October 3-9, 2010

On Sunday, we pulled the swing out of the closet for Evie. Here's her first ride.



Will posed handsomely like the dudes on the MLB Network.



Will and Laurel took a self-portrait on her cell phone.



And Evie lost her neck.



On Monday, we were happy.



Mostly.



On Tuesday, we went on a walk. Will and Laurel stopped to share a snack before they got to the playground.



It was a little chilly, so Evie bundled up.


Evie Cupcakehands

On Wednesday, the first part of this post happened. Also, Will tried to share his trains with Evie.



What a nice big brother.


This picture is foreshadowing for next week.


FORESHADOWING?!

Then there was this adorableness.



On Thursday, the scary car part of this post happened. But before that, there was this.



And this.



Later, Will and Laurel made pumpkin coffee cake muffins.




Muffins, you say?

We also watched a series of Pixar shorts on the teevee.



On Friday, we went up to the ranch for Gramma Jo's surprise brunch. We took no pictures of that.


Nice going, parents.

On Saturday, we built a series of tubes in the living room, then put balls through them.



This would have been an awesome picture if we'd gotten Evie's whole face in it.



Same here. Oops.

A long and rambly mid-week post.

Yesterday morning we had Sesame Street on during breakfast. When Will finished eating I sat sleepy Evie down and went to get a wash cloth to clean him up. While I was out of the room, something happened on Sesame Street. I didn't catch the entire story, but there was something involving a little girl and a polar bear. Then she had to leave the bear. When it ended Will burst into tears. Big, fat tears. I quickly finished wiping his hands off and gave him a big hug and asked what was wrong.

"She love the polar bear."

"I know buddy, she did love the polar bear."

"She love the polar bear and she have to go away." Then he started sobbing uncontrollably again. I held him and bounced him (because it's hard to turn off the instinct to rock and bounce when there is crying, even though I knew Will didn't need to be bounced, he needed something else) and asked again what was wrong.

Through his tears, he finally said, "Maybe sometime I have to leave something I love." And then the sobs came again, big and heavy. And then my heart broke for my poor little guy.

I knew at some point we'd have a conversation about losing something you love. I was not prepared for that conversation to happen yesterday. We sat down and I hugged him and he cried. Lorne was working from home in the bedroom; after hearing the commotion he came out and I told him what Will was upset about, and we all sat on the couch and snuggled and talked about all the people that love Will. He calmed down. Lorne went back to the bedroom to work.

When he thought of the girl and the polar bear again several minutes later, he started crying. I told him that sometimes sad things happened and that when they do it's okay to be sad, that it was okay to feel sad that the little girl had to leave the polar bear. This didn't do much to make either of us feel better.

What I wanted to tell him was that he could stop crying because he would never have to worry about losing something he loved. That all the people and things he loved would always be here for him, that no one would ever leave him, that our cats will never die, that life would never hurt him. I wanted more than anything for that lie to be true, but it's not. I couldn't bring myself to tell him something blatantly false in the hopes to calm him down at that moment.

Today, we were driving to the store when something weird happened with the electrical system in the station wagon. The speedometer stopped working, then the clock turned off. I tried to signal to get out of the left lane but when I turned the signal on it failed too. Then the car started slowing down. We were going 50, so it had a while to slow down, but as cars piled up behind me and then peeled out to pass me on the right, I started crying. I may have said some words not for childrens' ears, and I may have screamed a little. But mainly I cried as visions of being stuck in the lefthand lane of a busy road with an almost dead mobile phone, a two-year-old, and an infant flashed through my head. I was able to coast the car into a left turn lane so I'd at least be out of traffic when it totally died. Then I put the car in neutral, pulled the emergency brake on, and attempted to rev the engine up. Somehow this worked, the battery charged up, and we were okay to go - as long as every time I stopped at a light I put it in neutral and gunned the engine.

I stopped crying once I realized that we'd probably at least be able to make it back home without the car dying. Will said, "Mommy, are you sad?"

I said, "I'm just nervous buddy, I think the car is broken."

"Yesterday I was sad about the polar bear," he said.

"I know Buddy," I said. "The story about the polar bear was sad."

"It's okay to be sad Mommy," Will said. "I'm sad about the polar bear and it's okay. Mommy is sad about the car and it's okay."

Our sweet little boy was trying to comfort me. When we got home he gave me a hug. Sometimes being a parent is an amazing, wondrous thing.

September 26 - October 2, 2010

On Sunday, we went on a walk.


Fountains are fascinating.


Evie is hiding under her sun hat.



Not pictured: walking up to the frozen yogurt store only to find out that the frozen yogurt store is CLOSED on Sundays, calming Will down once he realizes this means no "special treat," talking him into believing that a box of juice from the sub shop is also a special treat (he doesn't get juice often, so it is! really! COME ON WILL MMM JUICE!), then picking his sobbing body up off the floor of the sub shop after the straw fell into the juice box black hole.

Note to self: in the future, take walks after naptime.

On Monday, Evie stopped smiling every time we took the camera out.


::shrug::

Meanwhile, Will contemplated ways to make a larger mess in the living room.



On Tuesday, Evie was skeptical.



On Wednesday, Evie told scary stories.


"And then the food lady said, 'Goo!'"

Later, sometime after scary stories at 3 AM, she sat in her little chair thing.



Then there was tummy time.



And then we finally changed Evie's clothes.



On Thursday, Will and Laurel made some cookies.



Hmm. Will has been alone in the kitchen for awhile by himself.


"Perhaps you should check on him, Mom."



In this terrible cell phone picture, you can see our sweet, thoughtful little boy. We spilled some flour on the counter while we were making the cookie dough, then I had to go feed Evie before we had the chance to clean up. So he pushed the green chair into the corner where the flour was spilled and was wiping it up with the blue towel.



When he realized I was taking pictures, he turned and shouted, "No Mommy! Don't look! I surprise you! GO SIT IN THE CHAIR I SURPRISE YOU!" His anger at me ruining his surprise was quite adorable.


YAY WILL!

On Friday, everyone was in a good mood.





Everyone was also totally adorable.





Well...mostly.


Arrrgh!

Will has been obsessed with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. A friend sent him these mouse ears awhile ago after she went to Disney World and we just remembered them and pulled them out. Will wore them the rest of the night.



On Saturday, we went up to Grandma Jo's house for Eden's fifth birthday party. Evie and Will met cousin Sophie for the first time, as well as cousin Jacob, and they had a bouncy house, and delicious cupcakes, and lots of fun was had by all.



Unfortunately, we forgot our good camera, so all we have is this crappy cell phone picture of Evie and Sophie and this cell phone video of Will and Eden jumping.

September 19-25, 2010

On Sunday, we headed up to the Wild Animal Park.



You can't see it in the picture, but Will is looking at a hyacinth macaw up in the trees. He loved it so much.


Watching the new baby elephants.



The most exciting part of the day was seeing a deer hanging out at the edge of the park. Will talked to it for awhile.



In case you can't make out what he's saying, after Lorne asks if Will likes the deer, Will says, "Hi deer! What are you eating for lunch? Oh! Some leaves!"


A terrible picture of how Evie toured the park.


Wild Animal Park is exhausting.



After the animal park we went up to Grandma Jo's and had dinner.


A better picture of Evie in her red dress.

On Monday Evie and Will both came down with some congestion and a cough. They tried to hug it out.



But that didn't convince the illness to go away.

On Tuesday we tried to capture Evie smiling on camera.







Mostly, we didn't do a very good job. We almost caught it in this one:



On Wednesday, Will serenaded us.



And we dressed Evie in pajamas that called her a boy.



On Thursday, Evie refused to smile again.



On Friday we had been cooped up in the apartment with the sickness for five days. Will had some cabin fever.



Luckily, the pediatrician called and let us know that Evie's test for whooping cough came back negative.


Hooray!


Will was pleased too.

On Saturday, Lorne took Will and Evie to the zoo so Laurel could take some time to herself. There are no pictures of the zoo, as it turns out, wrangling two children on your own does not leave you enough hands to also wrangle a camera. While they were gone, Laurel changed her hair.



When Will got home, he began crying. "That's not Mommy!" was repeated over and over as he crawled away on his hands and knees.



He got over it though.



Evie got this sweet dress from our friends David and Katie. Hooray for polka dots!