End of an Era

When Eva was about 5 days old we would put her tiny 8 pound body onto our chests and fall asleep. I distinctly remember telling Chris that she will only be small enough for us to do that for a couple of months and so we might as well enjoy being able to feel her little warm body so close to us.

I have, of course, been eating my words ever since because for over 2 years Eva proceeded to fall asleep on our chests, and only the very gentlest transfer of her (insert growing weight in pounds) body would keep her sleeping. For about half a year Chris was the one laying her down to sleep and she would snuggle on top of him and doze off. At some time in June (I have been slacking off horribly in this journal) she has asked to snuggle daddy, even though "snuggy mommy" has been her nightly refrain for weeks before and after. She then fell asleep on top of him for what might have been possibly the last time, thus signifying the end of an era. I am sure that Chris is not about to frown the loss of 30+ pounds of baby on top of his ribcage, but for me it has definitely been a bitter-sweet change.

I am almost afraid to write this for the fear of jinxing it, but Eva has indeed been sleeping through the night for the most part. She would wake up maybe once a night once a week and drink some water, but since she has been sleeping with Chris she grew out of her nightly bottles and nursings. She has also developed a horrible habit of getting up as soon as the sun would be up, telling Chris that she was going to see mommy, climbing out of bed, opening and closing 2 sets of doors and going to find me. Sometimes she would also gently pat Chris on his shoulder, tell him "daddy, sleep" and then walk out and grace me with a patter of her feet and dive into my bed. The thing is that I don't know if I want it to stop or I want it to continue, because snuggling with her in the morning has been so sweet and joyful, that even my groggy self cannot help but love it. At the moment I cannot imagine the end of THAT era. Sometime, but not now, sometime, but not this year, sometime, but not before I had my feel of her toddler face turning into a baby one, her bright smile, her little warm feet, the smell of her grape hair conditioner, her little hands getnly touching my sides, and her content breath.

Baby did do!

Everybody who has toddlers knows the "baby do" refrain. Usually it starts when you, say, have to leave the house and your child insists that she "baby do" putting on a shoe, which takes approximately a million hours on each side. After Eva would succeed in some new task we would usually tell her "yay! baby did do!" with the end result of her now whenever she accomplishes something clapping her hands and shreaking "baby DID do! baby DID do!" It can be watering the plants, climbing off her changing table, finding a book - no accomplishment is too small to celebrate here!

Hey hey hey, what's this? what's this?

Those of you who have known me for a long time - do I walk around constantly saying "Hey, what's this?"? Because this is how Eva asks about EVERYTHING! It sounds really funny because there is such genuine wonder in her voice : "hey hey hey what's this?" as she points to a clump of dirt on the ground. "Hey hey hey what's this?" (a leaf) "Hey hey hey" (fluff from the sycamore tree). Once in a while her "hey, hey, hey" gets frantic and that is how you know something is really happening (a squirrel digging at our roof that only Eva could see because she was laying down on the changing table). I have come to really love this "hey hey hey" because it comes pretty close to expressing the wonder of a million of little things that Eva has never seen before and I take for granted. Like a star on the cover for the water department's man hole. Or the balls on sycamore trees in the spring (the ones that are making flufff now) or light reflecting off of my cup of tea. But do let me know if I say "hey, what's this?" a lot because then I could take credit for teaching her this expression.

Picking a Winner

When we were little, my brother and me have destroyed the wallpaper in our room by hanging boogers on it. In our dacha we also tore off layers of wallpaper to see what other paper was underneath it, with the end result of a 3 foot wide exploration hole in the wall decorated by, you guessed it, our snot. I cannot for the life of me figure out why we thought it was ok to do it, but I am just relaying that fact to you now - we did it a lot!

Somehow along the way the bad habit of picking my nose never went away, and so you can place the blame for Eva picking her nose squarely on my shoulders.

When she first got dexterious enough to get her finger up there I laughed so hard that she must have decided that it was the right thing to do. And so the habit has started...

When Eva wakes up at night she lays there and picks her nose in thought. I think that it relaxes her, which might also be a reason we did it when we were little (and I do it now sometimes). But honestly, how else do you get boogers out of your nose? (And dont' tell me kleenex, because I know for a fact that it does not do it for me). She looks so serious when she does it, and I have to say that it is actually very very cute.

Second Birthday Party

Keeping with the tradition of holding major holidays twice, we did celebrate our birthday again. This time with a little home gathering including my brother, his fiance and a Russian mom-friend with her 5-year-old. We drank champagne, ate food and a bunny-shaped ice-cream cake. The kids ran around screaming and slid down the stairs on their butts (you would not believe how fast they can go). Overall it felt like most birthday celebrations I had before leaving Russia - a little gathering around the table. It was also Easter and we were all in a good mood (even though it certainly felt like Christmas outside with chilling winds and snow). My brother figured out how to work our dollar-store baloon-animals kit and made some bunnies and doggies for us (alas they did pop pretty quickly).

