underdogishere

It’s been more than a year since I posted an Evelyn update in this blog. For most of that time I wasn’t posting anything at all, but still, that is about half of her life so maybe it is time for an update.

It seems that she changes every day. Evelyn turned two in May and we can certainly see her personality peaking through from behind her disappearing helplessness. She is walking and talking, and running and singing. Most of this is, of course, a blessing and a curse with the blessings outweighing the cursings (to coin a phrase) by about 1000 to 1. We used to be able to sing her to sleep. Now when we sing to her she takes it as an invitation and starts to sing along. Well, you say, just sing a song she doesn’t know. No dice. We’ll get about half a line in and she will say ‘Your land’, or ‘winkle winkle’, or ‘I been de wailroad’ meaning ‘This Land is Your Land’, ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ or ‘I’ve Been Working on the Railroad’ respectively. On the plus side, the sound of her singing along with us is one of the sweetest sounds I have ever heard.

Of course, she doesn’t know what “I’ve roamed and rambled, I’ve followed my footsteps” means. You can tell that she doesn’t know what it means because she says it as a sentence. Although her capacity for words and stringing them together grows daily it is always delightfully obvious when she is developing the sentence herself. ‘Daddy. Sit. Chair. Wead. Omenahight’ is her way of saying “Daddy, please sit in that chair and read ‘Snowmen at Night’” (OK, I am not sure if the ‘please’ is in there, but I would like to think it is). The book title she says as a single unit because she has heard us say it enough. For the rest there is a short pause between each word as she string them together herself. It is so interesting watching her pick up new words and string them together.

With the walking (and running and jumping and climbing) comes the seed of independence. Among the things we are no longer allowed to do for her: put her in her car seat, put on her socks, put on her sandals (but not with her socks). When we try to do any of these things she will tell us ‘Do it’, which is her way of saying ‘I can do it myself, so bug off’. Once she masters a task it is hers and she is immensely proud to complete it herself. Her capacity for doing things herself is not limited to simple tasks. The other day we had a yard sale. This was part of our ongoing quest to clean out the garage enough so that by winter we can store both cars in there. Linda and I were in front of the house doing retail duty when Evelyn wanted something (I forget what it was, probably her water, or Mooch, a little stuffed dog she is fond of). Linda says to her “I think it is in the kitchen on the table, why don’t you go see if it is there”. It continually amazes me that our 2 year old daughter understands what must be for her complex sentences. Understand she did though because in she trekked and shortly thereafter she came out with the desired item. To my knowledge it was the first time she had gone into the house by herself. I must confess that along with being amazed by this child of ours there was also a twinge as I realized that the difference between leaving Mom and Dad in the front yard to go into the house and leaving Mom and Dad to go to college is just a matter of degree. I would long for the days when she couldn’t get around like that, but then we would have missed out on her rather creative dance moves, her somersaults, her going down the slide at the local park or watching her little arms pump as she runs along the sidewalk.

Parenting is such an amazing journey.