Bath Rumble

After Alex's bath tonight Evan joined in for the bundling and drying phase, and the three of us got a bit tangled up in the process:

Chicken Wing

I can't for the life of me remember what prompted this, but after dinner tonight Evan came up behind Alex while Steph was holding him and started flapping his arms like a chicken:

Then he gave Alex a big hug (that actually isn't so unusual):

Alex didn't know what to make of any of it:

D Bunny

I don't remember if there was anything more going on here than Evan playing with D Bunny ("D" because his cousin Delaney gave it to him), but I like the picture a lot so I thought I'd share it:

Visiting Terrapin

My best friend from college, Katy, came out to the Bay Area for a conference this week and she stayed with us for a few days afterwards. As is our way, we hardly turned the camera on the two days she was here, but we did take this one picture of her with Evan:

At least in the only picture we took he was wearing the Maryland shirt Katy brought for him (it's one of his new favorite shirts).

Obviously you can't tell from a single photo, but Evan had a great time having an extra person to play with around the house! Over the last few months he's become much more willing to interact with new people, and he took to Katy right away. He even requested she join in with our bedtime ritual of reading a story, saying what we did that day, and singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. That was the first time either Steph or I can remember anyone who wasn't a family member or his regular babysitter participating in bedtime, let alone at his invitation.

Running Man

I know I've mentioned before how much Alex likes to kick his legs. Well, as you can see, he comes by it honestly:

More Car Lineup

Evan spends a fair amount of his time lining up cars in nice rows, so we have plenty of opportunities to take pictures of him doing it. These pictures start to become a bit repetitive, but he looks so cute we can't help ourselves:

Take Your Bow

With all of the enthusiastic dancing Evan does he needs to learn to take a little credit for the entertainment he provides every once in a while:

Potty Practice

We've been working on potty training Evan a little bit at a time over the last month or two. So far there are four main challenges we're facing:

1. He is pretty unwilling to go pee in the potty unless we're changing his diaper anyway, at which point if he wasn't wearing a diaper it would already be far too late;
2. He insists on standing up to pee, so the degree of difficulty is a little higher;
3. He likes the idea of pull-ups and big boy underpants but resists even trying on either; and
4. He vehemently refuses to even think about going poop in the potty.

The first three issues are all things we feel like we can make progress on, but on the fourth he's been quite recalcitrant. We now consider it a victory just to get him to sit on the potty even to read a story (which should be good practice for pooping, right?):

Hard Hat

One of the really cool Christmas presents Evan got this year was a hard hat with a built-in microphone/loud speaker, headlamp, and flashing lights from his cousins. Only he didn't think it was that cool, or at least its scariness (he didn't much like its random "construction site" sounds) and awkwardness (he doesn't like hats to begin with, and this one is much heavier than any other hat he's ever worn) outweighed its coolness.

Recently, though, Evan has become so obsessed with Bob the Builder that he wanted to wear his hard hat, so we had to document the occasion:

It's still a challenge to get it to fit him well, but now instead of just walking away he keeps pestering me to adjust the sizing. Actually, I'm not sure this is better....

Callie Kitty

A few posts ago I mentioned how much Evan likes to sing the Bob the Builder theme song. Well, he was at it again today, this time while dragging Callie Kitty along for the ride:

I'd translate what he's singing for you... if I could figure it out. I think it's basically the lyrics of the BTB song if every line ended with "Callie".

The Hard Way

Evan is quite a fan of his learning Learning Tower, and he's become very adept at climbing into and out of it in creative ways:

Folding Clothes

It's always a challenge to find tasks you can perform while wrangling a baby, especially as that baby becomes more interactive and figures out how to use his hands. One chore Steph has found she can get done is folding clean laundry, which is a task we both seem to be pretty good at avoiding. You've just go to do it a certain way so that Alex stays entertained:

Bob the Bunny

Bob the Builder is Evan's new favorite show, and he's taken to singing the theme song at any occasion with a variety of lyrics. I'm sure he picked up that habit from us (Steph and I are prone to changing a line or two when we're singing around the house), but the bunny obsession is entirely Evan:

Happy Dwarf

Evan came across one of Alex's hats lying around today and thought he should try it on for a laugh (yes, he knew it would draw a laugh):

I think he looks like a dwarf from some '50s movie for some reason.

