Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week was a fairly uneventful week.  At work we have been finishing up a project and planning for the next one.  This time I did not feel nearly as rushed as usual, so that was good, and helped contribute to the uneventful nature of the week.  They did reorganize our ward just a few hours ago.  I will not bother going into too many details, because if you care about the details you probably already received all of the info.  The important piece is that Bill, my brother, will be in a different ward from us now.  To make up for the lack of news I have posted a picture of Alice.

First Crocus

Alice was born in March. Soon after we came home from the hospital, the first bright flower of spring...a purple crocus...bloomed in our front yard. It was a surprisingly poignant joy to see that flower connecting my new baby to the promise of spring. That same purple crocus bloomed first again the next spring when Alice turned one and her cousin Atticus was born.





I planted a whole heap of crocus bulbs that year so spring would come more loudly the next year :) And it has. Kayla Michelle Evans was born to Bill and Kristin this March. The day after she was born, the first flower of spring...a bright yellow crocus...bloomed in our front yard.

2-year checkup

We're at the clinic for Alice's 2-year-old well baby checkup. There's the standard form, the standard weight and height check, the standard lectures on baby-proofing your house, feeding balanced meals, and keeping the kid in a car seat. Then the doctor throws me for a loop:

Pediatric resident: "So, tell me how Alice likes to play."

What?! An open-ended question?! This doc obviously hasn't been around very long. Give her a few more years and she'll be dishing out those leading "yes/no" questions like all the rest (i.e. "You've got all your cleaning supplies locked up or stored out of reach, right?""You brush her teeth, right?"). So, I turned off my automatic answer dispenser and enjoyed a few moments in true thought about Alice's play. The doc even took notes. If it makes it into Alice's chart, all the better. I thought I would share Alice's play habits with y'all.

• Snacks. Alice plays snacks. She carries little toys around in bowls and cups, then serves them to me, Bobby, herself, dolls, and friends. She takes "snacks" in the car. She fills her "purses" with them. This morning, she pulled the cushion off of our captain's chair and laid out a snack feast for herself...all neatly arranged, every toy with a purpose.


• Hide and Seek. She likes to do the finding and chasing, but she's a pretty good hider, too. Her favorite part is running around to find you or chase you while you're looking for a spot to hide. Aw heck, she just loves to run with people.


• Diaper changes. Everything with legs (or appendages that could be construed as legs) eventually has a poopy diaper in our house. All get thoroughly wiped and a clean new diaper applied, sometimes several times in a row. She has lately been giving her dolls potty turns, too.


• Books. She likes us to read her stories. The snuggle chair in our living room has become the reading hot spot. If I sit there for more than a moment, I'm suddenly buried in books and she's using my pant legs to climb up with me. She points out the few letters, numbers, colors and shapes she knows.


• Little People. I can't always tell what she's doing with them, but she can entertain herself for several minutes just moving the people around in the play sets. She really likes the pirate ship and the airplane (thanks, Rachel, for that recommendation).


• Friends. Alice loves her friends. She knows them by name and asks for them. She squeals when she sees them. It's hard to share when she's tired, but most of the time she's easy to negotiate with. She names some of her dolls after her friends. There's Baby Ella, Baby Spencer, and Doggy Sasha to name a few.


• Opposites game. You say yes, she says no. You say yummy, she says yucky. Say turn left and she says turn right. She thinks she's hilarious. She will also point at something in a book and call it the wrong name again and again until I correct her. This is a fun game for me because I get to be a little silly. When I correct her with the wrong name, she corrects me.


• Birthdays. She's on a birthday kick. We sing "Happy Birthday" to lots of people every day, whether or not they're actually there. Most often, she requests we sing to her friends Mary and Spencer, but I've also sung "Happy Birthday" to a cracker and some string cheese. This kid cracks me up.

And, just for the official record, her height is still along the 50th percentile and her weight fluctuates between 50th and 75th percentile. Her noggin is 50th, too. Go, go median girl!