I am posting this 2 weeks later, because I am so overwhelmed by my schoolwork that I have no time to gather my thoughts and my pictures for a coherent update, so you will have to excuse me writing a list of things worth mentioning

Eva can count - she tries to move her fingers and says her numbers from 3 to 10 (generally skipping 4)
Eva loves her little baby-croc shoes, which she can put on herself and calls "eve-shoes" for a friend of hers who wears them all the time
We have been watching "Little Murmaid" and I have to say that the whole idea of Ariel running away from home at 16 and getting married to a prince is starting to really annoy me
Eva draws endlessly with markers, crayons and anything else and erases it if she can, she loves chalk too, especially outside and she drew a fairly credible sheep today
We are all enjoying a 50 cent easter toy that has a magnetic bunny spinning between two metal rods - it is hypnotizing and well worth the money, especially because it did drive Eva to say her numbers, as in "thwee, feiv, six, seben, ait, nine, ten, gooooooooooo" and she would push the bunny to roll, plus she now asks "where bunny?", which is something I have not heard her say before
She has taken to running up behind me, hugging me and sayin " I got you"
She tells people to move or come or stay right here, which is especially funny if she doesn't know your name because she would call this poor boy at a playground "boy" as in "booooy, oh boooooy, come here boy!" much like an old lady calling a bellhop (I am not really liking how bossy she is, and we try to at least get her to say please, but if you tell her "say please" she will reply "say please" and consider herself off the hook)
she can climb into her crib and we are thinking that maybe she would be motivated to sleep by herself if we got her a bunk bed (we climbed into some of those in Ikea and BJs)
When she says excuse me it sounds like "scootie me", with Scooty being a dog of our friends'
She likes wearing her little dresses - who would have known it! but she wears them with pants underneath
she needs a haircut
I need to go to bed now so I will stop writing

Our Birthday

I always feel like Bilbo Baggins saying that it was our (One hundred and eleventieth) birthday, but it is true, it was indeed our (3)2nd birthday this week. We wanted to go out and get a pizza, but Bertucci's downtown had suddenly closed (why? why?) and so we ended up going to Ludwig's "for auld lang syne" - since it is really nothing much to visit for dinner (slow service, overpriced menu). To our great delight (and I mean all three of us) there was a live jazz band playing and we were asked to move to a table in the corner where Eva could run around in the space between the table and the wall, pour salt in her water, eat spaetzle and generally be merry. We were also able to drink our 0.5 liter cups of merry cheer and enjoy them. Between sets our wild child was screaming "mooooore muuuuseeee moooooore muuuuseeee" and the bad parents that we are, we stayed out far too late with her. It was the best birthday party ever! Thank Goodness that she doesn't yet know about Chucky Cheese!

Mommy Sit Down

I have rediscovered the joy of bathing. Not the kind where I stick Eva in the tub and sit on the toilet watching her play with her toys and pour endless cups of water over her head - no, this is an old trick by now. Now I fill up the big tub and put myself in it along with a hefty helping of soap. Eva stands on the outside ready to fulfil her part of the bargain.

She takes all of her bath toys and dumps them in, sometimes hurling them one by one into my shins. I lay back and she fishes them out. Then she grabs a wash cloth and with a look of extreme concentration wipes my leg or my shoulder or whatever part of me she can reach. She looks determined, her eyebrows wrinkled together, her eyes on the washcloth at all times. Once in a while she barks an order to stick out the other arm or leg so that she can take care of that now.

I wonder if this is what I look like when I try to wash her, trying to wipe down every last square inch of her body. She takes a plastic cup and dumps some water on my stomach - weeeeeeee - it feels really good.

So far both of us are very much enjoying this role reversal. Eva demands every night that mommy sit down and once in a while I give in. I get to lay back in warm soapy water, and my back muscles get to relax a little bit. And then when enough time has lapsed for another tank of hot water to warm up I close the curtain and wash up while Eva plays with her toys and books on the cold and wet bathroom floor - she doesn't seem to notice.

My parents would be horrified at such an excessive amount of parental nudity. My mom has been harping on me to potty train Eva so that nobody gets to look at her private parts - huh? I think that people need to get a grip on the fact that the human body is a collection of useful body parts and that almost 2 is not an age where a child thinks of anything sexually. What a bizarre world we live in...

Just So

I think that this is a normal stage of toddler development, but it took us by surprise that Eva wants the things just so. She gets a particular idea in her mind of who should carry her or put on her clothes or even push her buggy and protests loudly when things do not go according to plan.

The highlight of this behavior was when Eva saw Oma put on my hiking shoes. Eva cried and screamed and yelled "mommy shoes" "mommy shoes" until I took her downstairs to get dressed and distracted. We were standing by the door to leave to go to the zoo when Oma walked downstairs and Eva trecked all the way back to double-check the abomination of somebody else wearing "mommy shoes". At least she is sane enough to understand when to call it quits because things are just not going to chane (Oma kept wearing my shoes and eventually Eva accepted that aggregious breach in behavior).

On the positive side she puts her toys away just so and she pretend changes her toys' diapers and NEVER forgets to smear "butt loddie" on. It is fun to watch. She reaches around and unfastens the flaps, throws the diaper out, gets the lotion, uses on finger to spread it on around their private parts and then reaches to grab a new diaper and fastens it around. Mind you, this is all pantomimed - there are no actual things involved.

Oma

I cannot believe how nice some people are. If I asked you to buy your own plane ticket to come over and watch my kid for a week and a half for no pay would you do it? But here was Oma, happy to do it, thrilled to have a chance to connect with her first great-grandchild, who up to this point would just push her away with a resound NO.

On top of that Oma cleaned our whole house, cooked meals, baked cookies, did laundry, all the while knitting a blanket for a girls orphanage. I am not kidding. For a split second I wondered what was wrong with me that I was not handy like that, but then once I thought about it nobody I know is like that.

Eva would certainly try to get away from her, but once I was out of the house she had no choice but to get her hugs and entertainment from Oma. And towards the end they would sit and read and play together. When Eva was sick and throwing up mucus Oma was happy to snuggle her. When Eva wanted to go outside Oma would get the buggy down the flight of stairs despite her arthritis and go walk in the snow.

And then at the end of it Oma got Eva's cold. I hope she gets better soon.

A person is a person no matter how small

My apologies to those of you who have not yet been Dr. Seussed enough to know that this is a quote from "Horton Hears a Who". Lately, just like poor Horton I keep discovering that I am indeed entrusted with care for a real person, even though she might appear too small for others to understand that she is indeed intelligent and complex and strange.

Several times a day now Eva points to something that might be scary - a spider in a book, a ladybug on a building block, a loud truck outside - and she tells herself that no, it will not bite. "No bite, no bite" she repeats to herself and shakes her head - I hope that she finds these exercises therapeutic. I wish I could be like Horton and cover my little baby puff with my big ears and protect her from all the scary things that might just completely destroy her. But they come up every day and not from where you think. I, for example, love the warm steam that comes from the grates on the sidewalks - this petrifies her. I can spend a happy hour inside a butterfly house, which she finds her version of personal hell. I guess we will work through her little phobias and I will do my best to let her feel afraid and work through it instead of constantly telling her that no, the train is not scary and the bugs are not scary either. I do have a hard time drawing this line with insects - because, get this, they do bite, and it hurts. A little tan-colored spider got Chris's finger numb for hours, and the ants sting for no reason at all, and even those sweet-looking lady-bugs, to my great surprize, bite really hard. Maybe Eva is picking up on my dislike of them?

On other hands, Eva's likes are just as bizarre as her dislikes. I was going to title this post "butt lodie", meaning her butt lotion, to which she is completely addicted. Every time I change her she asks for it and will keep asking until you smear the vaseline-like substance on her privates. Good thing that we are cheap and buy our generic butt lodie for $3 a tube, so we can indulge her as many times a day as she likes.

Another bizarre fact that I wanted to mention is that Eva draws lines and squiggles and calls everything she drew "kat" - I took a picture of one of her masterpieces for my memory, because it actually does look like a cat with multi-colored stripes and a red mouth.

If you have watched or read "Horton hears a Who" you will remember that he keeps finding out that the little puff has a whole civilization there, with researchers and libraries and churches, and finally one guy builds a megaphone big enough to communicate with the outside world. Eva is working on her megaphone. We are now up to 3-word sentences, usually involving her barking or whining commands such as "mommy open door" or "no walk, mommy carry". Sometimes, like Horton, I am the only one with big enough ears to understand her, but more and more other people can hear her too. Good going, little plum, mom is now looking forward to having real conversations, especially the ones that do not involve butt lodie.

Holidays x2

Every year I am struck by how lucky I am to celebrate the holidays twice - normal Christmas stuff in Chicago and the Russian secular version on New Year's in California with my parents. And Eva is probably just going to accept this double-Christmas as a given - lucky girl!

Flying out to California with her on my lap and every seat full was just like it sounds - bad. But once we got there, we settled into a happy little routine of sleeping and taking naps together, going to the beach or to the little pond to feed the ducks or to the playground in the morning, then napping and then hanging out with the family until bed time.

Eva was her sweet self, begging everybody to read stories in bed with her, chasing the poor cat around, playing with toys that my mom's coworker has generously let us borrow - it was all so normal - only instead of just watching her by myself I had company of my parents to entertain me and so it was good.

She came up with names for my mom - baaaahbeeeeee - that is the best way to transcribe it - "babushka"was just entirely too long for her. And my brother was Uhdeee - a mixture of uncle and djadja. Eva loved the attention and she even let my dad pick her up towards the end of our stay.

And then we came back and I realized that I had only a week until school started, and so we have cleaned our house and generally relaxed, just three of us and tomorrow I have to go to school and be away from her for 3 months. Yikes!

The good thing is that Chris will get a chance to bond with Eva. They are, as I write, fighting over the pillows on the bed, trying to settle in to read a story. It is like she knows that the "mommy era" is over and daddy is taking over - she is all over him and keeps asking him to stay while she falls asleep and looks for him first thing in the morning. She did not ask for him much in California, but now I can see that she did miss him a lot.

Chris took Eva to the doctor today for her belated check-up. She is 27 pounds and 3 feet - 50% and 95% respectively - nothing surprizing here. We are making plans for her to play forward - she is going to be too tall to be a defensive soccer player. For our second Christmas in California she got some soccer socks and a ball - perfect!

Scary cat

My parents have a bad cat. He runs away when he can, and I cannot blame him - Eva is one tail-pulling, top-of-her lungs screeching, fur touching baby machine. When the escape is not possible he hisses at Eva and tries to swipe her with his paw when she gets close. Thus we have made a quick entry into the world of toddler phobias. Eva repeats "scary cat" several times a day and she has added "scary choo choo" to her daily phrase book as well. My parents live just uphill from a site of the LA commuter train accident where it struck a car at the crossing, and so now the conductors sound their horn at every intersection - since this is Orange County and the crossings happen, well, every block, you can imagine the noise. I don't know why Eva decided that trains are scary, since she loved them so much, perhaps it is because it is something loud that she cannot see. This is a girl who a week ago screeched "choo choo" for 45 minutes when we rode it from Northbrook to downtown Chicago and she comprehended that she was inside one. She then proceeded to beg us every day to go inside the choo choo, no longer did she want to just look at them. And now she says "scary choo choo" and points at her own chest.

Dear Abby II

Dear Abby,

my child sees my parents very infrequently - they live on the other coast and rarely visit. My mother understands that Eva will perceive them as strangers and is very gentle and patient with her. My father, on other hand, thinks that he can bully Eva into letting him hold her. He grabs her, tries to tickle her or touch her feet. She screams and cries and now says "no footies" every time she sees him because she knows that he will try to grab her feet. I try to explain, but he insists that I am being overprotective. Abby, especially for a girl, I think it extremely important to not allow unwanted touching. In our house "no" means "no", and we do not force her to put up with picking up or holding, no matter who the relative. How can I make my father understand that he is only making her uneasy and afraid ? Thank you.

Baby owner

Dear Abby

Please share this with your readers. I have a small child who is not fond of strangers. It is normal, and it is called stranger anxiety, which can start at 8 months, peeks at 18 months, and sometimes lasts until preschool years. More times a week than I can count we are approached by strangers who want to touch her, get her to smile or to say 'hello'. Abby, my child becomes unhappy when these strangers persist in their efforts, she lowers her gaze and tries to hide behind me, but they still reach out their hands and touch her hair and hands and other parts. Please, remind people that if an adult does not return your smile, you are not going to try and shake their hands or grab their clothing - why are you doing this to a small being who cannot stand up for herself? I know that she is cute, but even when I see a cute dog on the street I always ask the owner if it is OK to pet it - why not extend the same courtesy to humans? Sincerely,

Baby owner

Post Holiday Blues

I cannot believe that it is time to leave Chicago. All of the holidays that we were getting Eva so psyched for are over and it is time to get on the airplane and do the Russian circuit in Orange County.

Every time I post to say that I am dreading the flight with my now even more active toddler on my lap (and later I say that it was not that bad at all). But all over again I am feeling that very same dread. Not that I don't 100% know that we will get through it, but she is now 30 pounds and my legs fall asleep when she sits on my lap for even a short flight. But the cheapos that we are, and with the United Airlines nixing the discounted children fares, we did not buy Eva a seat. Somebody just shoot me now.