Long Train

Evan has been spending a fair amount of time recently building very long trains, of which he is quite proud:

Brother Feeding Brother

As soon as Evan saw there was something new going on with his brother he immediately wanted to be a part of it:

Somehow Evan feeding Alex wasn't any messier than anyone else feeding Alex. That's still pretty messy, though:

Solid Food

Maybe it's because he's a second kid, maybe because he seems so big for his age, or maybe because he chomps his gums whenever anyone eats anything around him, but we decided to try solid foods with Alex about a month earlier than we did with Evan. Of course we started with rice cereal, so "solid" food is being a bit generous:

These pictures are just from the very first meal. I'm pretty sure there will be more (pictures... I'm quite sure there will be more meals) in the future.

Yuma Art Symposium

Steph went to the Yuma Symposium with some art colleagues for the first time last year as a participant and had a great time. She was selected to be a presenter this year, and since Alex had to go with her to eat and my mom wasn't going to be available to provide childcare this time (she was going to be back in Philadelphia with my sister Hilary for the imminent birth of her first child) we decided to take a short family vacation to Arizona.

As I mentioned last month, we've been working on getting Alex to sleep better but it's been a struggle, so this trip didn't come at the most convenient time ever. We all had a good time, especially Steph (which was the main purpose of the trip), but the boys and I spent a lot of time in the hotel room trying to get one or the other of them to nap. That's proven to be hard enough at home, but it's extra challenging when you're all in the same room with nowhere else to go.

Anyway, that's why a lot of our pictures are of us in the hotel room, such as this one of Steph and Evan reading the paper in bed:

and Steph and Alex playing on that same bed:

Since Evan had to spend a lot of the time playing quietly so Alex could sleep (thank goodness he's willing and good at that) he spent a lot of time with "his guys" -- in this case, Blue Corvette, Lightning McQueen, Miss Sally, and Scoop:

Of course we didn't spend all of our time in the hotel room. We took a long walk around downtown Yuma each day for one of Alex's naps, and we went out in the evening most days too. On the last day of the symposium, though (when they have several outdoor activities), it rained on and off all day. Less than 0.3" of rain and an 87% chance of sunny days on average in February, and it rains on us! We didn't really come prepared for walking around in the rain so we waited for a dry spell before venturing out, but it didn't last. Fortunately some of the symposium goers bought boxes of plastic garbage bags, so we suited ourselves up as best we could:

On our last day in Yuma, before starting the 3 hour drive back to San Diego we wanted to let Evan run around a bit, and we'd read about a pretty cool playground that was part of the park system that ran for several miles along the Colorado River (including a section we'd already visited right by our hotel). So after a somewhat leisurely morning (if any morning that starts before 7AM can truly be considered leisurely) we stopped by the Stewart Vincent Wolfe Creative Playground on our way out of town:

That's Evan on the right standing in front of one of the castle parapets. There were several neat themed areas of the playground like that castle at the main entrance, a multi-level pretend tree (almost more of a tree house) you can walk up into, a jet airplane structure, and a huge spider in its web, just to name a few:

Then it was time to pile back into the car, drive to the San Diego airport, and fly home. As I mentioned in passing above, we all had a good time in Yuma, although I doubt the boys and I will make the trip next year. I'm pretty sure Steph's going to be an annual attendee, though, and hopefully in a few years we'll all go again and the boys and I will get out to see more of the sights (or at least swim in the hotel pool).

Valiant 42

We're going to an art symposium in Yuma, Arizona this weekend, so instead of waiting around in an airport for an hour or two to transfer to a little propeller plane (a planelette? a planito?) and another hour flight we decided to fly to San Diego, rent a car, and drive across the desert to Yuma. Besides saving us some hassle and money this also meant we got to see Jim and Sheilagh on their boat, which is docked in a marina right outside the airport (their slip is literally less than half a mile from the terminal). Since they've put the boat up for sale we were worried that the boys were never going to get to see it, but now those fears have been allayed. Sure they won't remember it, but at least they have seen it. Anyway, to the pictures....

As soon as we got on the boat Evan immediately set about exploring all the nooks and crannies, like the forward berth:

and the anchor chain locker in the forward berth, or as it's also known, the Paige Escape Hatch:

The Paige Escape Hatch? When our nieces were having a sleepover on the boat a year or two ago, Paige (the youngest one... I think she was 4 at the time) semi-woke up in the middle of the night. Disoriented and finding herself in a strange place she tried to get out of bed by climbing through this door. Fortunately she wasn't able to get it open before Jim got to her.