And here are a few recent picts. I love my babe.

Fam picture when Grandma Evans came to visit:

Playing with the puzzle Grandma and Grandpa Evans gave her for her birthday. They quickly turned into play snacks:

When Alice heard we'd be playing at Katy and Abigail's house today, she dressed up EXTRA fancy all by herself.

I have failed

Well, I am sad to say it but it is official, I am a failure. I am now 30 and am not yet a millionaire. It was very close, but no obscure relatives passed away recently leaving me anything, Publishers Clearing House said I had almost won but did show up, and no 7 figure checks mysteriously showed up in our mailbox in time. I still have hope for Susan, so if any of you have a million or two lying around that you may have forgotten about feel free to pass it on to Susan, as I am a failure.  I thank you all for the many condolence cards that you sent, they have cheered me up a lot.

Pictures from CA in February

Yeah, it's really been that long since I posted picts. So sorry. I will keep it brief, though, and not very pensive this time.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week was a very busy one. Well, at least now it feels that way. At work we have been finishing up part of a project this week. This time it is ahead of schedule, so it is not as rushed as it would have been next week, but it is still very busy. This week was Alice’s birthday, on pie day. So she got to go swimming with her cousin at the pool, and she had a small party, with several different types of pie. Saturday felt very busy because Susan had to work at the Family History Center in the morning, so I went shopping, and started making pies while Susan was working. Ultimately we made three different types of pie. Apple, Key Lime, and Pumpkin. It was pie day after all. The party was fun but you could tell the kids were very tired by the end. Even Alice was in a bit of a daze the last half hour or so. She spent that time just sitting on the chair holding her new baby cousin with Susan’s help. The small amount of time Alice was not holding the baby she just sort of stood there blankly. She even slept in an hour today, beyond her normal wakeup time.

Performance Review

Bobby called me from work yesterday (an abnormal occurrence) to let me know that he had just finished his annual performance review at work. Apparently, he's doing good work and his supervisors appreciate it. He was almost giddy. Well, as giddy as Bobby can get. A few hours later when I picked him up from work, his brow was furrowed and he was more reserved. I asked him what happened. He said he now feels the weight of their expectations on him. He feels like he should do much more.

A sobering thought indeed.

I was reminded of the day Bobby walked home from work (5 miles!) to tell me he was getting laid off by Motorola. Alice was only 3 months old. I had never seen that expression on his face before. Never heard that tone of voice. I saw the weight of the burden on his shoulders. He wouldn't eat or sleep or even leave the computer until he had a spreadsheet listing over a hundred potential jobs available right then. Within 24 hours of the news, he had sent out dozens of job applications all over the country. This was his life at risk. His family. He had not only lost a job, but a family's livelihood. HIS family's livelihood. MY family's livelihood.

Sobering thoughts. I am grateful that Bobby carries this burden for our family. I have the utmost respect for those who carry this burden for their own families. It is not an easy load.

Family and Friend Ponderings

As we have taken care of Will the last few days, I have had a peek into what life might be when/if Alice gains a sibling. It has been a good experience. Giving me practice with parenting an older child, giving me hope that maybe two kids wouldn't be the end of me...as long as they play well together and love, love, love to be together as much as Will and Alice do :)

Too much to ask?

Another pondering: A friend was talking to me this morning about how good it is that Will gets to stay with family (meaning us) while his parents are in the hospital. I hadn't thought that "family" versus "friend" would make any difference, but my friend insisted there was something inherent in that relationship that made things a bit easier. I would watch any of my friends' kids for similar medical reasons. I wondered if Will actually considered us family, and how that relationship is felt or developed or learned by someone so young. Is it learned? To some degree, it must be. I did not grow up around extended family, so perhaps those of you who did grow up with cousins and aunts and uncles around can enlighten me. Please. What makes that extended family relationship different?

