Post-Game Report

So this one is almost a week late, but who's counting? And, the report has nothing to do with the Upward game - it is a report on the post-game activities so you just might have to get used to disappointment :)

After almost every Upward game, we end up behaving like the Capons that we are and "shutting down the place" as we call it - meaning we are the last to leave. I don't know how many times this week alone we have been asked to shut off the lights when we leave. It doesn't help that our good friends, the Fishers, are coaches in our league and we always have something to talk about with them after the game. This time, Nicky and I had some heavy duty graphing of rational functions to tackle and the girls can never get enough of Cayden so we were going anywhere quickly.

Well, eventually the Fishers left and we were still getting on coats and tracking down socks and baby dolls when Daddy held an impromptu basketball clinic.

Even Lily is catching on to "Defense" now.


But then she decided to add tackling to her defensive maneuvers so apparently the difference between basketball and football is still a little shaky for her.



Sorry about the bluriness, but when you are moving this fast...

I don't know if these pictures capture it, but I love how God designs children to be in awe of their earthly fathers. My girls certainly are.

Family Fun Night

This past Tuesday was Family Fun Night at Valley West Mall. My mom was staying with us that evening because she had a meeting in Des Moines Wednesday, Danny was preparing for teaching Wednesday and the girls needed an outing so this seemed like a good plan.
Three of the "big draws" caught my attention as things that Ev would enjoy:
1) Inflatables

2) Face Painting/Temporary Tatoos

3) Elmo and Cookie Monster

We decided before we embarked on an adventure of this magnitude, we should probably get something to eat. We arrived at the food court and decided on Maid-Rite - which might be a bit of a stretch as a description of this particular dining establishment. Good thing I checked my order when I got it because it contained only 75% of my order (a score which would have only landed one of my math students a C). Little did I know that this "score" would drop even more as I could only give partial credit in several other areas.
I ended up returning right away for napkins. Apparently my mom and I seemed formidable enough to feed a 1 and 2 year old without the aid of paper products.(They were behind the Maid-Rite counter so I could not have obtained them myself without appearing both odd and out of line.) Maybe they thought I would feel insulted by the suggestion that we weren't a tidy family. They must have used these superior powers of deduction to determine that we were above straws because I had to go back for those next. When I finally opened my sandwich to eat it, (the rest of the crowd was pretty much done eating by now) I noticed the cheese was missing. I almost let it go for three reasons: I was tired of going back (we had conveniently seated ourselves on the opposite end of the food court), there was not much left for the girls to eat and stay occupied much longer, and I was pretty sure that the sweet grandma lady and her industrious twenty-something latino gentleman co-worker were not anticipating another arrival on my part. They really had been quite kind and patient from the beginning and I felt like I didn't want to make them feel badly about how this all turned out. But, my desire for cheese won out and I returned. My sandwich was cold at this point and so it wouldn't melt the cheese. My desire for melted cheese was not enough, however, to send me back yet again.

With the meal episode behind us, we decided to explore the "Big 3" attractions. When we got to the main fun area, I noticed that the inflatables were LARGE. Something told me that Evie was not going to scale a 30 ft. inflatable and slide into my waiting arms on the other side - especially if she had to wait in long lines to do so. Instead, she was quite content to throw coins into the water fountain until Grammy and I were literally penniless (and nickel-less and dime-less and quarter-less).

Next it was on to the face painting area. I was envisioning Evie getting a little heart or flower on her cheek. But when I saw bands of kids approaching me with an entire face covered in what looked like a cross between war paint and stage makeup, I decided to save myself the hassle of rubbing her raw to undo the artwork at bedtime. Once again, she didn't notice. She did notice what Grammy calls the "Educational Toy" store and what I alternately call the "Game" store or the "Hey, let's go in there, check if they have the Swiss expansion to Ticket to Ride, ask them for it when we don't see it, have them tell us their computer says they have one but we can't find it, have them check and not find it, have them tell us it must be an inventory error, then we sneak over and check again and tell ourselves that someday we will look through every box in there just in case" store. We have done that same series of events enough times to sufficiently warrant it becoming an alternate nomenclature. Anyway, we had a great time in that store and, of course, we left with some educational toys - but no Swiss expansion.

