Evan by coloring file folder tab stickers and placing them on his wrist, which he loves!

Roofer Man

We are having our roof done and Evan thinks the roofer men are the coolest ever. He got to watch them lift the materials up to our roof on a conveyor belt. At the time, I was trying to get him dressed. He insisted on wearing a black shirt and jeans like the roofer men. So he now has a roofer man outfit. We got a lot done this morning and went to Grandma's house for some quiet time. It took a while for him to settle down in his new surroundings, but eventually took a one-hour nap. When we got home, the roofer men had already wrapped up for the day, but we'll get to see them tomorrow. Evan asked if the roofer men wear diapers or BVDs. I told them they don't wear diapers, so he was very willing to get out of his nap diaper and into his BVDs. Hey, whatever it takes to get him out of the diaper!

Mommy Group Family BBQ 2008

When Evan was just 8 weeks old, we started going to a New Moms class organized by Overlake Hospital. I think it was a 6 week session where we met with a facilitator and got some much needed support from each other. A bunch of us continue to meet weekly and continue to give each other much needed support! :)

Yesterday we hosted a family barbecue and it was such a nice time! It was a little bittersweet, as we will be saying goodbye to one of our families as they relocate to the East Coast next week. We'll miss you so much!

Our Talk About Death

Many months ago, we first brought up the concept of death and dying with Evan. He was fooling around on the stairs and could not grasp how dangerous the situation was. So Pops told him he could fall down and die. Evan didn't understand this new word so Poppa put it all into perspective for him: "If you keep fooling around on the stairs, you're going to fall down and die. When you die, you don't get to see Momma anymore." Evan was so shocked at this concept of No Momma, he started to cry... but he doesn't fool around on the stairs anymore.

Yesterday we were talking in the car and the topic of death came up again. Evan tried to run into the road and Poppa told him No. Evan tried to explain to me why he ran into the road. "Evan run into the road and then a car is going to hit Evan. But that's ok, because Evan is a doctor, so Evan can fix Evan all up." I told Evan, "But what if Evan died?" And Evan replied, "Evan come back as a robot... A BLUE robot."

Grandma Madeline's Evanisms

Evan has been spending more time with Grandma Madeline and here are her Evanisms:

* Evan asked to have fruit chews after nap time. Grandma said to "ask Momma when she gets home. You already had some juice." Evan replied, "But I'm asking Grandma."

* When Grandma doesn't want Evan to know what she's talking about, she spells out words. She was telling me a story about Evan asking for "F-R-E-S-H popcorn" instead of his day-old popcorn. Evan picked up on this and later on, he started asking me for "E-F-G popcorn." I guess that's the closest he can get to spelling right now.

* Today we had the yard man working on our overgrown yard. Evan and Grandma went for a walk around the neighborhood. When they came across a neighbor's house with an overgrown yard, Evan pointed and said, "The yard man needs to come and cut their grass. It's long."

The WWW... It's 24/7, you know...

I think it's crazy that Evan is growing up with so much technology in his life. Whenever he asks me a question and I don't know the answer to it, we look it up online. So it's crazy to think about this little dude whose vocabulary includes: online, computer, download, Internet, etc. Here are some examples:

The Mommy group was recently chatting about YouTube and how useful it is. Addie wanted to see a kangaroo, so they pulled it up on YouTube. Evan likes to watch the car wash, so we have a clip favorited.

Evan has a Hawaiian picture dictionary. It shows the parts of the body and their translation in Hawaiian. For some reason, it didn't include "mouth," so I had to look it up online. Now, every time we name our body parts in Hawaiian, Evan says "mouth - waha, Momma had to look it up on the computer."

When Evan asks to watch Thomas the Tank Engine, I tell him he had enough TV. He tells me, "I want to watch it on the computer." Cause it's different from TV...

When Evan asked to watch something else that we don't have on TV or DVD, he said, "Poppa has to download it."

If he's craving some YouTube, but our Internet is down, Evan will say, "Can't watch it. The Internet is broken/The computer is broken."

"When you're ready, I know you'll do it..."

This was a phrase I learned at Monday school when we discussed "potty learning." With Evan, I think pooping was an emotional thing he wasn't ready to cope with. So I'd always offer the potty, but he chose to do his business in the diaper. I'd then repeat the saying to him, "When you're ready, I know you'll do it." I really like that. I think it gives him respect and self-confidence that we're going on his timetable, but reminds him that we are still working towards pooping in the potty.

Yesterday we had our first success. It was such a non-event for Evan, that it seemed like he was doing it forever. Here's what happened:

We were homebound with the "car wash man" working on the car. I put Evan in BVDs and he went on his merry way. He was in his room watching the car wash man work. I was in our room. He called out, "Is Evan wearing a diaper?" I said, "No! Evan is wearing BVDs. If you have to use the potty, come here!" He came running over and asked to use the big toilet. I placed his potty seat insert into the big toilet and let him go. I told him to aim his penis down if he's going to go shi shi. But with very little effort, he went number 2! I was astonished! Just like that! So we got some high fives, hugs, called Pops, and I gave him lots of words of encouragement - "I knew you could do it when you were ready!" and "I'm so proud of you, big boy!"

His reward was to play with his special toy - Bob the Builder Car Wash toy. It was an idea another mommy gave me (thanks, Heidi!) where this special toy is reserved for going number 2. It's out where Evan can see it but is not accessible. Evan was so excited to finally open the toy up and play with it. At random times, he would say, "I pooped in the potty!" It was so cute. You could tell he was so proud of himself. I'm not sure if part of the reason Evan decided to go was having the car wash man here. This morning he asked if the car wash man was coming back. Uh, no. But you can still poop in the potty and play with your car wash TOY! So we had another success this morning and he got lots of playtime with the car wash toy again. Let's hope he keeps it up!

Too Freaking Busy

These last few days have been really stressful. It has just been too freaking busy, especially now that I've really felt myself slow waaaaayyyy down as we enter our third trimester. Here's all the fun stuff going on:

We are having our yard spruced up. I used to mow and weed (but refuse to operate the weed whacker), but after an hour of weeding, my back was killing me. So we're having someone come out to do a thorough clean-up. We're really looking forward to it - the place will look so great! And I'm sure a notice from our Home Owner's Association is on its way cause the front is so overgrown. It was crazy times last week, scheduling contractors to come by and do estimates. And what a huge price range: $250 - $950! Wow!

We are having a new roof installed next week. It was a big project that we wanted to complete some time before Lil' Babe arrived. But when the estimators started coming out to do their measurements, they found HOLES in the roof. They patched what they could, but it was only a temporary fix. So we were able to sift through 6 companies and get on the schedule for next week with our top choice! Am guessing nap time (not just for Evan, but me too!) will be disrupted, but it's just two days of our lives.

Next on the to-do list: figure out if we're going to rent or sell our Lynnwood townhouse (lease ends next month), re-model the kitchen?, take a truckload of junk to the dump this weekend, and SET UP THE NURSERY! Ahhhh, still need to figure out the color scheme! Oh yeah, and name the little sweetie. Like I said, way too freaking busy. Is it Evan's nap time yet?! I need to lie down. :)

Wow, That's a Mouthful

We gave Evan a really long name. Not to torture him, but to honor his heritage - He's half Japanese, three-eighths Chinese and one-eighth Hawaiian. So he was given THREE middle names. :) Last week Evan started saying parts of his middle name, so we started talking about his full name.

When people used to ask what his name was, he would say, "Evan." Then he learned his last name and started saying both names. They'd look at me questioningly and I'd say, "His name is Evan. He's giving you his last name, too." Now that Evan knows his full name, he will spout off the whole thing when people ask what his name is. And the usual reply is, "Wow, that's a mouthful!"

May 13 Evanisms

* A while back my brother had a portable navigation system for his car sent here. We told Evan it was a "man toy." And when we go to Fry's, we call it a "man store." Today our car was getting an oil change so we explored the dealership's cars in the show room while we waited. We climbed into the back of an SUV and I pushed a button in the roof. The TV screen popped out and Evan said in a voice filled with wonder, "Man toooooyyyyyyyy."

* Evan was being a joker in the back seat while we were on the road. I started laughing and said, "Evan, you crack me up." Evan replied, "Momma, YOU crack ME up! Ha ha ha!"

* We were reading a book by Richard Scarry that talked about a hippo who thought she had a ghost in her bathroom. She called the police because the ghost kept flushing her toilet. (It was just a toilet that needed a little adjusting.) Evan said, "The ghost has lots of shi shi!"

Kids Quest

Today we went to Kids Quest Museum in Factoria. Evan always has a fun time and we ended up getting membership there.

