Return to Eva Blog: 10 and 11 month photos

I forgot to post these pictures of Eva at her 10 month mark so here are some of the best shots I could get.   Gone are the days of her lying down so I can measure how long she is.  Now it's all about trying to get a picture in focus.  If she's smiling in that picture it's a bonus!  

 

 (Eating the measuring tape)

 (Eating her shoe)

 At 10 months Eva weighed 17 lbs (23 percentile), was 28 inches long (52 percentile) and had a head circumference of 17.99 inches (85th percentile).  She has a big Johnson head.

Here are Eva's 11 month pictures.  She still weighs 17 lbs and is still 28 inches long.  She loves talking to strangers (smiling, waving, laughing as they walk by).  She even waves to people in different cars at stop lights.  She has a few words: mama, dada, hi, bye, no, pretty, kite, bird, caw (like a crow), car (very similar sounding to caw).  She mimics a lot of what we say.  Her baby talk sounds like phrases and she still loves screaming.  We went to the fabric store yesterday and she screamed pretty much the entire time.  She just wanted to hear herself yelling. 

These are the best pictures I could get of her.  Whenever I'm not holding her she's on the go. 

She started pointing at things and wants to be taken to see them.  Her favorite things to point at are in her room.  She has a colorful kite hanging from the ceiling and a row of felt birds on a string above her mirror.  After she wakes up she immediately points to them and when I pick her up we go look at them all while she's pointing to them.  If I ask her where they are she can point to them.  

Bennett wants me to write that she's starting to get a mullet.  She has top and bottom hair but is bald around the sides.  Just the opposite of Bennett's bald pattern.

See what I mean?

Here are some other things that are new with her this month: she LOVES feeding herself.  It takes over an hour but she loves sitting there trying to get one small piece of corn in her mouth.  She's begun doing the "flick test."  This involves picking up a piece of food, flicking her hand around and if the food is still in her hand afterword she can then put it in her mouth. 

Bennett wants me to write that she's awesome.  I tend to agree.

Cottage Cheese Has Never Been So Dramatic.

 Being a parent is to be excited once again, to find new joy in those experiences in life that have become common, mundane and forgotten. Things that had become annoying and troublesome to a calloused, cynical adult, like going to the community pool, are now, once again, just as exciting as when you were a kid because you get to see this little person that you love beyond anything you ever thought possible scream as loud as she can in the dressing room just to hear her own echo; splash herself in the face on accident; bob up and down in the water for the first time and love every minute of it, even go down the water slide,despite a tense look of uncertainty on her face, clinging tightly to dad's neck the entire way.

Even something as common as eating food becomes a new and funny experience.

Here is a video of Eva eating some cottage cheese: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mo4K0yzRCk&feature=youtu.be

It was a lot messier than it looks in the video.

Despite the contrary evidence in those photos (that sour look on her face), Eva really had a fun time going swimming for the first time.

Eva Walking and Talking like a regular Rory Calhoun

This is a video of Eva walking (with the assistance of the stroller and me.)  She can stand and squat by herself and is beginning to pull herself along things. 

This is a video of Eva talking.  She has 6 words: Mama, Dada, hi, bye, no and (this one was added yesterday) pretty.  I was only able to get her to say Dada, bye-bye and pretty for the camera. And yes, we are normally that angelically white.  It comes from not seeing the sun for 9 months. And yes, we are that tilty in normal life.  I don't know what that comes from.

I bought some tulips and put them up on the book shelf yesterday (that's why she's looking up on the shelf when she says pretty).  I held her up to them and said, "Pretty."  She copied me and is now really interested in them.  She's so interested in them that she cries whenever I put her down after looking at the tulips.  I had no idea she would be so captivated with the "pretty" (new name for flowers).   

International Space Station? Home of the Future? Rectangular submarine, complete with disco club lighting?

Last night, while watching "The Best of Saturday Night Live" I made this "play tunnel" for Eva. I took this long cardboard box that we had sitting around, part of our cardboards of the world collection, and I poked the christmas lights through on top, cut out some geometric windows on the side, attached some interesting textures to the other side, like bubble wrap and quilt batting, then I hung some beaded curtains on one entrance (a bunch of buttons on lengths of yarn that Katie made for me) and on the other entrance I placed a peice of fabric cut into strips. She played in it this morning for the first time right when she woke up (at 5:30 am). She was so excited by the lights that she was panting/breathing heavily. It's a little ghetto and probably will not last more than a couple of days, but I plan on making Leesa sleep in it when she and Penny come to visit in 17 days. Can you tell we are excited for you guys to come? We are counting down the days.

Did you notice a theme here? Everything in her mouth.

The Witch's House

We hiked to an old house built during the depression as a rest house for the workers of the WPA (Works Progress Administration). Today the structure is known around Portland as the "Witches House". It was recently used in the TV show GRIMM.

Katie's Crafty Cool

 Katie painted this adorable little sign to hang in our kitchen. It is painted on a piece of wood about 3 feet by 2 feet. It is a line from the play "The Importance of being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde.

 Katie also made these shadow portraits (she has recently become very interested in the science of physiognamy).

Every time I see our cute little faces, even though mine shows me with the posture of a decrepit baboon, I think of that evolution poster:

 

So, as you can see, The indecent, poisonous words of Oscar Wilde have us pondering the pseudo-sciences of physiognomy and evolution.

Doesn't make a lot of sense

My mom asked me to post this homemade video for her to see.  Please be advised that it doesn't make a lot of sense.  The back story:  My nephew, Elann, was just in his 6th grade play and I told him that he should try out for my play that I'm writing about him (or a character named "Belann") and if he wanted the part I would need to see a copy of his play and an audition tape.  I decided to do a script reading of 3 scenes from my play to get him excited about auditioning.  Here's the video link: amazing video!