The holidays themselves were magical. Eva loved the tree (or the twig as we called it this year because it was only 5 feet tall). She loved the origami nativity scene and the tree ornaments and all the presents and foods and everybody visiting. She loved fires even though it terrified her how hot they were. But the most magical part was just spending time with her grandparents. You will just have to picture her little legs dangling as she was climbing into the big waterbed with her grandma and pulling the covers over herself. And the two of them reading "Santa and his elves" for a millionth time through. Or her uncle Corey and Chris playing chase with her in the basement with Chris pretending to rev up and then running into Corey with Eva sitting on his shoulders screeching madly and then all but falling off his back with laughter when Corey would pretend to fall over onto the sofa.

And now it is time to go and take her somewhere else. And I don't want to. Because Chris is not coming with us and it is just me 24/7, taking care of her with 110 % of my energy. And I hate to say it, because there are so many moms who don't have the support that I have now and will have in California, but I am just so so so very tired of this 24/7 110% deal - and I need so badly to just get away and do something for myself once in a while, and that is not going to be an option in a new place. I am hoping that Eva will adjust very quickly to being there and will let me take some breaks, because my back is sore, my wrist has some pinched nerve in it and my energy level is at about 20% right now, even after Chris has been sweet and kind enough to watch Eva almost every night. Or is that what the problem is? I am not sleeping next to my little angel? And that is why I am so tired? Sometimes I find myself just utterly bewildered by those parents who don't sleep with their children and think that it is an abnormality. And sometimes I feel like I would kill for not having to get up at night. And there are other times when I am just confused and tired and I know that I am not going to be up for making any kind of changes to our sleeping arrangements because this works and most children wake up and need something at night, even if it is just the reassurance of a parent being next to them.

And as I type this, the time is approaching 10:35 and Eva is hanging out in bed with her grandma looking at the "santa and his elves" book, and I feel like I could collapse with exaustion, but she is just so full of energy and laughter and so NOT tired, which is an exact rerun of the last 7 nights or so. And all I did today is rest and play on the computer and go shopping, but I still feel like I could just sleep for a year.

Russian Invasion

I have to say that I am impressed about the infiltration of Russians and other former Soviet-Unionites in the Chicago suburbs. We saw them at the Northbrook playground and in the library, and furthermore they have opened an Uzbec restaurant in Buffalo Grove. And the good troopers that my in-laws are, they agreed to take us there (the Tribune gave it a 2 forks review).

This restaurant trip was a total immersion into the ex-soviet culture. Needless to say, we were the only non-soviets in the restaurant, where 2 large vodka-drinking toast-saying, 4-hours-at-a-stretch-table-sitting parties have gathered to hog most of the space. We have eaten, gotten bored, paid up and left, and they were just starting on their main course. While I do understand where these people were coming from, as far as sitting around the big table and speaking in their shrill-drunk voices - this is how most soviets gather, I have just gotten very unused to that manner of celebrations after living in the States for 15 years. Russian MTV with bad singers attempting to look slutty entertained us for a little bit, and the food was a good approximation of what most Russians think Plov and Chicken Tabaka should taste like (garlic, if you were wondering). The waiters were very nice and served us quickly and patiently, and nobody batted an eye at Eva running around the table and playing with her books and toys.

And then a slightly-menacing tatooed-fingers guy grabbed a bowl of hard candy and came up to our table (he was a guest, not service, just to make that clear). "Here, princess, candy eat" is about the direct translation of what he said, while Eva stared at the nerds and runts and other choking hazards. My poor child, who is not used to strangers just lowered her eyes and stood there quietly, while I told the guy that she cannot eat this candy yet. The guy insisted that she will eat it and we just took the whole bowl from him and said thank you, while he explained in his broken English that it warms his heat to look at such a pretty little girl. And then we left, and I thanked my lucky stars for a millionth time that we no longer live in Russia where things like this are not considered rude and abnoxious and inappropriate or dangerous.

We have these friends who say that I can single-handedly stop the inflow of foreign tourists into Russia, since my stories have completely turned them off going there. And the thing is, I don't make them up, I just tell things how they happen. This story is not meant to turn you off going to ex-soviet restaurants, in fact, I encourage it, but just be prepared for having an experience that is completely different from a typical restaurant on this side of the iron curtain.

Open for comments

I have changed the settings so that even the non-registered users can comment. And I am going to give you a topi c too.

Did you know that when going through airport security even your tiny little baby who cannot even tie her own shoelaces has to take her shoes off? What, she is going to hide explosive in her shoes and set it off in flight? WTF is wrong with this picture?

Playground mommies

Since the "mommy dating" post has proven the most popular, I give you here a second installment on the subject. Welcome to my world of playground insanity.

First, I will start you off with a question. Those moms who are at the playground with their kids, but are on their cell phones - whom exactly are they talking to? They walk around with their headsets glued to their ears, rarely say anything, and once in a while you can see them nod. This is NOT how, in my experience, you hold a conversation with anybody. My theory is that they are calling some kind of 1-900-mom-xxxx hotline. It would be a daily pre-recorded message that would be telling them something hypnotic, like "you are the best most beautiful, non-fat, efficient, caring and loving parent ever, keep up the good work, pat yourself on the shoulder for being the "it" mom today". For all I know it could be any kind of a 900 number :)

But you know what? I have news for these freaks - the reason you take your kid to the playground is NOT to ignore them. How about actually playing with them for a change? Watching so that your kid doesn't wander into the path of my daughter's swing would be outstanding! Bringing some toys so that your kid doesn't whine for Eva's stroller or ball or bubbles would work too. How about helping them up the slide or chasing them around? I dont' mind sharing toys and snacks, but if I see the same kid coming to the playground with nothing day after day I get angry. But we will talk about sharing in the next post. For now I am suddenly struck with an idea of actually starting a 1-900 service for mom advice. It would talk about all kids of bad things that OTHER kids do, so that you feel better about your own parenting situation. After all, there is nothing like a little bit of schadenfreude to make your day.

Pinch me!

I just wanted to say (in absolute amazement) that yesterday was the best flight we ever took with Eva. We got a ride to the airport from somebody with a kid, she had kid company in the morning to run around and burn some steam off, she played at the Aviation Playstation for 40 minutes, and then on the airplane we haggled and got an empty seat between the two of us. Eva sat at the window on Chris's lap, tried to feed freeze-dried berries to the airplane itself (thank you Eileen for letting us have your carton of those), and then once we took off she slept until we landed. I did 2 Sudoku's and a crossword puzzle, had 3 drinks and generally enjoyed myself. Somebody pinch me!

Sa-mommy

This is what Eva calls salami, which the bad parents that we are, we let her eat. Would you be able to resist it when somebody was asking you for sa-mommy? I didn't think so! And while we confess parenting nutrition sins - Eva loves chocolate and ice-cream, sausage, french fries - in short all the bad cholesterol and fat-laiden foods that exist. Somebody told me that at this age, the more fat and cholesterol, the better it is for their brain development, so I don't feel bad. And, Eva-pie, if you are reading this 25 years from now and you are in grad school, then you can attribute your super-brain-power to "samommy", just thought I would make that clear.

Hand-it

Our Christmas tree has been up since November and every day we seem to redecorate it. Eva was thrilled to have all the new toys to play with (we kept our delicate German hand-blown glass ornaments in the box this year and hung up all the cheapo stuff instead). So far the damage has been minimal, even though Eva has no qualms about pulling ornaments off the tree. If she cannot reach she demands "hand-it" from us and we have to get it for her. She loves deer (which she calls goats accompanied by 'meee-meee'). "Snow", i.e. snowmen are popular, and of course she adores "santy" - all incarnations of him, in fact. She loves the ornaments and all the toy versions in the windows, and she loves him in the movie "Santa Clause" (which is by the way one of the hokiest movies I have seen). After we watched the movie, without thinking that we are now in a company of a thinking human being, I said to Chris that it was the worst movie I have seen and Eva got upset and started crying. I think that she liked the movie and was mad that we didn't. And I still have this sinking feeling in my stomach that she understands sooooo much more than we give her credit for and we can no longer talk around her.

And speaking of Santy, and Snow and Choo-choos - Philadelphia has a lot to offer in the holiday cheer department, including a good old-fashioned light show, decorated windows, a holiday railroad, lots of pretty lights and a Christmas Carol village, complete with a live Father Christmas at the end. Eva eats it all up (actually sometimes literally, because we do have a chocolate-filled advent calendar, and St. Nicholas came, allbeit 3 days late, because we did not have a chance to buy little chocolates on time, but he did come and Eva is pumped up on sugar from eating ALL of the little santas he brought, also we have started eating our gingerbread house).

The light show is a big hit because it has an image of Santa riding a train and also a "frosty the snoman" act. And the Dickensian Christmas Carol village has windows with ornaments and you can peak on the "chi-chi" (chiken) dinner, dancing, school, and other scenes inside frosted windows. The only thing Eva would not go for is meeting the actual Father Christmas, we had to rush her through his room and get her out before she threw a big fit. Chris took Eva to see the windows again and they "watered" all the Christmas trees (the theme this year is trees, as in tree of joy, tree of beauty, etc.) and they even gave pretend sips of water to the lion and the lamb in the "tree of peace" window. And while I am listing things - Eva was mesmorized by the holiday railroad, even though it is a pathetic reincarnation of the giant one that used to be about 4-5 years ago. But it has a polar express train and 4 others and she cannot get enough of staring at it.

And on this note, I am going to stop, because I am just not capturing the true magic of introducing a child to Christmas with all of its trappings and rituals. Because most of what we do is such a long-standing tradition and we love it so much, Eva is falling for it head over heels and we are falling even more madly in love with her as we watch various holiday lights reflect in her eyes.

This year is too early to make Chris's patient dad take out a grate from the fireplace so that Santa can visit, but next year, you better believe it, Eva will be doing just what her dad did almost 30 years ago and asking to take it out so that Santa can come. And with any luck she will keep asking for many many years because I want her so desperately to keep believeing this wonderful tale, because I think that every kid needs to, as long as they can.

Mommy Dating

In those early days when Eva was tiny and I was freaking out over being a mom I would go to the park and just chat up any mom that I met. I would interrupt little mommy picnics and dates, thrust my child into faces of other kids and generally try to meet some of my kind. Some of the people are still of my friends, some of them meet me on the street and walk right by pretending to not know me. That really kills me, because really it is not like those moms don't know how horribly lonely having a first baby is. One mom actually went as far as to tell me that she was busy right now talking with another mom - huh?

The reason I am writing that now is that I am actually having good mommy dates now. We met a mom that met all of my date criteria - child same age, dog, cat, still nursing, child that eats poorly, our kids play well together, she lives close by and has a lot of time because her husband is in med school. Also, we both don't seem able to keep our houses in any kind of order.

Eva of couse loves the dog and the cat - she happily spends hours walking behind the dog and trying to grab her butt. And mercifully their cat allows Eva to pull him by the tail. And she seems to be one of those moms who doesn't mind messes and letting kids just run around and do what they need to.

Juggling

Chris has a friend who juggles. He came to visit us in September and in his short stay has so impressed Eva with it, that she would walk around for the next week, holding balls in her hands and pretending to juggle. When we saw this guy again over Thanksgiving he was pleased to hear that he was able to so mold her young mind and juggled again, this time with some toy horses from Chris' old Playmobile set. Eva was of course impressed and tried to do the same, with the end result of horses being thrown all over the room. We laughed because it was really funny to see her imitate somebody. And Eva, get this, she did not laugh along or enjoy the attention - she got all embarrased and cried. I am not sure what to make of this - I guess she is growing up, but, I cannot begin to imagine why she would cry when people clearly enjoyed what she did. Did she really know that we were laughing at her, not with her? I would have to go with 'yes' on that one...

Little things

I wanted to write a post to recap some of the cute little new things that Eva does, but I am a little bit at a loss as to where to start. Some of them are very sweet - like saying 'pease' every time she wants to be carried, but then it of couse also gets heart-breaking when she cries while saying it. S

he has also learned to poke and say 'poke' (thank you, Ice Age) and her uncle has taught her to say "Yodi". She would carry this little choking hazard multiple small parts yoda action figure all around the house in Northbrook and even tried to give him a bath in her glass of water. It was especially funny because instead of regular glasses we let her drink out of shot glasses or wine sampling glasses so that she doesn't spill a lot. So there we were looking for "yodi" and he was floating feet up in this tiny glass. I guess you just had to be there.

Also suddenly, and with no real push from us she started recognizing goats and saying 'meeee meee' - she also calls reindeer that and we have spent a good 20 minutes in the Christmas aisle of our BJs looking over and over and over again at, and I am listing them in the order that is now burned into my brain - a ceramic reindeer ('meeeee meeee') figurine, a Santa figurine with a horsie and a bear in his pocket, a rooster (whom we for simplicity sake call a chicken or 'chichi'), a santa plate with a bunny in his arms, a wooden rocking horse statuette which had a bear, christmas tree, a bunny, and a present among other things that Eva would point out. Then there were a chooo-choo, a Christmas scene (with little moving ice skaters) - mercifully somebody already broke one of the elves decorating a tree off of his feet, so at least I did not feel bad about her pulling on all of the little parts, and then there was a nativity scene where she would delightedly poke at the baby. Did I mention that all along she was sitting on my shoulders, reaching for all of those items on the shelf? In Eva's world this whole experience is called "snow" because on the opposite shelve there is a giant inflatable lawn ornament with snow and rotating figurines. In my experience this is called "sweat"...

Wowa

Eva got to meet her 4-month-old cousin Aurora this Thanksgiving. Among other great things about going to Chicago for a visit (her grandparents, her uncle Corey, a park with some new equipment and a lion drinking fountain, a train line nearby, a huge box of Playmobile toys) - this time there was a new kind of entertainment. I think that Eva liked the baby as long as I was not holding the little bundle on my lap. At the very least Eva did not attempt to hit, bite or poke the baby, she just looked and smiled. And when we asked her to say "Aurora" she would produce a happy "wowa" and enjoy our applause.