Finally, I thought Elmo and Cookie Monster would be a big hit. There had to be some reason why we needed to be here this night since everything else we had enjoyed up to this point was available any night of the week. But, when Evie saw her furry friends coming she started crying and clawing her way into Grammy's arms. This defies all logic to me, but the remainder of the evening she held tight to one of us when entering/exiting a new location and constantly asked if Elmo and Cookie Monster had gone to bed yet. We took her to the other end of the mall where she was pleasantly distracted by the play area until it was time to go home, the play area that is also not unique to Family Fun Night. Oh well.

Baby Love

Lily has recently discovered baby dolls and it is so cute to see what she does with them. Note: In our house, Evie has set the definition of "baby" to include stuffed animals. Lily appears to be following suit.

When handed her Lorax (Dr. Suess character), Lily squeezed it and shrieked with delight. Then she proceeded to eat its hair. Apparently, she is vacillating between the "everything is a chew toy" and "everything is a baby" stage.

Last night when I gave her a little duck "baby", she held it tight, rocked side to side and patted it on the back. Then she proceeded to eat its hair. You might be sensing a theme.

My favorite trick of Lily's related to babies is when she sees one of Evie's baby multitude (neither the Octomom nor the Duggars has/have anything on Evie when it comes to progeny - unless you count the fact that theirs are real...) unguarded. She will walk over to the baby, grab it by the leg (must have learned that from Uncle Tim) and take off as fast as she can - which isn't fast at all considering she has only recently decided that she prefers functioning as a biped. But, from the look on her face, she is getting away with robbery and couldn't be more delighted. Mysteriously, Evie seems to always know when this occurs and is horrified that her baby has been snatched - though moments earlier she appeared to not even be cognizant of the baby's existence.

Yesterday was quite interesting in the "Lily meets babies" department because we had a real, live baby in the house, Cayden Fisher. Evie calls him "Baby Cayden" and I am pretty sure she will still call him Baby Cayden when/if they are in youth group together someday. It is a good thing he is so easy-going. Let's hope that lasts. Anyway, I was a little surprised at Lily's reaction to Baby Cayden because, when Lily was added to the household, Evie did not have a similar reaction. Must be that the extra six months from 1 to 1 1/2 really facilitates that "territorial" instinct. Lily was thrilled to see Baby Cayden. She would walk over to his car seat and display her utter euphoria by means of a high-pitched squeal that vaguely resembled her typical "Hiya" greeting. I can't imagine why Baby Cayden began crying. She, being much more the sharer at this age than her older sister, thought Baby Cayden needed toys - so she filled his car seat with toys, When he didn't respond as she saw fit, she banged to toys into his head as if to make him more aware of their presence. Needless to say, we had to create a Lily-proof barrier around Baby Cayden. Even then she would peek over at him and "talk" to him in a sing-songy voice. Baby Cayden just cried. I think she had ruined her opportunity to make a good impression - he was scarred. And scared.

It's back to fake babies now and I think we are all happy about that.

Totally unrelated, the Ankeny DQ had 1/2 price day today so we took the girls and met Aunt Amy for supper. Here is how that turned out.

We Are A Family

I have been working on teaching Evie the concept of "Family" in recent days (it is one of Daddy's favorite concepts). Last night on the way home from Upward practice, while riding in a separate vehicle from Daddy and Sister, Evie asked me where Daddy was going. I told her he was going home just like we were.
"Why?," she asked. (I am sure all parents of former 2 yr olds are shocked that she would respond with that question.)
"Because we are a family so we live in the same house and like to do things together as a family."
"Why?"
"Because God made us to be a family - a mommy and a daddy and two little girls. That is the family God put you in. Isn't that wonderful?"
Of course, since we live as far from church as we do, the conversation was over at this point because we had completed the 15 second trek.

Well, apparently, she is catching on because she was sitting on her stepstool in the bathroom this morning with her baby Cayden - at least it was named Cayden yesterday - when I walked by. She looked up and asked me to "Come in here and be as a family with me."

Olympic Math

Boromir (Sean Bean)
+
Adrien Brody








=

Evgeni Plushenko

Where Do I Begin?

So, I haven't blogged in a few days and this blog's title is a big reason why. I have a hard time figuring out how to start a post. And, you can't blame me, really. It wasn't like my high school English classes devoted a large segment of time to Blog Composition. So, I decided that maybe I should approach a blog intro in the same way I approach forms of communication that I do have experience using.

I could start my blog like a letter. Who am I kidding? I don't even remember the last non-electronic correspondence I constructed. I could start my blog like an e-mail. But, my e-mails generally have defined recipients and blogs don't exactly. I guess I could address my perceived potential audience, "Dear Grammys, small band of followers, hopefully none of my English teacher friends* and random person who hit "Next Blog" and landed here," but that gets a little too wordy and too formal for a blog.

So, I could start blogging in a slightly more casual way, maybe more like a phone conversation. If I took a cue from my daughters I would start like this:

Lily - "Hiya, Ba, Ba, Ba, Ba" with head bobbing up and down like Pac-baby while holding any object, phone-like or not, up to her ear. Maybe not.

Evie - "Hello, this is John Capon? And want to know if you could help us get the bugs out so we don't scare Lillers. Ok. Bye." So she is talking to someone that doesn't exist and cutting them off before they have a chance to reply. That does seem a little more like blogging but still not exactly my style.

Now that this post requires a scroll-bar I think I am well past the stage of figuring out how to start my blog. On to my next dread: transitions. I remember one time in high school, my "honors" English class (which was a joke because almost anyone could join the class because we didn't want to hurt feelings) apparently didn't do such an honorable job with transitions and my teacher made us all rewrite our papers. It stuck with me for two reasons:
1) I had never even considered how one paragraph transitioned to the next when writing and remembered thinking that it was a novel idea to learn to do that well.
2) I thought it odd that she was very disturbed about our poor performance in a skill that we had never been taught - maybe she assumed that it had been covered in our previous 11 years of public school education. Perhaps she forgot that it was a public school education :) **
She did proceed to take some time to correct our dishonorable ways and it was actually quite a turning point for me when it came to how I perceived writing. I really did want to learn to write better, but the next year another teacher told me, in response to my request for a book that would help me better understand punctuation usage (especially commas), "It doesn't matter - do what you want," which probably explains why this sentence is constructed as it is.

I think it is safe to say we have arrived at the culmination of my composition shortfalls: the end. Since I did place two asterisks in the above sections, I think I will simply end with those because little annoys me more that abandoned asterisks - I have spent way too many precious moments of my short time on this planet scouring documents in vain for the match to a hastily-placed asterisk...

*I really do hope that my English teacher friends don't spend much time reading my posts, not because I fear the correction - actually I would love one of them to edit for me. Is there such a thing as a red e-pen? But, that would be a monumental task that I would not wish on any of them. Rather, it is more because I can imagine the pain they feel when they encounter a run-on sentence, passive voice, flagrant punctuation errors, incessant past-tense, usage issues (like "you" instead of "one" or "a person"), and so on because I know how I feel when people say "conversely" and it is nothing like a mathematical converse or how I cringed at the cell phone store when the salesman displayed his total failure to comprehend the concept of percentages. Oh, I haven't told that one yet? Here goes:
So I was at the cell phone store a while back and they were having an accessory sale where you, I mean, a person could get 10% off the first accessory, 15% off the second accessory and 25% the third accessory. The salesman was explaining the sale to another customer and commented at the end that if the person purchased three accessories they got a total of 50% off. I didn't know whether to cry, laugh, or attempt to save this young man from the error of his ways. I really wanted to ask him, "So, if you offered a fourth accessory for 50% off, would I get 100% off and then it would all be free?" I refrained. Barely. I wish my mother-in-law would have been with me. She would have caught it instantly, too, and shared my pain.
Anyway, I don't want to cause my English-skilled friends that kind of pain - ever.

** All kidding aside, I must say two things in fairness. It would be fair to my public school to give them credit where credit is due. I did have an outstanding education overall that I am truly thankful for- especially in the areas of math, science and self-esteem. Fortunately, my math teacher undid a lot of the incorrect self-esteem teaching that I think actually sets kids up for great disappointment in life when they hit the real world when he taught me that you should do something worth feeling good about if you want to feel good about what you do. Oh, Mr. G, where are your kind now?
And, secondly, it is fair to assert that something was lacking in the area of Language Arts. We went to whole language at some point during my career and that was damaging, to say the least. I really, really wish I had been instructed and corrected more. I am guessing most of my English teachers wished that as well. My brother went through the same school and teachers several years early and he is a fantastic writer so they must have done something right back then.
On an ironic side-note, (or is it really irony? - more pain probably being inflicted, huh?) my college English professor from the U of I moved to Williamsburg because she wanted her daughter to go to the same school I did so she would learn to write. Pretty cool extension to that side-note, when I took the GPBS Calc Club back to the 'Burg as a math teacher, I got to meet that daughter - in an advanced math class. She made a good move :)

When Soap Gets in Your Eyes

They asked me how I knew
What Evie was up to...

