Over-Protective Parent

Ever since Evelyn has hurt her mouth, I've been an extremely neurotic parent. I expect Evelyn to sit on a couch, covered with a blanket, quietly reading books and sipping V8 juice through a straw. That is the true way to recover from a boo-boo, is it not? But Evelyn defiantly insists there is nothing wrong with her, up until she bites the couch and spends the next half-hour bleeding and screaming her head off...or bonks her lip with on of the following: a) bouncy ball b)couch corner c) mommy's head d) carpet. This unavoidably happens every ten minutes or less because of how hyper she's being. I've spent my whole weekend chanting quietly to myself: "Must not kill first child....must not kill first child..." I'm afraid I'm not quite in the same league with Florence Nightengale. But perhaps there's some record somewhere of someone hearing her repeat softly: "Must not kill whiney soldier......"

Cinderevelyn

Daddy's Birthday!

Sob Story

Poor Little Evelyn!!!! Yesterday while at my mom's house, Evelyn was playing around and being good as gold as usual, when she knocked over a chair on herself. When I picked the chair off of her, her mouth was full of blood, and I got a sinking feeling that she was really hurt. But we couldn't look in her mouth because she was screaming too loud. So after about 30 minutes of cuddling her, mopping up blood and singing her hymns, I finally got to look in her mouth. She knocked out her front tooth. Luckily, it was a clean wound--she didn't break off the tooth at the root, but the root ripped half her gum off with it. Her mouth looks awful, but the dentist said it would heal completely, except of course for having to wait 3-4 years for her permanent tooth to come in. Her two teeth surrounding the one that was knocked out are pretty loose, so Evelyn gets a diet of ice cream and pudding for a little while.

Not only am I feeling so bad for my sweet little Evelyn getting hurt, but I'm mourning the loss of my little girl's beautiful smile. I'm sure eventually I learn to love that gap-toothed smile, but it looks so awful right now as a wound that I cry every time I look at her.

Here she is showing off her hurt. She's really swollen too: you can see it better in this picture:

And here's a tooth obituary picture. This was taken the night before the accident. Zoom up and say goodbye to that cute little toothie.

Sacramento

Another business trip-another post. Not so exciting this time though. (Who'd have thought Kansas would be more interesting than California?!).

On the 3rd of January, our little family flew off to Sunny California--only to be met with nine days of thick and heavy mist. Even though the temperature stayed in the 50's, with all the moisture in the air, it felt more like 39 degrees. So most of our trip was spent in the hotel.

While we were there, Evelyn had her second birthday. It wasn't one of those "Whoa! my daughter is two!" moments because she's been acting like a two year old for the last two months. I felt mostly relieved that her age caught up with her maturity. That way I have an excuse for all the belligerence and vocal "No!" 's that keep issuing out of her mouth. Actually, Evelyn was the highlight of my trip. She was adorable (even with the two-hour tantrum during dinner on her birthday). The week of her birthday, she decided she didn't talk well enough for a two-year-old, and doubled her vocabulary. Here's my little 2-year-old:

Evelyn fell in love with the elevator. Every time it reached a floor, instead of beeping like a normal elevator would, it would quack. So Evelyn called it "The Duck." Whenever we got off the elevator, Evelyn would say, "Thank you, Duck!"

This is Evelyn hugging her Star Kitty and her new birthday kitty "Batty." (It's supposed to be "Tabby" but she says it backwards.)

Every day we took Evelyn swimming in the hotel's indoor pool. Evelyn loves to swim and she's very independent about doing it. She gets in the pool and dog paddles away from us as fast as possible.

On our final day in Sacramento, we finally got some sun. We celebrated by going to the local zoo. It was just a small zoo, but very impressive. This was their snow-leopard exhibit. The animals were close and very active. I think they were happy it was sunny too.

Evelyn playing at the zoo:

And a family picture. (Excuse my hair and blame it on the humidity)

Sleep

At the creation of my blog I mentioned how I love philosophizing about the differences in girls and guys. Another mind-boggling difference between the sexes has been aroused by the gossipping of my sisters and I about our marriages. What is it about guys not being able to tell when they're falling asleep? There has been way too many experiences where I'm watching Michael's eyes droop and his head nod, but as soon as I ask him if he's falling asleep, he exclaims defensively, "No! I'm not falling asleep! I'm wide awake!" If I don't press him, he falls asleep within 30 seconds. Is it such a big deal for guys to admit that they're tired? I don't get it. Also, while we're on the subject, how is it possible for guys to fall asleep while talking? My journal is filled with hilarious things Michael has said when he falls asleep halfway through a sentence.

I would have a hard time falling asleep when some one's talking to me (Except for Katy, sorry again Katy!) and I could certainly never fall asleep when it was my mouth running! For that matter, I don't think I know any women who have fallen asleep while talking. Maybe we just find ourselves too fascinating.