And I was reminded similtaniously about how much joy tiny ones are and also how much work they take. At 4 months Aurora sleeps better than Eva does now (it did not help that Eva got a stomach flu and I had to spend 3 nights holding her burning body on my chest all night with hourly nursings). And now I am thinking that I don't necessarily HAVE to have another baby - I have been through it all and I would gladly do it again, but suddenly this urgent desire to have a small one, which was present ever since I had Eva, since she grew up so fast - well this urge is just not there. Maybe it will come back?

Ice Age

The one great thing about the cable provider that we have is that it gives us 4-5 public television stations that show cartoons during the day. So if Eva and me wanted to, we could watch Sesame Street, Barney, Big Big World, Curious George, Clifford, Dragon Tales and other quality programming all day long (which sometimes it feels like we do). But instead, we switch the TV straight to the DVD feed and watch Ice Age on the loop. Since I was getting sick and tired of the first 25 episodes of the Muppet Show, and the second season of that program is nowhere in sight, I guess I should be grateful to not be stuck in the public TV-land. And for the most part I am, because you can say what you want about Walt Disney - he does make one fine and funny children's cartoon that can be enjoyed by adults. But did you notice how many sad and scary scenes those cartoons have? Like when the baby's mother drowns? Or when the tiger pack is attaching the mammoth? Eva always says 'owwww' when she watches that scene, and mercifully she is too young to ask me what happens to the mommy (she swims away to rest is the asnwer I am preparing to give). So many things in this world are so hard to explain to your kids... I almost feel like cartoons should not have anything that requires you to give an explanation - but then they will be boring and bland and I would not be able to watch them 50 times in a row.

Blasphemy

Before Eva was born we have exiled Chris from his office to the hallway and gave her his room. This means that her crib and changing table are in there along with some posters from when it was still Chris' office, including "The Annunciation" by Van Eyck.

As far as Eva is concerned Mary is mommy and Gabriel is daddy and the holy spirit is 'tweet tweeet birdy'. While completely blasphemous, I think it is really cute for her to make that connection - because that was really her on her own deciding to call them mommy and daddy. Maybe it is because she has been looking obsessively at our wedding pictures, so she just carried that over to this painting.

Maybe in a couple of years whe will actually understand when Chris tells her 'no, the daddy is up there and Gabriel is just a messenger'...

Jumping

You all know how much I loathe the 'What to expect' book, yet I feel strangely compelled to re-read it. And this is the pearl that I discovered inside the other day:

"by the age of 21 1/2 months your child may be able to jump up"

Huh? Would it be the same child that has been hopping like an Easter bunny on our bed with the 'jumb jumb' screams for the last 4 months? The child that goes over to play at a friend's house and heads straight for their well-worn mattress (they have a 5-year-old who taught Eva to jump). The child who jumps OFF the bed?

Maybe I could write the "what to expect from your active toddler" book? It would certainly reflect more accurately the kids I see around.

Horsies

Is it the fact that I am totally immature that when Eva calls all horses hoes it completely cracks me up?
She is very excited about them, especially now that she can say the name. She points to them in the books, on the streets where they cart the tourists around, and over and over on the carousel that we hoped she would ride. Her idea of fun was to walk all around the said carousel and name all the animals - hey, I am all for that because it does not cost us anything. She was quite content to do this over and over and each time the guy would let us into the enclosure and the general excitement level would rise, but, nope, it would be just another round of naming the animals and horror shreaks at the suggestion of actually sitting on one. She was exactly the same way with the live ponies at the apple farm - she was happy to point and name, but completely incredulous at the suggestion of riding one.
I know that this is her age, and partly her "slow to warm up" personality, but sometimes it just hurts me to see her want to do something and be too afraid to do it. Because, you see, I was that child, the one that did not just dive in, the one who waited on the sidelines until it was too late, the one praying to NOT be called on until the very end for some new activity. And that is the real bummer - all you can do is watch your child and not get pushy, because there is really no point to interfeering. And still, here we were (there was another mom with a similar child with me at the time) going around the carousel, brighly suggesting the white horsie, or the one with the flowers or maybe the cat or the dragon or the shark - and our children just happily walking around in circles. Because at this age the kids are still mercifully completely above parental pressure, for which I have to be incredibly grateful.

Because everybody calls what I write a blog...

and because I don't necessarily have neat monthly updates to post... And because sometimes I just want to write one small thing that Eva is doing today... Like watching "Ice Age" a million times through and laughing at certain scenes in her loud throaty screechy laugh.

She learned to say 'snow', which might not seem like an achievement to YOU, but in our house it is a cause for celebration (and while we are on the 'sn' words she now also pretends to sneeze and says 'I sneeze').