Bobby's Sunday Summary

Well, If you have read Susan's last post then you know most of what happened this week. I really hate it when Susan compliments me like that because it makes it so hard to complain about it later. And what else do I have to write about on Sundays? It has been interesting the past few days to see Alice and Will together all day long. I know they are not siblings and probably do not treat each other like siblings do, but they got along very well, even after being together for two days straight and under a very stressful situation they are still happy and excited to play with each other. I think that Will is going to be a very good big brother.

Evans Men

As of 4pm today, my head cold has exploded. I'm a wreck of snot, coughing, sneezing, and more snot. My throat is killing me, my nose is stuffed up and I've completely lost my voice. I would be even WORSE if Bobby hadn't taken care of the kids and made dinner tonight while I floated in and out of consciousness in the back room. To top it off, he's over at Bill and Kristin's house putting Will to bed as we wait for news on the imminent arrival of Will's new little sister.

Bill has been by Kristin's side for 27 hours and counting. Through contractions, pre-delivery fasting, and all the anxious anticipation that comes with a child's birth, he remains a supportive husband and loving father.

I am blessed to have these two Evans men in my life. I don't know how they came to be the men that they are today, I'm just grateful that they're here.

Dirty Deeds

I got dirty today. Real dirty. Pulled weeds, hoed the soil, and planted seeds. Alice was fine for the first couple seconds, but freaked out when the wind started to blow and I accidentally got some dirt on her shoes. She pointed at my hands in the soil and whimpered, "Dirty!" A far cry from our first real venture outside last spring.

I planted the first round of snap peas, baby lettuce mix, and early carrots in the cold frame Denise built me last year. Then I hacked back that blasted rose bush, trimmed my asparagus ferns, and reworked some of the front flower bed so it wouldn't grow over my sidewalk again. Bobby consented to giving me the garage for my seed-starting setup this year. In the past, I set everything up in our spare bedroom or living room...not aesthetically pleasing to most (I find the setup QUITE appealing, myself). We'll try the garage this time and see if 6 weeks of street parking is worth a more aesthetically pleasing living room :)

On a related note, my garage-style root cellar worked okay. I never did find any root vegetables to put in there, so it was all winter squash (acorn and butternut varieties). Some squash rotted and some did not. I did learn, however, that having fresh squash on-hand all winter did NOT improve my chances of actually cooking it. I like winter squash. Really, I do. But it turns out I like the IDEA of eating winter squash much more than I like eating it for real. Hm. Of course, the abundance of summer produce is still far away. I may warm up to those last remaining squash after all.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week has been a crazy week. Susan has already talked on the blog about most of what happened during our vacation, so I will pick up where she left off. On Wednesday Susan went to the airport and I went to work. My trip was actually a bit of a working vacation. They wanted me to be in CA at least a few days to help out another team start using some of what we have been working on for the past few weeks. At first they wanted me to stay until next Saturday. I decided that was going to be too much time away for me, so someone else is taking over for me next week. So, instead of going to the airport with Susan and Alice, I hopped on the commuter train going to the San Jose Airport to pick up my rental car. The train ride itself went without a hitch, but when I got off the train I was supposed to grab a shuttle to another station that would then have a bus to take me to the airport. Well, despite being warned that the shuttles leave very quickly I missed the shuttle because I turned left instead of right while looking for it among the 15 or so shuttles parked at the station. I ended up taking a taxi to the airport. It was not that bad, at least not until I got to the car rental place. I looked on the big board to see where the car was that I was supposed to get, and my name was not there. I went inside to find out why, and while I was waiting in line, I noticed that on my travel itinerary the date was for next week. I got the car worked out at the rental agency, but I still had to get the hotel and airline ticket fixed, which did not take that long, but I felt really dumb about it. I guess I got a little mixed up with the dates when I decided to only stay one week instead of two. The rest of the week was uneventful except on the flight home yesterday they lost my bag. I have come to expect that for some reason. It seems to happen about half the time I fly into town. Oh well, they should hopefully get it to me soon.