Year 2 - July

July 2006

Evan loves eating at the table with us!

Evan spent his first night away from home this month. It was Caroline's graduation ceremony and we had a very early start so to save my mum having to get up at 5am to come over to baby sit Evan, we decided it would be better for all parties if he stayed the night at hers. It was a real success and something we hope to do again because it was great for Grandma to spend time with Evan and he just loved the mini adventure! I missed him, as expected but that was only because I've never spent any overnight time away from him. I did wander around his bedroom just before I went to bed; which felt very weird. It's very similar to when Caroline has been off with Evan and I'm so used to driving to work with him that suddenly you look in the rear of the car and he's not there sitting in his chair! The only tears we had was when Evan arrived home and I think it was just his way of coping with seeing me again, he became really clingy and cried when I went out of the room.

Evan seems to love nursery so much at the moment, that home time is rather time consuming these days. He used to love coming home with me and he'd babble about his day all the way home. These days I have to chase him around the nursery and he fights me all the way to the car. I really glad he loves nursery and doesn't miss me anymore but I wish he'd give me an easy time when it comes to loading him in the car. This has become Caroline's job now because I don't have the strength to keep him in his seat and usually come out of the car 10 minutes later, sweating and covered in marks where he has kicked me.

I think we are experiencing some of the character traits displayed by the "terrible twos". Evan has this little routine when he wants to throw a tantrum and these tantrums can be for the silliest reasons, though I am sure to him they are very huge. Hmmm, I wonder where he gets that from <grin>. His tantrums of late consist of stamping feet and then he'll launch himself on the floor face down, kicking legs, banging his arms and screeching. Other types of tantrums when he's not getting what he wants is usually to dive at my feet grabbing my legs to stop me from moving - this is rather disturbing as sometimes I don't see it coming...

"Wow!" was Evan's reaction to his new slide.

The whole feeding routine has completely changed this month. We've gone from having issues with feeding that caused Evan to wake up a few hours after going to bed so hungry that his stomach was growling. We later identified that the real reasons for this were a) he didn't want any help what so ever, unless instigated by him. Further on in to the month, this went even further in that Evan no longer wants to sit strapped into his high chair. At nursery, they all sit round a small table with chairs and I can see why he has started to object to the high chair, because he just wants his routine to continue. I decided to try out my theory and for 2 weeks we had Evan sitting on a pillow on one of our dining room chairs and he got on really well with this. Of course, this could not continue because it really wasn't safe, so now we've bought this little handy travel booster from Mothercare that straps to your current dining room chair. He really likes it and its the next best thing to what he does at nursery. He gets to sit at the table with us and is no longer strapped in using a harness, the straps on this booster are less restrictive. He did push the chair away from the table sending the chair flying once - now that was scary! Luckily he hasn't done it since.

Evan's vocabulary is coming on leaps and bounds this month, he keeps surprising us with new words, we've got Cake, Box, Baby, Teddy to name but a few.. He play style has changed a lot as well, he is really starting to show an interest in his books and puzzles, especially the ones that allow him to interact with them (books with removable shapes). I now have to read to Evan when we go to bed, there is no chance of us avoiding this part of his routine, it is nice though because it's lovely quality time we spend together. We do have 3 books that he wants to read over and over again though and he likes them to be read in a certain order!

"Oooh! look at this mummy"

It was everybody's birthday this month, my brothers and I all share the same month! We had a BBQ for my eldest brother and Evan had so much fun terrorising them. They haven't seen him walking so were so worried every time he stumbled. Caroline and I just let him get on with it and it was a nice break for us as he had lots of people interacting with him. He absolutely loves dogs and my brother's dog Izzy was so happy to have a play mate for the day. They played tug-of-war with her toys and she even collected the balls that Evan threw for her. The only issue was that the dog ran out of energy before Evan did and he just wouldn't let her rest! It was a lovely day and we had so much fun. Neil's friends came over with their children and the dad was playing rough games with his kids on the floor. Evan just ran over and joined in all the fun jumping on top of him, he loved the rough play - Dad's are great for that! I'm ok with a certain amount of rough play, but jumping on my chest would have certainly been a no no...

Evan has learnt a new word that he uses incessantly - "more". He sometimes uses it in the correct context but he'll also just use it whenever he wants something. For example, he'll stand at the fridge pointing to it and saying "more" when he would like his drink. If you give him something to eat like some strawberries that he ate at my mum's. He'll just keep saying more, more, more when he wants another. It can get quite irritating. He also has this new arm action that he uses very well. When something is all gone (like food), or if someone has gone out of the room, he'll do this "all-gone" arm movement where he puts his arms out to the side. It's rather cute, but it's another action that he uses a lot.

I finally got around to collecting and building Evan's slide this month. It was a present at Christmas time from Evan's Grandma. It took me a couple of days and some help from my neighbour to build the beast, but it was definitely worth it. Evan really likes it, he even likes to roll his balls down it!

It was my birthday right at the end of July and as a treat to the family we decided to spend the day at Legoland. Evan seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself and every time we saw something new he said "Oh" or "Wow" pointing and jumping around excitedly. It was a tiring day but we all seemed to cope. Conveniently, we had just finished the last ride in the park that Evan could go on, when he pointed to his push chair. We sat him in it and he promptly fell asleep... "Ah bless.." He'd been running around with his harness on all day and I was very surprised to see him last that long. It was a fabulous day! We're going to take him again in September as we have some free tickets.

What a month! It's been great!

Emma