Evan has started liking air blowers in bathrooms to dry his hands. Kids Quest has them out in the water area and this is what Evan did for a good 15 minutes:

He played with water and barely got his hands wet:

Then he went to the dryer and dried his hands:

Repeat... Like 50 times. Hey, whatever makes the little dude happy.

Naughty Poki

Poki has been very naughty lately and Evan has not been pleased with her. Poki has the bad habit of finding Evan's stuffed animal friends around the house and "adopting" them as her babies. She carries them in her mouth and gives them baths. It's kind of cute at first, but it has quickly become a pain. I throw Evan's friends in the washer to get them clean again, but lately Evan has been getting really emotional about his friends. If Poki "gets" to one of his friends, tears start flowing and he gets really upset that they need to get washed. Once they are clean, he sits with his friends on the couch and if Poki walks by, he hides them behind his back or sits on them. Sometimes we forget to put them away. Our bad. Totally. She can't help herself, right? But what has been REALLY naughty is that now Poki will go in Evan's room when we are away and take friends off his bed and bookcase. NAUGHTY POKI! Today was the first day I kept Evan's door closed while we ran errands. I think this is the only way to prevent future mishaps. I told Evan we were shutting his door so Poki couldn't get to his friends. Being the empathetic little dude that he is, Evan went and shut my brother's door and bathroom door so that Poki couldn't get to his stuff, too.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all you wonderful moms out there!

The Diver Man Suit

I am constantly amazed at the extent of Evan's imagination. Lately, he has taken his pretend-world to a whole new level. Something that he and Pops do (it's their thing, which I love!) is put on a diver man suit. Before bath time, Evan strips off his clothes and then Pops helps him put on his diver suit, flappers (fins), gloves and helmet. All of this is pretend and we have a naked dude in his pretend diver man suit. He then gets into his bath and pretends to feed the fish.

He has really taken off with playing independently. Some of his favorite people he pretends to be are: diver man, mail man, house cleaner, yard cleaner, doctor, and car washer. Yesterday I joined him in his play room and found that ALL of his toys were stacked in a corner - he was the mail man delivering packages.

All Grown Up

Evan is all of 2.5 years old, but he really is growing up in the blink of an eye. Here are some pics from today's adventure at the park. No traces of "baby" remain!

Alone Time

Today I got to have alone time. This is a relatively new experience for me and all went quite well. I had a baby shower to attend (brunch at Salty's) so Pops and Grandma took Evan to the Aquarium. They were planning on visiting the zoo, but when given the choice, the diver man will always win. Sounds like they had fun - saw TWO diver men, lots of kids activities (I guess the first Sunday of the month is special) and treats, of course. Pops mentioned that Evan asked for me a couple times but when reminded that I was eating lunch, he brushed it off and went on with his business. Nice! My little dude is growing up!

When I arrived at the restaurant, I got a call from Evan. He wanted to tell me that they were eating lunch at Crabpot. Yummy! He sounded so calm and content that I could really enjoy myself with the other mommies. Fun times for all!

I'm hoping I can do more of these getaways (with Pops, too!) to help Evan make the adjustment to life with Lil' Babe. It was just the morning, but I really missed the little guy and had a hard time switching off "Mom Mode." A couple things I had to remind myself of: can't drive in the carpool lane and don't have to look for food that Evan and I can eat together at the restaurant. Doesn't help that Evan got a haircut last night, but when we were playing together this afternoon and he was chatting away, I couldn't help thinking how much he grew up in that one morning.

The Chocolate Factory

Evan has been in love with "Curious George Goes to the Chocolate Factory." We've done the self-guided tour at Boehm's Candies in Issaquah a while back and I thought they only did it in the summer. Today I looked it up and the self-guided tour runs year-round during their store hours. The guided tours are the ones that are only in the summer. So before heading to soccer, we went to visit the chocolate factory. Two of the candy makers were so sweet (get it?! ha ha, I'm so clever, I know.) They saw us walking the tour and they asked if Evan could have a chocolate. (I think it's great when people ask if your child can have something before just offering it to them.) He ended up getting a chocolate lollipop in the shape of the Space Needle! Such a lucky guy! He ate the whole thing and then asked for more chocolates in the store. We got a few treats (and some soccer ball chocolates to share with his soccer coaches) but I told him he would have to wait til after nap time for more chocolate. Like mother, like son - he's got a sweet tooth!

HUGE chocolate lollipop and a fakey smile