Well - she smelled like Lemon.

Evie frequently claims the need enter the bathroom under the false pretense that she has to go potty. In reality, she is just playing the only card that will guarantee her access to the area where she can secure water and its accessories (soap, spray, etc.) without having to actually ask to use those things.

Today, though, she was quite honest. She told me she needed to go wash her hair. This is the girl that panics when the rinse cup is even in sight during bath time. Instead of fully enjoying her opportunity for unfettered water indulgence, she spends much of the time dreading the culminating event and intermittently asking me, "Do you not have to rinse me?" So, I figured I was safe in telling her she could go wash her hair, surely she would just pretend. She does this quite frequently with other tasks she sees/hears Mommy and Daddy doing. She goes to meetings (usually at church) without leaving the house. She makes daddy tea in her non-existent tea machine and pours the imaginary liquid into a cup and delivers him nothing. So, I thought I was safe. Isn't that when you are most vulnerable, when you start to feel safe?

Anyway, I heard crying from the bathroom and out came Ev with a half-wet, half-dry, half-lemony, half-unscented head. Apparently, she had tackled her fear long enough to lather herself up with the soap at the bathroom sink and then dump some measure of water over part of her head. But, at that moment, she also must have remembered why she doesn't like rinsing because she came out bent over trying to fling her hair out from her face to keep the soap out of her eyes. It must have stung like crazy because, from the strength of the lemon smell, it appeared that she had used a lot. And, from the looks of the front of her shirt, she must have poured water right down the front of her head which then ran down her face and pooled on her shirt. For the first time in quite a while we had an accident in the bathroom that required a change of shirt and not a change of pants. This will certainly help even up the laundry ratio.

Anyway, she was not happy to hear that the cure for her ailment was also what caused her distress in the first place. Ev had to endure several more instances of rinsing before we sufficiently reduced the amount of lemoniness exuding from her scalp. And, even after doing that, Daddy still walked into the house after work and asked if Grammy Capon had been there (because the soap smell reminded him of her house - fitting since they did come as a Christmas gift from her). I told him that he would just have to read my blog to discover why his daughter was functioning as a living, breathing Glade Plug-In. I am sure nothing he reads will surprise him. After all, she did measure him the other night with her tape measure and estimated him to be 2 1/2 weeks.

No, not much she says is surprising, though some of it is quite embrassing - like last evening when we were at Pastor and Mrs. Smith's house - at least that is how we have instructed her to refer to them out of respect. We ladies were downstairs while the men were praying upstairs and Evie wanted to ask our beloved Pastor's wife for something so she called out "Hey, Smith, can you....?" I don't remember the rest of the question because I was still trying to process my daughter's display of total disrespect which was as unintentional as it was embarassing. Fortunately, Ronette, has such a sweet spirit, because she was as gracious as I was mortified. We did work on remembering to add the "Mrs." to the beginning for the rest of the evening though it sounded more like "Hmm Smith" even at the end of evening. I think Evie just felt so comfortable around her that she decided she could use a shortened form of her name because Ev was all kisses and hugs for them when we left and she asked first thing this morning if we could go back. I love it when the church functions like the family that it is - what a blessing!

A Way With Words

I love language and, when I stop to think about it, am totally amazed at how God designed humans to acquire it and use it. What a creative God I serve!
I mostly love watching my children develop language and the exciting adventures that result. It is crazy to me that my children are born speaking no English at all and will have a workable knowledge of it within a couple years of life and will be quite fluent not much later. If only I didn't mind sounding like they do from time to time, I wonder how quickly I could finally master German...

I LOVE talking to my children. I remember when Evie was non-verbal (well, incomprehensibly-verbal) and I would take her grocery shopping and talk to her the entire time, knowing full well that she understood little or nothing I was saying. I would instruct her to say "hello" to people when she was probably too young to even distinguish a human face from an oddly-shaped melon. I did this (and do this also now with Lily) because I don't know which day they will finally understand and so I want them to know the joy of greeting others as soon as they are able.

