We went in for Eve’s 18 month check up
today (quick, before she turns 19 months!). All is well, of
course. When the doctor came in Eve promptly brought her a book
and crawled up in her lap. So the appointment started with the
pedi reading stories to Eve. The doctor did a lot of pointing
and “what’s this” and Eve knew all the answers. When they were
done reading the doctor smiled and said, “well, she passes the
verbal test just fine!” Eve showed off her jumping and kicking
skills, and her coloring skills (including on her hand and bare
belly). The doc said she’s doing great. She weighed in at 24lbs
and 31″ – about 50th percentile for weight, 75th percentile for
height, and 90th percentile for head circumference! Eve got
more immunizations and all three of us ended up with a flu
shot. Lex was very put out about that, mostly because it was
supposed to be Eve’s appointment and I had told him that the
doctor wouldn’t do anything to him. My bad.

This isn’t a great picture, but it makes
me laugh every time I look at it. So I figured I’d share
:)

We did our first charity fund raiser walk
today. The Pampered Chef had a team at Vermont’s first (I
think) American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast
Cancer walk. That’s a mouthful! It was held about 1.5hrs from
our house and coincidentally about 10 minutes from the colo
facility Alan had to do some work at today. So we all drove up
together and Alan (poor Alan) went to work while the kids and I
did our first walk. It was fun, mostly. We were supposed to
walk with a big Pampered Chef team, but only a few people
showed up and none that I knew :( But we always have fun
anyway. Lex was tired and rode in the stroller for the whole 5
miles, but Eve was ambitious and wanted to walk, walk, walk! I
let her out for awhile, but if we did the whole walk at her
pace we’d still be there now!! So I had to corral her back into
the stroller after awhile. She got lots of oohhs and ahhs and
“how cuuutteee…” from all the people passing us.

Pre-walk. Don’t they look bundled
:)

Eve,
walking the walk.

After the walk we hung out at the field for a little
while. They had lots of free food (so much for the 5 mile
calorie burn!) and a bouncy house for the kids and
entertainment. There were some girls dancing to oldies music (a
dance team, I suppose) and each time the music ended Eve
clapped and said “more, more”. She also does this in the car
between each song on the CD. Silly girl.

Eve was
tired, tired, tired by the end of the event. She ended up
walking around, plug in mouth, dragging doggie by the ear.
People still oohed and aahhed about how adorable she was
(though most people called her a boy by that point because of
the blue jacket.)

Lex was
tired, tired, tired too! He hasn’t napped in the car in a long
time.

They both
took naps in the car on the way home and early bedtimes
tonight!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKNX3V3zUn0]

(for my records)

At
dinner tonight Eve got another facial rash, similar to the
peanut rash she got before only a bit smaller. She ate a
blueberry bagel with cream cheese (a favorite and frequent
meal), warm chocolate milk (warm milk with a little bit of
Hershey’s syrup) and a half a kiwi. She’s never had the
chocolate syrup before, but she’s had plenty of other chocolate
things. I’m almost positive I’ve given her kiwi before, but I
think that’s the more likely culprit here. I didn’t give her
any more (despite her requesting it) and the rash cleared up
within the hour, much like the peanut rash. I did a quick
search tonight and kiwi seems to be a common allergen. Sooo…
I guess we’re done with kiwi for awhile. At least until our
appointment with the allergist at the end of the month.

Sometimes I wonder if I did something wrong
with her early feedings. Alan did such a good job of
documenting and tracking Lex’s food intake and following the
Super Baby Food “food introduction” schedule, but I was so much
more lax with Eve. I started her on solids a bit earlier, gave
her banana first instead of cereal, etc. Nothing that should
have caused any problems, but sometimes I wonder… On the
other hand, now Lex will only eat a few select things and Eve
eats anything and everything! :)

Anyway,
we shall see what the allergist has to say.

A local art gallery offers a children’s
time every Saturday where kids can come in and get creative.
I’ve been meaning to go for a long time, and today we finally
made it. When we got there we were the only ones there, which
was great because we got a lot of personal attention from the
assistant. She showed us around and got the kids set up with
oil pastels and then paints. We also played with clay, colored
pencils, and stamps. Then we checked the children’s gallery
area and, of course, found some books to read. We all had a
good time.

When we got home we found Alan
mowing the leaves (we are leaf composting this fall!) and
Parrish playing in the backyard. Despite the fact that it was
chilly and they were both overtired, we spent the next few
hours outside playing. I haven’t seen the neighbors in awhile,
so that was nice. At one point Parrish asked if we could get
out the sidewalk chalks again (we haven’t done that in a long
time! He’s got a good memory) so we continued our creative
afternoon with chalks on the street. I had to bribe Lex with
warm chocolate milk to get him inside at 5:30pm. Eve was more
than ready to go! She said, “mommy. dinner. eat.” and walked
into the garage. :)

Station
master Lex giving a red light to the Eve
train.

Drawing
more tracks for the Eve train.

Another real quick bath story. We have
these foam toys that stick to the walls of the tub, in shapes
of cars, trucks, signs, roads, etc. Eve picked up the stop sign
today, looked at it for a minute, then said “sign!” and looked
to me for confirmation. I smiled, she smiled, and Lex said
“yes, Eve, it’s a stop sign. See, it says stop!” She looked
again and said “Stop!” I love watching little brains work. She
says so many words now it’s amazing. Tonight is the first time
I’ve heard her say “sign,” though she’s pretty good at saying
“stop, stop!” :)

In the tub tonight Lex asked Eve if he
could give her a kiss. She said yes, which is unusual. (I’m
always teaching him to ask her before doing something or taking
something, but she always says no to him). He was pretty happy
and kissed her arm. She grinned, said “kiss!” then lifted up
her foot and said “foot.” He laughed and kissed her foot. She
grinned bigger, said “kiss!” then held up her other foot. He
happily obliged. So cute!

We went to a fun pumpkin festival this
past weekend. It was a busy morning that didn’t end well, but
overall we had a good time. They had horse-drawn wagon rides,
which both kids LOVED, and a big pumpkin patch, and activities
for the kids. They both loved throwing apples in the cider
press and Lex painted a pumpkin and insisted on writing his own
name on it instead of letting the volunteer helper write it for
him. I was surprised that he wanted to write and even more
surprised that it was recognizable. The pumpkin met an untimely
end, but I’m sure we’ll see plenty more of Lex writing in the
future. We also met several friends at the festival. I had
arranged to go with Michelle and her kids, but we also met
several other people, including one of our favorite daycare
kids. That was a nice surprise.

My
little pumpkin in a sea of pumpkins.

Trying
to get a group picture. Notice how I’m the only one interested
in this idea :/

That’s a
little better… kind of.

The
horses.

Yesterday I asked Lex if he wanted to carve the pumpkins
we have here at home or paint on them. He choose painting, so
we set up a little paint station and I let them go to town on
the pumpkins. We all had fun.

Lex put
eyes, nose, and a mouth on this one. Then he added a beard :)
(not in the picture)

Eve
seemed to think the paint was hot and blew on each brush before
painting on the pumpkins.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRBHcbCBIXA]