St Patrick's Day

We went to a Moms club party. Inititally, Evan was really shy and only wanted to be held by me. Then, about 10 minutes in, he was excited to play with/next to other kids. Corinne saw a teaparty set and beelined for it.

A pet peeve of mine is when I have to take off my shoes. Especially when I'm wearing leggings and mismatched socks. No one looks good in leggings without a chunky knee high boot to offset it. I wish on the invite it said "shoes need to be dropped at the door, so plan accordingly". Not to mention, my kids love tearing the soles out of shoes. And Evan probably licks the bottom of them. Might as well have a huge basket of used needles by the door for all the toddlers to play with.

Back home:

Before Evan gets into this position, he says "Nigh Nigh".

18 months - Evan

Likes: nursing (I get asked "Boob??" Multiple times a day), sitting in the ergo, eating, TV, books, blocks, imitating sounds, making a mad dash for the garage or street whenever the door is slightly ajar, throwing things in the trash, dancing/music, the Bingo song.

Dislikes: getting his mouth, nose, or butt wiped. When Corinne tries to take a toy from him, or hug/strangle him. 

He's very vocal and will imitate a lot of the letters of the alphabet. He's starting to draw (rather than just eat the crayon/chalk/pen, but if given the choice, he'll still eat a whole crayon. 

He recently took his first steps. I was going to put him in physical therapy if he still hasn't tried to walk by 18m. He must have overheard me because he walked right around 18m. 

So now the new benchmark is that if he still isn't walking well at 20m, he's going to PT. 

He is starting to understand directions and will respond to questions with a truthful yes/no, rather than just saying yes/no.

He has five teeth (3 upper, 2 lower), and today at the pedi, she saw 2 upper molars, one bottom middle and an upper middle about to erupt, which explains the wanting to nurse 732 times a day. 

He is expressing his frustration by hitting and pinching, which is lovely and loads of fun (sarcasm). When he's done eating, he'll let you know by dropping his spoon/fork on the floor. If we don't respond right away, then he drops his water bottle. And if he is still stuck in his high chair, he drops his plate on the floor. 

Bed Fail

An attempt to claim onto or off of the bed resulted in this:

Two kids, one pair of glades

A solid 20 minutes of entertainment:

Evan walking

Evan walked twice yesterday. The first time, M was less than 3 feet away and didn't see it. The second time, Evan walked TO M, so he got to see Evan walking for the first time. 

I really hope Evan picks up walking soon. Going to the park/playground/anything slightly dirty is such a drag for a kid who can only crawl. 

Bathroom toy

While going to the bathroom, Corinne thought I might get bored. So she got a toy and slid it under the door for me. 

Bless her sweet heart. 

And during an earlier trip to the restroom today (stomach bug), I came out to find this. Hundreds of dollars of toys and books in the other room are much less interesting than a $4 box of tampons that I obviously did not push far enough back on the counter. 

Poor Decision

Today, we went to McDonalds. You know, since I'm a health nut. Corinne kept wanting to go "pay" (play) but it was 39 degrees and windy, so our options were limited. 

Evan kept whining at the base of climbing tree, wanting to climb it. I figured he'd climb up and down the circular stairs inside the tree for awhile (the man loves stairs). 

Well, he climbed all the way up and into the little club house thing. No biggie, I thought, when he's ready, he'll either go down the slide or climb back down. 

But he didn't. I took this picture 45 minutes later. He was still in the tree house. See that kid in the red "window"? Yep. That's Evan. 

About this time, he started getting antsy. He'd look down at me and say "up? Up?" As he wanted me to pick him up. 

I weighed my options on getting him down. 

I tried the easiest option first. I told Corinne to go up there and push Evan down the slide.

So she went up there and they both waved to me from the window.

But she didn't push him down the slide. She just slid down on her own and said "I did it." What she did, I have no idea. But she fully expected accolades regardless. 

So I sent her back up and told her to push Evan towards the stairs. 

She opted to go down the slide instead. 

Now I was running out of options. I had to climb up into the tree (meant for small children) to rescue my kid. I took my phone in case I got stuck and had to call the fire department. 

A few curse words and banged knees later, I got him back down the tree. Crisis averted. 

Corinne was just beside herself with excitement while I was in the tree since I was (in her mind) playing on play structure with her. After we got down, she kept trying to get me to go back in the tree with her. Hahahaha. Never again. 

Freak spring day

As a nice break from the 20s-40s temperatures, we had a frea few days of warm weather, with yesterday being in the 70s. It felt exactly like San Diego weather: 75, sunny, no humidity, no bugs. 

So we went to the park with every other pasty white inhabitant in our area. It was so crowded we had to double up on the swings:

Then, Corinne threw the mother of all tantrums when it was time to go and even ran away from me when I told her to stop. Oh hellllllll no. 

The tantrum continued all the way home and for a good hour afterwards. 

"Play! I play! I play! Shoes! Play!"

After naps and dinner, I took them both to the local playground. Corinne was quite happy to "play". At least there wasn't a tantrum when we left this time. 

There were two older girls there, maybe around age 4. Corinne was following them around and I'm guessing they told her that they didn't want to play with her (I was on the opposite side of the play structure with Evan, so I'm going off of body language here). Poor baby. She just stood there and looked sadly at the ground while they pointed and yelled at her. Later on, the two girls turned on each other with one saying "I don't like you! I don't want to play with you anymore!" And the other one repeating it back. Sigh. Theatrics. 

In other news, I didn't know we had a decent Indian population in this neighborhood. There were about 7 families at the park last night and I was the only non Indian. For that many Indians, we should have a better selection of Indian restaurants around here. Momma wants her curry. 

First steps

Evan took his first step today. Well, 3 of them. Little shuffling steps. 

All because he wanted a green toothbrush. 

Guess dentist genes run in our family?

Corinne's artistic side

She has recently become very interested in dressing herself, withOUT assistance, thank you very much. 

Yesterday, she put on her pants and shirt (the right way!) by herself. 

Today, she tried accessorizing herself with the laundry on the bed. Yes, that is my underwear. At least it was clean. 

Then she made Evan wear a tiara and black lace panties:

But the coup de grace was when she drew this picture (all by herself) and told me it was "Mom". Pretty good for a 2 year old!

Apparently "Mom" is frown-y.