The past couple weeks...

Evelyn has an independent spirit, and, being almost 3, she is even more independent! Well, her independence reached new heights last week when she asserted that she was going to spank herself! Ha Ha! It was hilarious! She was being rude and defiant, so I explained she was going to have to have a spank. She replied "No! I do it myself!"
"Oh?" says I as I follow her to her room. Ryan hears the exchange and quickly joins in to see what she will do. Evelyn has climbed onto the bed, is bent on hands and knees, and looks at us. She repeats "I spank myself!" and proceeds to raise her arm and slap her bum!
She is so serious about it and I just crack up. I cover my face with my hands and turn my back to her. My shoulders are shaking as I try to stifle my uncontrolled and silent chuckles. I feel I must save face and remain the stern disciplinarian. She is so earnest, it would be disrespectful to laugh in her face! Finally, I compose myself and turn to face her with tears in my eyes. Ryan says to Evelyn "See what you did? You made Mommy cry! That is what happens when you are rude and defiant. You hurt her feelings!"
"Sorry Mommy!" says a contrite and apologetic Evelyn. I am about to crack up again, but manage to squeak out a short "It's okay, I forgive you" before I have to leave the room to compose myself. I don't know how Ryan managed to keep a fairly straight face through it all!

A day or so after this little comedy, we had what I call "The Poop Fiasco". Evelyn and Ethan were playing in her room. The bathroom was occupied, and Evelyn needed to go. I have kept her little potty in her closet for just such occasions. From what we can deduce, she made her (rather large) deposit and stood up. Ethan, (who was also in the room) has an almost magnetic attraction to that potty and the toilet. We figure he quickly moved in and started to play. (Yuck! ** Gag!) Evelyn, knowing this situation was really bad, then sat back down on the potty and did not move from it again! Ethan got frustrated that she was in his way, and went to complain to me! So, this is where I come on the scene and smell trouble. I follow the trail of poop that is mushed into the carpet and find Evelyn, behind the closed door of her closet, still sitting on the potty. Ethan has poop on his hands, his robeez, and his clothes. He has kindly deposited some of this onto my pants while he clamors for me to pick him up. I quickly call "Ryan! I need help!" as I thank God that I'm not home alone to deal with this! About an hour later, things are mostly clean. That carpet will never be the same again!

Thankfully, those were the most eventful events of the past few weeks! Aside from that, Evelyn and I had the flu for about 15 hrs on Tuesday. Odd illness. We started showing symptoms within 30 min of each other at about 6 am. I felt better by 9 pm and Evelyn seemed herself by 7 pm. The next day, we were SO hungry, but felt great! It was a good purge and cleanse!

Ethan has started to give really good hugs. It is so sweet. He snuggles right in to your neck and squeezes in with his arms. I love those hugs! I know Ryan does too. On Sunday, there was a potluck lunch at church after the service. Ethan was giving out some hugs to a few of the ladies there too. He is also saying "Hi!" to everyone. He will keep saying it, with a huge smile on his face and possibly a waving little hand, until the person responds. He is quite charming. He seems to be more outgoing and is more comfortable in groups lately. At one point during the potluck, I had to search for Evelyn. I found her sitting quietly on the floor, watching a group of older girls play the board game 'Sorry'. Perhaps I need to dig out our 'Candy Land' game soon!

We have had a lot of snow the past week or so. Evelyn is up to her hips in snow now. It has been so mild though! Perfect winter weather. Zero to minus 10 Celsius range. I had to shovel my car out of our driveway the day after that flu so I could get to work. Then, I got stuck on our crescent and had to shovel partway through all that too! I am glad I worked at 3 pm and not first thing in the morning! It snowed so much that evening, I had to shovel all over again the next day too!

That basically brings us up to yesterday. Evelyn and Ryan decorated a gingerbread house. It is pretty cute, but still unfinished. Evelyn mostly just picked out the candy and organized the candy and looked at the candy, and licked the candy and kissed the candy.... She has pretty much claimed everything on that house!

Today, we played on the playground at the school. The snow was pretty deep, but it was so mild I just had to take advantage of the weather! When we got home, Ethan napped, while I played downstairs with Evelyn. She was being so sweet. She pretended to give her toy rocking horse a bowl of water (that she filled with 'water' from her kitchen sink) and she would caress the horses head whenever she passed and ask "Good water?" "You okay?" It was cute. She also prepared me a feast from her kitchen. She was working on it for at least 5 minutes. It was so cute to watch her look through her cupboards and ask "Where's the bowl?" It was so realistic to life! She 'filled' pots with water, put them on the 'stove' to cook, took out the dishes and cutlery, everything!

After Ethan woke up, we brought him down. Evelyn was very reluctant to let him join the fun at first. I think she was jealous of her 1 on 1 time with Mommy. Ethan was having a blast playing with dolls. He was giving them hugs and was making cute faces at them. Later, he explored the kitchen and did a little pretending of his own. During the whole time, he kept close tabs on his baseball. He seems to really really like his 3 toy baseballs. Ryan is very happy about this development! Ethan had to hold one of his baseballs while he drank a bottle at supper! Too cute!

That is about it! This is the part where you leave a note to say "Thanks for posting!" If you read and don't comment, you are guilty of 'stalking'. Don't be a stalker! Leave a note and encourage me to keep making time to put these posts up ;-)