Fall Together

It is fall in Saint Louis--a beautiful time of year. The leaves won't change for a while yet, but the weather is glorious. Life is good here in the B-T house, and seems to get better by the day. In my last post, I reported our having settled into a routine, which we have. But the routine expands weekly and we've been able to add more and more to it. For instance, because Evelyn has finally begun to enjoy riding in the double-jogger stroller (for the first month or so she'd cry just as soon as she was put in it) I now get to go outside with the kids almost every day. I've even begun to jog some of that time too! It's so beautiful right now, it's a treat to get out of doors.

Weekends together with Brent home are lots of fun too. We go to the Farmers Market in Tower Grove park every Saturday morning, where we nearly always meet up with friends. The cool thing is we never have to coordinate such meetings since lots of the people we know also go regularly. We've gone to the zoo a couple of times, and have enjoyed evening walks in Forest Park (complete with a beer on the dock at the Boathouse). All four of us also continue to enjoy our tradition of happy hour on the porch--continuing our tradition from Kazakhstan.

Like father like son.
He gets so much joy out of just holding an empty beer bottle, 
just imagine how much he'll enjoy the beer itself one day!

Enjoying her exersaucer on the patio!

This is the first trip to the zoo.
You can see how very interested they were!

The second time they at least took notice of the goats!

We've been able to hang out with friends more and more, which is great. Since a lot of these friends 
have kids, Jess and Evelyn have lots of new playmates. There are new friends for them on the horizon too as I've just organized a playgroup with some other moms I know. (That last sentence, by the way, is one I never expected to utter. How surprising life can be...) So, that's all by way of saying life is good. Things are falling into place and we're enjoying our new life together as a family.

Jess and Eves continue to grow and change and impress us (and drive us crazy sometimes too)! I'll tell a few stories about each just to give you a picture of life with them. Let's start with...

The Jess-ter

He's a wild and crazy guy!

About two weeks ago Jess went on a food strike. Out of the blue, he simply decided that really meals are a form of baby-torture. So, he'd scream violently (as if having been beaten about the head and neck) if we managed to sneak a spoonful of (my lovingly-prepared) food in his mouth. Even if we doused everything with yummy yummy apple sauce--it was child abuse. This went on for several nights. What we eventually figured out is that he was just rejecting pureed food. As soon as I cut up some fruit, potatoes, pasta, etc. the strike was over and he once again joined the world of solid foods. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me: the guy only has two (partially grown-in bottom) teeth, cannot pick up much of this food himself, and has never even had any finger food before this...nevertheless, out of nowhere he has the wherewithal to decide that such items MUST be on the menu. If they are, then he is willing to tolerate some pureed food too.
He continues to pull himself to standing using every object in sight. Pulling up on stable objects has become something of a bore, however, so he's taken to finding as unstable an object as possible for the job: the oven (which is never on, but still), the cabinets (which while child-proofed still open a bit and so can pinch fingers), empty laundry baskets, the walkers and ride-on cars (which roll or tip over), his sister, his rocking horse, etc. To add a further challenge, he is really into pulling up while gripping a toy in one or both hands. Not only is there the challenge of accomplishing the feat with one hand, but the added bonus of having something play with once he's standing (and something to fall on).

I've propped the horse in a corner so it can't rock and he call use it to pull up without as much chance of injury. Below is Jess in Evelyn's crib. He likes to stand up, turn on the mobile, and then pull the animals as they go by.

He sometimes says "mamama", but that inevitably slips into "nahnahnah" (--sounds like cross between no-no and nite-nite--could there be a connection?). I could swear, moreover, that he says (and means) "Hiiiiii!" He said that while looking at Abby today.

Evie-Girl

Evelyn is emerging from her shell and just flowering before our eyes (I guess that's a mixed metaphor). It's a wonderful thing. She's showing herself to be less serious and much more goofy and fun-loving than our early days together seemed to indicate. We're enjoying discovering this little creature.

This outfit is a hand-me-down from cousins Alley and Claire. We think that Evelyn is channeling the spirit of Claire here--her expression is so like some goofy expression that one might find on Claire's face.

Since Jess has, of late, become obsessed with clapping, we've been trying to get her to clap too. It is clear that she knows what we're asking her to do, but has had some difficulty doing it. Initially, when we asked her to clap she'd pump her arms in the air spasmodically a few times and then clasp her hands together. And when she did actually try to clap, her hands would miss each other. Now she really enjoys it when we clap her hands together for her, and I'm convinced that the experience of us clapping her hands for her gave her an idea. Last weekend when, once again, we were saying "C'mon, clap Evie" she grabbed my hands and clapped them together. So cute! And, really, it works well for her--it's like having a pair of cymbals. Our hands are so much bigger they don't miss and they yield a much more satisfyingly loud clap-sound. This is her new favorite thing--though she does also keep on practicing with her own hands.
She now has six teeth. While she could take or leave the finger foods, she does enjoy taking a good chomp on human flesh now and again. At night, instead of sucking on my arm as she used to, she will bite me instead. The first few times it took me by surprise, and when I yelped with pain, pulling her quickly off of my arm, I'd almost always find her smiling broadly. Indeed, whenever she scores a bite, she smiles in obvious delight! I worried a little at first that maybe we were raising a little baby sociopath. I was relieved, however, to read in a baby book that this is normal. We're following the instructions of saying "No biting" firmly and then distracting her with something else. I just get the feeling she's not taking us seriously as she simply grins at us whenever we make this correction. Like this:

Meet Fang.

The last news about Evelyn is that she has expanded her vocabulary. Whereas most of her vocal repertoire to this point has consisted in sounds resembling some ancient proto-bird (we affectionately refer to her as "the Pterodactyl"), she has now officially begun to make human baby sounds. She now says "Bababababa". Isn't that exciting? For our part, we are in awe.

Oh, and just this very second, she waved at me for the first time! So, you see, they are doing new and exciting things by the moment.

Well, I'll end the narrative portion of the post here. Here are a few last pictures.

Here he is: the amazing clapping boy!

Happy little bed-head.