Dessert

After every meal we soak a washcloth with warm water and clean Evan's face off - even though he has a very well developed appreciation for food (i.e. he eats like a pig) he isn't averse to saving part of a meal on his lips and cheeks for later. Sometimes he takes to this quite well and sometimes he pitches a fit about having his face wiped off, but regardless of which response he chooses he usually ends up grabbing the washcloth and sucking on it for a bit. Think of it as his dessert, or if the washcloth is particularly wet his after dinner drink.

Anyway, here's a cute picture of this we got when we went out to lunch today:

On Off

As a child of the 21st century Evan is very concerned with the health of the planet, and he figures one way he can help out even at his young age is by conserving energy. At least I assume that's what he's thinking when he tries to turn off the lights whenever you carry him out of a room, which is what he's been doing for the last month or so. I mean, it's not like flipping a light switch is fun or anything, right?

Anyway, it occurred to me this weekend that Evan could turn the lights off, but he didn't know how to turn them on yet. Conserving energy is great and all, but there are times when it really helps to have a light on to see what you're doing (at night, for instance). I decided that the time had come to lead Evan out of the dark and let him join the rest of the bidirectional switch-flipping world (sorry, but "out of the dark" was the best pun I could come up with).

Fortunately Evan is pretty much a sponge at this point in his life, and after a short demonstration of the basic principle at hand he was Oning and Offing with the best of them:

Also fortunately it's going to be a while before he can reach the switches on his own.

Dog Training

Evan has been able to roll over for a long time now, although he has never done it very consistently. He's recently made two leaps forward in his rolling ability:

1. He can flip from front to back or back to front in either direction at will (actually that ability isn't so new, but the inclination to do it seems to be); and
2. He can do it on command:
   

Roll Over is also one of the dog's tricks (one of the more difficult ones to teach her, actually), so maybe Evan just wants to prove that he can be just as much fun at parties as she is.

Playing Peekaboo

Evan has enjoyed the game of peekaboo for quite some time now, but always in a very passive sense. If he was looking at you and you walked away he would wait for you to poke your head around the corner and say "Peekaboo!" and he would laugh, but in actuality you're the one playing peekaboo and he's just watching. For the first time today Evan really played peekaboo. Let me explain what I mean....

Every morning I go and get Evan up around 7:00, and the first thing I do is take him out of his crib (I went over that a few weeks ago) and change his diaper. Over the last few months he has gotten more squirmy on his changing table, so it's a constant challenge to find things to keep him occupied while you're doing what needs to be done. If there is a cloth diaper on the table (which there often is - we use them as rags instead of diapers and call them his towels, but he uses them as security blankets more than anything else and has trouble sleeping without one or two in his crib) I often play a little peekaboo with him before getting down to business. I'm not actually sure it makes him any less likely to try and roll over and grab the baby wipes or diaper cream, but it almost always makes him laugh, and even though Evan has a fairly rough laugh for a baby it's still the best sound in the history of the world.

So anyway, this morning was one of those times when there was a cloth diaper on the changing table, so I threw it over his face just after I laid him down. Normally Evan grabs the diaper as soon as he can and pulls it off so he can see you and then smiles real big when you say "Peekaboo!" Today, though, he didn't react right away. He just lay there with the towel over his face, so I started in on the whole "Where's Evan?" routine (a critical part of the peekaboo process). After 5 seconds or so he pulled down the diaper to reveal a big smile - he had been hiding from me! I said "There he is!" and we laughed a bit, and then he pulled the towel back over his face and lay still again. He waited several more seconds, and several more calls of "Where's Evan?", before pulling the towel back down and laughing. We repeated that five or six times in total before I decided that I should actually get back to changing his diaper at some point.

Evan is at a stage where he's learning to do something new practically every other day, and it's so much fun to watch him grow and help him along.

That's Not a Jumparoo

Other than his initial trepidation when they first arrived Evan has really enjoyed having his grandparents around. He's been having a great time making faces with Grandpa and exchanging shrieks with Grandma:

As you can also see from this video, now that Evan has experienced the magic and power of the Jumparoo he's figuring out how to turn several of his toys into makeshift Jumparoos.

Meg & Rob Visit

I'm not sure why, but we never seem to take any pictures of new people the first time they visit. To make it into this blog you've evidently got to be a repeat performer (that's not a de jure rule, but it sure seems to be a de facto standard). I bring this up because Meg and her boyfriend Rob came down from Sacramento for dinner today, and we remembered to capture the occasion on film this time... er, make that SD card:

Such a glamorous setting, and wonderful lighting to boot! And I blame Evan for the pile of shredded napkin on the plate in front of me -- he's got a thing for ripping paper.

Anyway, we all had fun, although Meg and Rob had to drive back home that night. I think a 2-hour drive each way is a bit much for dinner, but such is the power of the Prodigal Grandparents (or really the Prodigal Parents in this context).

Potluck

As I mentioned in passing in a previous post, we had a potluck for Jim & Sheilagh at our house while they were here so they could see all their Bay Area family and friends at one time. You'll have to take my word for it that we had 30 or so people over for the afternoon and everyone had a great time, because all the pictures I chose to include are of just our little family. They also all revolve around Evan's new push car for some reason... have I mentioned that he likes it a lot?



Thanks to Kristen Jessie for taking these pictures... as is our normal idiom, we didn't take our camera out once during the whole party. I think you'll agree Kristen got some great shots, though.

New Car

You've seen Evan in his new car before, but have you ever seen him proudly standing next to it? I don't think so! Until now, that is:

Not only does Evan love riding around in his car, he also likes pulling up and standing next to it. It's great for minutes of fun!

The Prodigal Grandparents

Other than the occasional video chat on Skype we haven't seen Steph's parents since they retired in October and sailed away to the Mexican Riviera... literally. They were back in the country for a month to take care of some tax return and visa issues, though, and they stayed with us for almost a week of their whirlwind trip around California. OK, now that they're retired they don't really do anything at a whirlwind pace, but they were staying four or five different places and hitting all the major metropolitan areas of the state so it's not such an inappropriate description.

Evan was a little taken aback when Jim, Sheilagh and Megan first arrived (right in the middle of his lunch, no less!), but he quickly decided they weren't really that scary after all. Here he is with Sheilagh, investigating her chunky necklace (Steph doesn't wear necklaces very often, so this was a rare treat):

Most of the time his grandparents were here Evan stuck to his normal routine (pretty much just playing, eating, and sleeping), he just had some new playmates. He also got to host his first potluck BBQ (more about that in another post soon) and go to the Strictly Sail boat show in Oakland (anyone want to guess whose idea that was?) - all told a pretty exciting week, although I dare say it was over too quickly.

Click Talker

Over the past few weeks Evan has started to really mimic us at times. He's still not extremely consistent, but most of the time when you wave at him he'll wave back, and today Steph was able to get him to make clicking sounds in response to her clicking:

I don't know that I've ever heard him click before, so he was definitely imitating Steph. I suppose it's possible he may have actually said something, but we don't know any African bushmen who might be able to translate. We probably shouldn't count this as his first word, then, huh?