I used to long for the day when Ev could communicate with words. Well, those days are here for her and quickly arriving for Lily. And I love it. I know I am supposed to want them to grow up and become independent (and I do, because God gave them to me to raise and send out), but there is also a part of me that wants to keep them in this stage forever because I love to hear Evie say things like, "Mommy, can you stay here for a long time ago?" I love pondering how her brain picks up phrases and associates meaning faster than it does with individual words - how usage is everything for her little mind. She hears how we use phrases in certain contexts and applies them in similar ones - often with precious or hilarious outcomes. Here are some examples:

Tonight when Daddy got home from work she ran to him and said, "I'm so glad you're here," as though he were an unexpected guest. She often follows that one up with, "because I love you so much." In her own little way, she is showing all the affection she can muster.

"Earlier" - This is one of Evie's favorite sentence starters. "Earlier" applies to anything that happened in the past. So, tonight when she almost pinched Daddy's neck in the zipper on his fleece, she reminded him that she had also done that "earlier". The event in question happened last year.

"Yestertime" - Things that don't qualify for the "earlier" category are described as occurring "yestertime".

When I carry her and she starts slipping, she asks me, "Can you carry me straight up?". I think she must be associating that with us asking her to stand up straight but who knows where she comes up with things, really.

Or, if I am carrying her sister, Ev will ask me , "Can you carry both of them?", not "both of us", though she uses us frequently in other sentences.

And, if I ask her to carry something, she frequently can't because she "has both hands". Apparently specifying that she has both hands full would be an overstatement because she does not see the need to include that detail. And, generally, they are not full. So maybe she just has a sensitive conscience about lying... or maybe not. I am pretty sure her "Grammy in Carroll" knows her daddy's history too well to believe that one :)

Speaking of her daddy, I would be remiss not to mention his interaction with Ev here. He has always spoken to Evie like she is 20, not 2. I love listening to him explain things to her and telling her things that she can't possibly understand. She loves it. I think she feels big and important. While he takes the time to put things on her level when needed, he also puts some things a little out of her mental reach just to keep her on her toes. He asks her questions all the time and she loves being talked to like she knows things and has something to contribute. She thinks about what he is asking and responds very seriously - though sometimes quite off the mark. And he just keeps it going. Like tonight, she was drinking from her sippy cup and he asked her why she thought it was called a sippy cup. She responded, "because I call it a sippy cup". He then asked her a bunch of questions about why that was and she repeated "because I call it a sippy cup" with increasing hand motions and verbal intensity to convince her dad that the question had been answered. Sensing it was time to move on, he asked her if she knew what his cup was called and then told her it was called a styrofoam cup. Her response to this revelation, "Um, I think it tastes like Dr. Pepper." Good answer.

Out of the Ordinary

Today was an odd day (don't let 2/2/10 fool you). Nothing was overwhelmingly strange, just a lot of events that are not normal occurrences. For example:

1) Lily decided she wanted to be in her jumperoo (which is for somewhat younger children) and that she wanted to stay in there for about an hour. She never liked being in it for more than about 15 minutes when she was younger. I don't know if it was a good view of the action (aka Evie) or if it she felt safer there than out where her sister roamed free, but that is where she wanted to be.

2) We went to Wal-Mart to try to get our oil changed - that part seems to be fairly recurring. We actually succeeded this time. That was the abnormal part.

3) Lily did not want to sleep at all. She didn't get grumpy during the morning and she didn't even fall asleep in the van. It wasn't until almost 5:00 that she decided she was tired. Not the best timing...

4) On the way home from Walmart, I was cruising around the 50317 to try to get the girls to sleep and we had to stop and wait for a lady to get arrested on a narrow street. I guess maybe that also is not so unusual in our neck of the woods.
It was heartbreaking, really.
When Ev was first born I went through this realization that every person was at sometime "somebody's Evie". I was overwhelmed by how much I loved her and the weight of responsibility I felt for what kind of person she would become. It really changed the way I see people. It makes it really sad for me to see someone who is suffering for their choices, though I do believe they should be held responsible. I just think how devastated I would be if that lady being arrested were Evie (or now Lily). Not just because she would be in trouble with the law or have a bad reputation, but because she would have been raised and nurtured to walk in the grace of God, given every opportunity to experience life the way it was meant to be lived- and would have rejected it. That would sadden me the most.

5) We had an appt. to fill out life insurance applications. Now, who doesn't look forward to that? I am glad it is not a regular occurence - though I must admit it wasn't bad at all.

6) I finished our taxes tonight using Turbo Tax. I spent all that time on deductions just to find out we are better off not itemizing. I was trying to determine if I could deduct my time spent on taxes at an absorbitant per hour rate, like "priceless", but I thought that was sure to raise my chances of getting audited.

7) Praise the Lord jury duty is a rare occurence - I have been summoned for the week of March 1st. I finally filled out my juror questionnaire tonight, much to my husband's relief. I think he thought I might be the next lady in 50317 to get arrested. This is one of those times in life (akin to going to the dr. or dentist) when being a stay-at-home mom is not an ideal child care arrangment. There are no "subs" for mommy :) *Okay, so there are Grammies, but they have to work and they aren't subs for mommy according to my girls, they are upgrades.*
I am wondering how quickly I might get excused if I bring them with me. Now that would be "Out of the Ordinary". It's worth a shot.

Bonus: Some memorable little moments with the girls today:
*At Walmart Ev got a very serious look on her face and said, "Mom, where are my keys? Because you need to stay here and I need to go to Walgreens."
*Ev looked at some paper carefully and determined, "It has to be November."
*Lily was hyper tonight. She was "chasing" Daddy and fending him off with her loud, violent karate moves.
*Evie sat down on Mommy's chair and said, "I look just like Lily's mommy, Brenna." She had also told me earlier that day that she was her baby's grandma and I was the mommy.
*While "Ethan's Grandpa" was here, Ev felt a little left out of the question/answer/form-filling-out event so she sat down with a paper and asked questions eerily similar to Ethan's Grandpa and wrote that down. Many, many times she asked me "How old is your grandma? Is she 2 and a half." I said, "No, she's 100(going with the older one)." Evie said, "Okay, I'll write that down," and filled out her form, too. I wonder what rate she could get me...
*Finally, we were watching Charlotte's Web and there is a song at the end, "Zuckerman's Famous Pig", and Evie was singing her rendition with all her heart - "Zuckerman's name is Pig".
How do you not smile at that?

Catching Up...

Just a few tidbits from the weekend:

Sunday was kickoff to prayer week and we enjoyed having prayer in our home Sunday evening. Though it was a bit embarrassing when Evie went over to Jael, whom she adores, and asked, "Can you go bye-bye now?" She didn't want her to go (and neither did we) so I am not sure why she asked. We are glad Jael has a sense of humor.

Lily is really into climbing. She finds ways to climb up on the couch and gets a smug look of victory once she succeeds. I think she feels more like she is on our level. She also climbs on the stool in the bathroom and shouts into the sink. I am not sure why she shouts into it, but I am sure she gets most of her ideas about how to behave from Evie so that could explain it. My favorite is when she pulls all the toys off the shelf and climbs in the shelf - not the bottom one that is easily accessible - the top one, of course. Then she sits there all hunched over and sort of bouncing a bit. Any notion that she might be cramped or uncomfortable is overcome by the aforementioned smug look. She couldn't be happier.

I wish my brother had been here today to see Evie running around the house with only her undies on insisting that she wasn't cold and didn't need clothes. I am sure it would have brought back memories for him. Sometimes she tells me that her clothes actually make her cold. Did I ever try that one, Buck?

Today it snowed a little and we girls decided to brave the elements so we could go to Walmart while Daddy went to deacons' meeting. On the way to the garage, Evie noticed the snow and, after making sure to get up to her knees in it somehow, decided that she needed to shovel. She retrieved her shovel and began a one-handed swirling motion that accomplished great things from her vantage point. I encouraged her to keep going and then, when she decided we could probably get the van out, we shoved it in a snow pile right next to Daddy's shovel. The look of satisfaction on her face was more than worth the few extra moments spent out in the cold. I love it when she senses that she is helpful - I want to encourage that as much as I can. (The picture above shows her hard at work raking this fall.)

Well, when we got to Walmart, I carried them both to the sidewalk because it was slushy in the parking lot. When I put Ev down, she took a good look at the parking lot and had a very serious look on her face as she took in the scene. It was obvious she considered herself a shoveling expert now because she looked at me and said, "Maybe I need to shovel here," with a tone of voice that implied that the weight of this task rested squarely on her shoulders and she alone could manage it. We had to table that idea for another occasion.

This trip to Walmart was much less exciting than last time. Evie spent most of the time "going to meetings" and Lily spent most of the time trying to get out and play with Evie. She adores Evie and does not like being away from her - when she wakes up the first thing she does is look and shout for Evie (pronounced "Ehduh" - a rather violent sound usually accompanied by a swift, choppy arm motion) . Lily was not even held off by my lame attempt at distracting her - a pretzel. If only it had been cheese...