But I digress. Here's Evan scaling the ladder to get back up on deck:

He took a break from exploring to hang out with Alex while Steph changed his diaper:

But then it was right back to scrambling around. We spent quite a while in the cockpit, as there was lots of cool stuff to see and do there. He got to pull all the rope out of a bag and then stuff it back in (evidently that's more fun than it sounds), pretend to steer the boat, and climb around on all the various chairs. I think these stern seats were his favorites, probably because they were the highest and suspended out over the water a bit:

Grandpa Jim showed him some of the tackle they used for fishing in Mexico (when they fished, which I don't think was very often -- neither Jim nor Sheilagh are big fish people):

Alex spent most of his time on board below deck hanging out with Mom and Grandma while they talked and got lunch ready, which he seemed fine with:

And no, that's not a baby megaphone, just a plastic funnel for Alex to chew on. Any pacifier in a storm, ya know?

Velociraptor

Alex has really gotten into screeching like a velociraptor (or maybe a pterodactyl) recently:

Flip

Steph found out today (so I found out this evening) that Jodi (our regular babysitter) has been helping Evan to do a flip of sorts. Here are Steph and Evan practicing:

I've never seen it for myself, but apparently when Jodi does it Evan whips all the way around without catching his leg or anything (which happens to us almost every time). We'll keep practicing, though.

Still More Exersaucer

We just keep getting better pictures of Alex in his Exersaucer...

And video, too:

Mom and Boy

I got some nice pictures of Steph and Alex today, of which this is the best:

Big Boy Utensils

Evan has been eating with a fork and spoon for quite a while, but if there was cutting to be done he mostly called in the big guns (or rather, the big knives), Mom and Dad. That might be about to change, though:

Of course, he probably would have been wise to choose an easier target than a green bean for his first time using a knife:

More Exersaucer

We took some more cute pictures of Alex enjoying himself in his Exersaucer, just because:

Goodbye Grandparents

My parents just came out for basically a long weekend, so Monday night they had to leave to catch their red-eye back to the east coast. They left after Alex's bed time, but Evan got to give goodbye hugs and kisses:

I Heart New York

Since my parents were visiting from New York Evan thought it was appropriate (he may have been coached a bit) to bust out his "I♥NY" shirt that Aunt Kimmie gave him recently:

Grandma's Birthday

My parents came to town for the weekend to attend an 80th birthday party for my dad's boss from CSU East Bay. This meant they were also in town for my mom's birthday, and to save her from having to cook for us on her own birthday (part of their reason for coming was to see the baby and give us some extra help, of course) we took everyone out to dinner at Buca di Beppo.

The evening started out pretty well. Our reservation was a little later than Evan's normal dinner time and we were worried that even a reasonable delay getting us seated and getting the first of the food to our table would lead to a cranky boy (like many kids, Evan's mood definitely sours with hunger). As it turns out we got to sit down right away and some bread arrived at our table almost immediately, but Evan wasn't that interested. He had became somewhat lethargic once we got to the restaurant, owing to the fact that he wasn't feeling too well and had started running a fever (both boys have been carrying head colds since our trip to Santa Fe for Christmas).

In the meantime Alex has in high spirits, and he and my mom were having a good time making faces and talking to each other:

As it turned out (not surprisingly) Evan's cold flaring up, which was actually a bit of a boon to the rest of us at first as the resulting lethargy made him much easier to entertain, eventually had its consequences. He may not have been interested in eating anything but he had no problem guzzling lemonade (Evan is usually a good eater but he is always a good drinker). Unfortunately if you take lemonade and Tylenol, add them to a stomach full of milk (drunk in the car on the way there) and not much else, factor in a healthy dash (pun intended) of cold and fever, and mix it all up in a kid who is willing to throw up with almost no provocation, what you get is an overly damp and smelly father/son combo and a short birthday dinner.

Exersaucer

Up until now if we wanted to put Alex down for a bit we had to put him in his bouncy chair or lay him on the ground under his Kickee Bear or some other activity mat. Nowadays he's got enough upper body control to play in our Exersaucer, though:

Alex thinks the Exersaucer is just as much fun as Evan used to:

It's so much fun he's got to talk about it: