One Sunny Day

It's so nice to be getting some regular sunshine! Here's a day in the life of the Evers family:

We went for a walk to Alberta street. Oliver rode most of the way in the wagon and experienced life through his sunglasses. We stopped for ice cream.
Back home, we took out baby sister practice doll again. Oliver played with her a bit then decided she should come on our tricycle ride around the block.

The doll went in the trunk of his tricycle and…

…immediately fell out.
Once she was stashed in the trunk again, we were off down the block, where we ran into our friends and neighbors, Dan, Autumn, Rhett and Mezmur out for a ride of their own.

We traveled half a block with them and said “See you later.” They were leaving the block, but we were just making the usual circle.


After that we tossed the football around.


Relaxing in the evening, Oliver checked on his real baby sister. She's kicking!
Then he took his practice baby sister into the bath, where he showed us that we should NEVER trust him alone in the bath with the real baby. She took on so much liquid that days later I’m still trying to dry her out. At first, it was instructive, as she has a hole to mirror the natural act of urination. But it’s impossible to get it all out!

Easter

Pictures from the egg hunt at Ferhill Park on Saturday.

The Pencil Did It!

Last week, during some no-pants time, Oliver grabbed a pen and sat down quietly near his doodle pad for a while. Jenny and I soon discovered that he'd been decorating himself. When we asked him what happened, he said, "The pencil did it!"

Because kids are drawing all the time, I think I need to control my inclination to save and post every scribble my kids make. Right now I'm fascinated with Oliver's evolution from scribbling madly to suddenly (and compulsively) creating shapes and now even little characters. More carefully defined in the last couple weeks, his people and animals generally have two eyes and two legs. This morning, he added shoes to this one below (but not hands).
A makeshift finger painting studio over the bathtub (for easy clean-up!)

We've dreaded the infamous "terrible twos" but now that the tantrum period is here, we're learning to navigate them. Basically, our happy and bright-eyed kid can turn into a monster of negativity and kicking and screaming and "NO!" It's usually set off by our overriding his control, such as dictating that it's time to change his clothes, time to get in the car, time to put away his toys, etc. We're trying to let him expend his energy and to let him know that we understand that he's mad or sad. Sometimes, his outbursts lead to a time-out. They almost always end in a hug, and then we're back to playing games and smiling until the next round. Soon enough, we're all pretty tired.

The sun is out and Spring is here. Here are some of our activities:

• Riding a tricycle around the block


• Crawling into the dark closet and playing with flashlights


• Watching Chris and Nate practice for t-ball


• Looking for worms in the back yard


• Drawing


• Playing at the park


• Stacking videotapes like blocks


• Open play time at the community center

Meanwhile, "little sister" is still kicking and wriggling. We can't wait to meet her!

Here's a video from last night about language development, gender confusion, dancing, and nose-picking: