pupsandpups

ch-ch-ch-check it out

2009-10-31T10:10:00.001-04:00

folks, it's official! there is a new blog post up, created with my iphone this morning, at our new host site.

go see it! as eve would say.

http://pupsandpups.wordpress.com

on the way the paper bag was on my knee

2009-10-28T07:51:00.007-04:00

eve and i flew up to buffalo to see 'nanambampa' over the weekend -- loveliest time. lots of pics are up on FB, but not these. this pups loved loved loved the airplane, especially the lavatory. after insisting on gulping her entire cup of apple juice, we made several beelines to the bathroom. after washing her hands, she would check out her reflection and then proceed to pull faces -- see above.

our poor seatmate -- eve kept pointing to the girl sitting next to us and asking me, 'what's that?' then she would tell me that she wanted to sit on her lap.

we're soon migrating the blog and will post a link as soon as it's complete. the new site will have lots of bells and whistles, what with the twittering and the iphones and the web albums. it should be fun.

Apple Scruffs, Apple Scruffs -- How I love you, how I love you

2009-09-20T20:18:00.014-04:00

a beautiful autumn day here in chicago, the sort of day where 'astral weeks' runs through your mind as a constant background and you can tell, particularly from the corners of your eyes, that the sunlight has changed, and that the earth has tilted towards earlier and quieter evenings.

we've been in chicago for just over a year and the cycle has us now enjoying all kinds of lovely anniversaries. today we sojourned to an orchard for the second time and had the most beautiful day. thanks to em and ab for visiting this weekend, and we surely enjoyed indoor art and outdoor apple picking.

actually, thanks to everyone. we're not too terribly far from evesie's second birthday, and ever since her arrival this season seeps me with anticipation and happiness.

pime after pime

2009-09-14T21:05:00.008-04:00

evesie has a charming disconnection between certain letters and how she pronounces them, though her rules are not consistent across all occurences of those letters. for example, many t's at the beginnings of words are pronounced as f's. you can imagine our horror--before we figured this out--when eve would call out 'truck!' as she spotted them chugging down the interstate.

the double consonant 'cl' gets pronounced as a 'p,' as does the 't' at the beginning of 'time.' so, instead of clean, climb and time, evesie says pean, pime and, well, pime. obviously you have to rely on context to figure out if she's talking about scaling a wall or commenting on that elusive concept of temporality.

as i think of it now, 'p' substitutes for several consonants. last night for a snack she pipped her fingers in pummus and ate it (dipped/hummus). she also got two new pairs of leg warmers, which we pronounced to be awpum (awesome).

these awpum leg warmers bring me around to the title of this post, which you can now decode to read 'time after time.' that should immediately bring to mind this lovely new wave rocker:

cindy lauper rocked the leg and arm warmers in the 80s, so why can't evesie bring that back in the late stages of 2009? friends, i think she's done it:

even through the valleys, too.

2009-09-10T07:46:00.013-04:00

we've returned from a wonderful short trip with this pups, traipsing all over the mid-west. naturally we were inconsistent with the camera, so the pictures here are from the minnesota state fair and the last in a series of hotel rooms. missing (but hopefully soon remedied) are photos from a fabulous time at the lake with kari, mike and spencer. also missing are pics from a wonderful brunch in st. paul with peter and lorene. also missing are climbing the benches and trying on hats at the mall of america. also missing are photos from downtown madison shopping and the scarfing of nepali food.

e-$ and i have always loved traveling together, and i always thought that such trips couldn't get any better. i was wrong. eve never ceased to amaze. she trooped and marched all day. she stayed up way past her bedtime. she made us both proud by eating her way across the midwest, noshing brats and cheese in wisconsin, footlongs and cheese curds and fresh milk and lemonade at the state fair, and nepalese soup in madison. she talked non-stop and one morning even offered to go get us all donuts.

we'll try to corral these other pics and get those up here, too. mini-vacations are always fun, but even more so with two beautiful traveling companions.

while my daughter gently sleeps

2009-08-22T18:11:00.009-04:00

today, eve decided that napping in the late morning to early afternoon was supremely overrated. after twenty minutes, she was raring to go. at a loss, we went with it, hung out around the apartment, had a nice relaxing day. ted even found a few moments to start sprinkling guitars around our place like sprinkles on ice cream, or powdered sugar on waffles, or whatever confectionary analogy you find apt.

so thrilled to see guitars again, eve tested out all of them and even got to try a violin and a flute. phenomenal. all this potential music making in the apartment must have made her antsy, ready to head out and start her own post-punk band, because she found her backpack, demanded that i put her baby in it and help her into it, and (without pants, a jacket, socks, or shoes) told us that she was going shopping to buy apples, avocados, bananas, milk, and one cookie.

i thought we might try going to the playground instead. here's eve, checking for airplanes along the way. note that she's still wearing the backpack, but is also more appropriately clothed for the out of doors:
getting to the park takes some time when you're legs are short, you're wearing pants that snap for the first time in about 18 months, and you're trying to keep your pigtails looking sharp:
sometimes you have to check out giant light posts:
and other times you just need to set out across a baseball diamond, headed for that sandbox in the beyond, like a little hobbit on a great adventure, though without nasty rings or dragons or golem:
once we arrived at the park, and mind you it's pretty chilly today, eve decided the baby wanted to play in the water. poor, wet, cold baby:
luckily, the baby got to dry out, eve got to pee under a tree, and everyone got to play in the exalted sandbox. once we were home, ted set up evesie on the couch to watch a little 'wall-e,' and this is what almost immediately happened:
i guess naps aren't entirely overrated after all.

baby all grows up

2009-08-19T21:03:00.026-04:00

i really love vince vaughn. he's not intimidated by obama's six-pack, or anyone else's for that matter, and he pulls his slightly pudgy weight around a film scene like he's an excessively verbal, sprite who has the on-screen mass of a mid-career marlon brando, but without imminent bloating, the dark moods, or the tendency to mumble. this is a man who seems unable to stop himself from talking. i live with a man like that. and also a daughter like that.

which brings me to eve. the evester has settled into 'evesie's new home' splendidly. she's become a green space and playground addict, so much so that we're often the last people to head inside for the evening. she also relishes the acoustics of our new digs, with its high ceilings and hardwood floors, perfect for rowdy renditions of 'night night baby,' 'itsy bitsy spider,' and other songs to which i can't yet make out the words. she's finally gotten to claim full use of her very own speakers, a wonderful shower gift from my mom. we've figured out that she can use the volume knob, that she likes her tunes loud, that she can recognize 'the beatles' by ear, and that she seems to understand how to use my ipod. sort of. to the ipod selecting process, to eating her corn on the cob, or to putting on her panties, she is constantly saying, 'i do it, mama. it's mine.'

which brings me to the connection between eve and vince vaughn. all right, you see the body type connection, and the way both of them physically command a room through humor. but there's one more link i'd like to draw on as the proud mama that i am. the only scene i remember from 'swingers,' a vaughn vehicle we rented during our salad days, when we were glutting ourselves on all things vince (we still do this. we saw 'fred claus' for goodness' sake.), is the one when the guys are sitting in the coffee shop, and the n'ere-do-well slouchy character finally scores a girl's phone number. vince vaughn's character, in all his exuberance and pride, stands on the table in the seedy cafe/diner and announces to his fellow late-night diners, 'our little baby's all grows up.' yes, that's exactly how he says it. he repeats it several times in his own kind of incantatory way, and you really start to believe that not only is he some kind of strange surrogate father-figure to his friend, but that this is indeed the defining watershed experience that makes him 'all grows up.'

my friends, i feel like we've been having many such watershed moments lately--whether it's eating corn on the cob, saying 'i,' helping mama with the laundry, or approaching the gigantic fountain in millennium square all by herself. and just when i get all choked up while shouting 'our little baby's all grows up' in my head, evester goes and does a babyish thing, like walking around in her bear towel, or lying on the kitchen floor with her dogs as though there was nothing better to do in this whole apartment, not an entire room of toys and books waiting to entertain her. it's so nice of her to let me remember that she's my baby, even if she can 'do it myself.'

jump into the wagon, love, throw your panties overboard

2009-07-23T19:45:00.016-04:00

eve loves hats, panties, and my mother (not necessarily in that order). this child loves costuming herself, and one of her favorite activities is going through the hat/mitten/scarf drawer and trying on different combinations.

she continues to amaze as she guides herself through major transitions. much as she weaned herself, she has opted to finish her diaper phase and move right into big girl panties. most evenings she parades around in little more, save for the accessories found in the hat/mitten/scarf drawer. it's frightening and hilarious.

mom visited and hung with eve for days, and they parted as the best of pals. our days since have been punctuated with cries for 'nanet! nanet! skype!'

we're hopping to a new pad next week so posts might lag for a bit, but we'll be back in force with pups soon thereafter.

in an octopus's garden, in the shade

2009-07-05T22:28:00.022-04:00

well friends, we've had a nice relaxing holiday weekend in chi-town. everyone has been up past his and her bedtimes, and we've partied with some fine folks. to mark the end of our celebrations, we carted la pups up to the botanical gardens north of the city. eve had a WONDERFUL time, as these pictures happen to capture. she was particularly enthralled by the water and the ducks and enormous fish in said water. at one point, she tried very hard to push me in because she thought i needed to get closer to the ducks. 'mama, in!' she said, over and over again, while pushing her little hand against my arm. mind you, she was on my lap at the time, so if i had complied, do you think she would have been surprised by also ending up in the water? alas, we'll never know. next time. . .

this kid gets funnier and sweeter all the time. she said 'hi' to almost every person we passed. she wore her hat nicely for a full fifteen minutes. on the way home she said, 'i love you, home.' she also wore her big girl panties all day long with no problems--i mention this because you get a paparazzi peek of them in one of the pictures with ted on the bench. note: i've included a picture of tiny pups so that you can see the moment i was trying to recapture.

good times had by all.

from a mess to the masses.

2009-07-03T07:23:00.007-04:00

we've had lots of fun with the pups this week and are excited to spend more time with her over this nice holiday weekend. rather than a continued partial list of eve's ever-expanding verbal palette (she never, ever stops talking), here are a few observations from strangers:

"she looks just like you"
"she looks just like her mother"
"her eyes are very blue"
"she has a lot of hair"
"she has a lot of teeth"
"how old is she? she knows a lot of words"
"she's funny"
"she's busy"
"she has a lot of personality"
"who dressed her today?"

i usually responded with a sprint away from the conversation and toward the busy toddler.

summer keeps teasing us here in the big windy, so we've had a nice mix of indoor and outdoor activities (fortunately, with the museum of science and industry close by, we can see airplanes in both spheres). we'll be sure to take some more pics over the next few days, but here are a few phone fotos of this verbose pups.

our own little p.y.t.

2009-06-26T13:08:00.007-04:00

it's been far too long between posts, dear eve-followers. at the time of the last post, michael jackson was alive and weird. but at the time of writing this one? well, he's probably still weird.

eve has been having a great time in june, spending countless hours outside, cataloguing the objects she sees and can't help but touch (how many times do i have to say, 'no, that's trash.'? always just once more, apparently), playing in sandboxes, on swings, down slides, and in water. what more could a nineteen month old desire?

a tent, obviously.

eve always loves the 'bed tent' i make for her (lay on your back next to eve; pull the quilt over both of you and hold it up with your legs; enjoy the tent), but last weekend, she went for a more single-user stucture. realizing the great potential for new sitting experiences when her fire truck couch was upended, eve started camping out on the arm of the couch, reading books. she requested the 'blue blanket,' pointing to its exact, hidden location, which gave me the idea of throwing it over the couch and giving eve a little tent all her own.

she loved it beyond measure.

it's a good thing that the 'rents both grew up building minor and major forts. all we need now is a good set of heavy encyclopedias, and we'll be ready to convert our entire apartment into a bedouin fantasy land.

memories of the sultry south

2009-06-09T15:33:00.002-04:00

well friends, it's june here and still jacket weather. makes me long just a little bit for the blistering heat and humidity that we experienced in charleston, sc two weekends ago. our dear friends anne and phil had the brilliant idea of celebrating their nuptials on the beach, and many of our friends were there to help them along.

we loved seeing everyone! eve especially, except for that point in the evening when she passed out on me for a good hour, missing the entire lovely ceremony, as well as the hors d'oeuvres course. luckily for eve's mama, eve's papa very nicely fixed that chair-bound lady a heaping plate and an ice-cold beer. i got to relive the early days of babski eve sleeping on me, a nice little moment.

please enjoy the sappy beatles tune that accompanies the slide show. evester loves these guys right now. this morning, we listened to all of 'side b' from 'abbey road' in one sitting. i adore this kid.

i'm a prize and you're a catch and we're a perfect match

2009-05-28T13:56:00.012-04:00

first, a short play:

ted: you should listen to elvis costello. i think you'd like him.
me: mm-hmm.

(many years pass)

me: hey--elvis costello is awesome! i love him for many, many reasons.
ted: i know. (drawn out sigh)

this exact scene could be replayed with a number of artists substituting in for costello. suffice it to say, this time around it's pavement's album, 'terror twilight.' the title of this post comes from that album, and when i heard it, eve and her dog immediately sprung to mind.

evesie loves that dog. aunt ducky, it is an inspired birthday prezzie. she's taken to putting him in her rocking chair, covering him with a blanket, and then rocking him and singing 'rock a'bye baby,' which includes a few lyric changes such as 'rock a bye dog' and 'rock a bye baby, in the sergey.' (sergey rhymes with baby the way eve says both words.) tonight, we put her johnny cash onesie on the dog, raising her sweet affection to new heights.

thankfully, eve has not inherited her mama's belated engagement with all things cool. that kid knows what's good and seizes it, or shares a rocker (or fire truck couch) with it.

beep beep

2009-05-17T21:55:00.004-04:00

anytime eve hears a car horn or a car being locked remotely, she treats it as a call and response occasion, chiming in with her own 'beep beep.' this child might have been a bit reluctant to move into the walking-by-herself phase, but now that she's there, it's hard to keep up with her. it's also hard to keep up with her language acquisition skills these days. for example, she took a drink of water while we were outside waiting for papa today, and at the end of her glug, she said, 'perfect.' she can also say, 'i love you.' and after taking the coal mine tour at the museum of science and industry today, she apparently learned how to say 'coal mine' because that was what she was repeating endlessly, as she dragged me toward the escalator, right when we told her it was time to go. apparently dropping down a mine shaft in a crowded, dark elevator and then seeing a bunch of machinery operating in close quarters is really, really fascinating to an 18 month old girl. given how much she loved the control center at the end of the tour, which you can see here, i suspect that she really just wanted to get her hands on that voltage control gauge again.

evester and her rents have had a terrific weekend celebrating her 18 months of life outside the womb. we kicked it off with a tour of the new modern wing at the art institute, where we all rekindled our fondness for cubism, and eve displayed a newfound interest in genitalia of all types. her love of sculpture started much earlier, but now she's able to walk around a piece on her own. quite a thing to witness. sunday found us scarfing down pancakes and then heading over to the science and industry for the coal mine tour. we also learned that eve can't get enough of tractors and combines. note to self: next time, avoid the farm exhibit unless i want to see eve push a grown man out of a combine again. push metaphorically, not literally.

this slide show covers the last week, beginning with the strawberry stuffed cream puff that we shared on mother's day and continuing through eve's many interesting clothing choices. please note that pants are of little concern to eve. perhaps as her belly thins out, this will change. then again, pants are pretty constricting, so maybe not. and yes mom, nan, and pop: if you're wondering, that is the ireland tshirt that nan and pop bought when you were there! i'm happy eve is getting to wear it already.

it's a bit astonishing, as her mama, to see how much eve has done in such a short period of time on the earth. just when i think she can't blow my mind anymore, she goes and does it. over and over again. and baby, you can't drive my car until you're at least thirteen.

Thank You For Sending Me An Angel

2009-05-09T13:58:00.007-04:00

the house feels ominous, as i tiptoe through the hallways, restless, frightened. The Napping Blondes recharge and prepare for another lovely Saturday afternoon.

here are a few random pics. we're headed out to a museum either today or tomorrow and will post something thematic soon. in the top pic, eve-sie expresses her enchantment with the jack black episode of 'yo gabba gabba.' we've seen this episode at least 20 times. she knows to ask for jack, and is learning the disco roll. i can't really frown on it. the last pic shows her recent cold -- she is mostly over it, but it was a very very sad few days.

won't you come out and play?

2009-04-28T22:07:00.011-04:00

evesie and co. had a blast visiting the grand- and great-grand-'rents over the weekend. it was such a whirlwind of activity, that the only person who managed to snap a few photos of this pups in all her glory was hope, so thanks hope! these pictures represent evesie's last stand against sleep. shortly after this adventure, she lapsed into quite the pups coma, only to wake up with hope and peace on her lips, and other significant things like eggs, milk, and fruit soon followed. yes, friends, we spent some time in a grocery store. eve is now very good at cataloguing our purchases and suggesting additional ones (cheese? CHEESE!).

this kid babbles a mile a minute. adding to her penchant for saying names of people and foodstuffs, i have it on good authority that she can talk about many different types of trucks and pieces of playground equipment.

mostly, though, we've spent the past two evenings reading 'alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day' and practicing our disco rolls.

in these photos, if eve appears spellbound and there isn't a dog or squirrel or flower in sight, it's because her peace is serenading her on the guitar. what is he singing? what else? 'night, night, baby.' eve managed a very nice duet when she wasn't too wrapped up being all starry eyed and amazed.

good night, ladies

2009-04-19T21:38:00.002-04:00

well friends, we've learned a few important things today. we all learned that eve is really good at freestylin', in a baby-singing kind of way. i learned that chocolate chip pancakes taste even better when dipped in whipped butter. eve learned that juice boxes are absolutely amazing. she drained one in 90 seconds at the museum of science and industry. ted learned that the only thing better than a baby saying hi to you is a naked baby alternating between saying hi, saying pee pee, and clapping her hands.

eve sings this song anytime you sing the first line. she made the entire cereal aisle at supertarget laugh when she belted it on saturday. in case you couldn't tell, 'nigh nigh baby' is sung to the tune of 'good night, ladies.' enjoy this video!

evester parade

2009-04-13T07:33:00.003-04:00

well friends, you can't imagine the fun that eve had yesterday. to make up for this imaginative failure, i've included a slideshow with music for your viewing pleasure. as always, youtube has compressed my lovely pics, blurring my little girl into pixels. but you'll get the idea. thanks for letting us tag along, kari, mike, and spencer! and thanks for bringing such a magical pillow and blanket, aunt duckie. you've totally captivated the evester!

get a dose of her in jackboots and kilt

2009-03-30T19:25:00.008-04:00

we hit the field museum on saturday and eve-sie had a ball, chattering away at sue's skeleton. her other current interests involve attire. she picked out her outfit in the first pic and had a hand in creating the hat and sunglass look, too.

oh, mama, can this really be the end?

2009-03-22T21:50:00.010-04:00

if you've visited this blog before, or if you've spent much time with us, you'll know a few things:
1. eve loves to have fun.
2. with her shirt off.
3. she enjoys swings.
4. but prefers slides.
5. ted is still wearing that panda shirt.

wanting to be the ever-supportive spousal unit, i've attempted to turn ted towards other, newer animal t-shirts. my most successful campaign was the purchase of matching rainbow zebra t-shirts for pups and papa at christmas. they've worn them simultaneously, to much delight from both parties. soon, we'll have a post documenting such behavior.

for now, you'll have to content yourself with a photo-smattering of our recent goings on. a week ago today, we returned from buffalo, and in four days, we'll commence operation mamabandonment, during which this mama will be getting her conference on in beantown, and papa/pups will be visited by a very generous aunt, uncle, and possible assorted guests. i hope there will be ample photodocumentation of that visit, as i will need it to get through my absence from the evester.

in these photos, you'll notice that we had a nautical afternoon at the museum of science and industry. eve experimented with the sailor's life and then opted for the nazi submarine. she loved it so much she peed her pants. again and again. i know this because i was holding her.

she is only becoming more and more fun as she gets bigger, and i'm totally addicted to her laugh, which explains some of the craziness of the video included with this post. we've been trying to get her constant chatter on video but have so far been unsuccessful. we'll keep working on it. soon, you'll all hear her say 'good girl.' she is SUCH a good girl.

go to a show, you hope she goes!

2009-03-21T10:03:00.011-04:00

apologies for the delay in posts. we've once again been jet-setting and burning all candles in reach. last weekend we had a beautiful 3 days in western NY, and the pups got to see her grandparents and aunts and uncles. DELIGHT. she also got to wear a coonskin cap, a monkey hat, and ride a mechanical horse. MORE DELIGHT. also, she walks and talks constantly. this week's variety includes good girl, lawn mower, and endless calls for poppa. endless. calls. for. poppa.

i wanna hold your hand

2009-03-08T12:02:00.009-04:00

this pups grows increasingly mobile and vocal, timing it nicely as we begin to see hints of spring. lately, she tells us "i go outside" and wants to see "flowers." Other perennials inlude momma, poppa, dog, woof woof woof, more, yeah, no no no, yay, milk, water, juice, bayBEE, bear, sergei, bing, apple, etc. basically, she never stops talking.

she also does a very decent version of a fish.

on the road again

2009-02-26T23:29:00.006-05:00

well friends, i think evesie can wait to get on the road again, but she's had a whale of a time in the car these past few days. we drove down to indy on tuesday, headed down with family to ft. knox on wednesday for uncle ty's graduation, and then back up to indy on thursday. in the course of those many hours in the car, eve learned how to say 'nana,' which made a certain great-grandmother (who kept her company in the backseat) very, very happy.

as usual, eve delights in most everything she does. including using her own potty, naked, while in a grimy gas station bathroom.

enjoy the pictures from this recent trip--and thanks to hope for sending me some of these!

they've been going in and out of style

2009-02-15T09:18:00.004-05:00

this pups was born with a full head of hair and has already modeled several styles. my favorite of these was, doubtless, the faux-hawk. if eve and i could heighten our reality even slightly more, i believe we would both rock the faux-hawk as a matter of public conscience. alas, our hirsute adventures are encumbered -- nay, even dictated -- by institutional restraints. having laid claim to this public service announcement, i now proceed to the sole purpose of this post: fotos of a fat baby with pigtails. i have yet to find appropriate revolutionary discourse for captioning.

let's drive to brighton on the weekend

2009-02-07T21:29:00.008-05:00

the title of this post can be found in an exultant chorus from a bloc party song. i've had this line in my head for several days, and the energy in the lyric has made me think of our weekends lately. though we're not heading out of town on these saturdays, i feel like we're approaching our own city with that fervor associated with the getaway destination in the quoted song.

today it was so warm in chicago that i had no idea how to dress eve for indoor or outdoor activities. somehow, she ended up without coat and hat, outside at the lincoln park zoo, but her joy at communing with animals and strangers kept her little self warm and toasty. someone walked by us and remarked, 'now she's the cutest thing i've seen in this place today.' that's probably a bit of an exaggeration, but maybe not.

this collection of pics takes us from last saturday to this one to show you how evester is clearly getting used to her urban lifestyle. the in-house hat wearing pic is not unique. she alternates between two hats, both from the ever-generous spencer's-mom, while in the house. we don't know why she wears these hats inside, but she's very consistent about it. and that thing in her mouth in the third pic is a cornichon, a really strongly flavored pickle. that's my girl. we'll have her eating salt and vinegar chips within the year.

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial

2009-02-01T11:13:00.005-05:00

we had a beautiful afternoon the in the art institute yesterday, with peace and hope (yes it does sound like a song from the 60's). eve loves the georgia o'keefe paintings, any statues, and all strangers.

if looks could kill it would have been us instead of him

2009-01-25T20:47:00.008-05:00

lots of fun stories from the field museum today -- for now, i'll post some pics and erin and i will add some comments later. let's just say that evesie's love for stuffed animals has expanded beyond teddy bears to include the work of taxidermists.

eve was quizzical, studied meta-physical science

2009-01-24T09:10:00.011-05:00

we took our budding scientist to the museum of science and industry last sunday and she LOVED it. then again, the pups loves everything. i am now starting to reap the full benefit of having a daughter. EXAMPLE: we spent about 30 minutes in the fairy castle and never even ventured close to the nazi submarine. i remain un-thrilled by this development.

she's an artist, she don't look back

2009-01-17T16:38:00.010-05:00

today in chicago, we've reached the balmy temperature of 24 degrees. for much of this week, though, it was much, much colder. therefore, this little pups had tons of fun inside with her pals, making dough, painting, making collages, and hanging out in her pack n play.

as usual, eve goes for the 'full experience' at any event. i think you'll see what i mean in the pics and video. we have also now witnessed the evester walking six whole steps to her e.m. will she take steps like this to her mama or papa? of course not. still, now we know she can do it!

deep in the jungle where the mighty tiger lies

2009-01-10T10:08:00.007-05:00

these fotos are already on facebook but i thought to post a few here anyway, for those of you (like e-$) who ignore my profile. on new year's day we took the eve-ster to the garfield conservatory and had a wonderful time. she insisted on "walking" and loved the plants. as the last pic indicates, she was pretty exhausted by the end of the day. so were we, but it was a nice start to the new year.

i've got a sentimental heart that beats

2009-01-01T17:50:00.003-05:00

well friends, here we are at the end of 2008. this pups has had one heck of a year, and so have her 'rents. i made this little slide show to give you a peek of our goings on in the past 365 days. i contemplated attaching a list, giving a brief summary of everywhere we've been and all that we've done, but suffice it to say, and as ted put it in our toast last night--let's never have another year quite as busy as this one.

let's hope we can keep that promise for at least one year!

p.s. the song is called 'space beatle' by the beta band. wonderful, wonderful. ted put it on a mix for me a few years back, and whenever i hear it, i fondly remember driving through durham in the winter rain, listening for all the segues and links that he likes to stitch into those mixes. it seemed a good choice for the sentiment attached to this project, even if it isn't representative of our current playlist.

p.p.s. as usual, youtube quickly loaded this video but compressed its quality. the pictures are really much clearer than you see them here, so if you'd like a copy on cd, just send me an email.

a long december

2008-12-31T17:30:00.008-05:00

here is a quick smattering of fotos from eve's various christmas experiences. this child had a wonderful holiday, and a wonderful year. i believe a slideshow is coming, chronicling the various extravaganzas. more anecdotes and fotos to come, but in the meantime, new year's eve says happy '09 to everyone.

cry, baby, cry; make your mother sigh

2008-12-28T11:27:00.002-05:00

the one and only evesie pups had a marvelous christmas. she took forever to open her presents because she required so many playtime, mealtime, naptime breaks, but she enjoyed every minute of all of it. one of the big highlights was the babydoll that nanet and granddaddy gave her! as you can see from the first video, she loved the baby at first sight. as soon as her mama unshackled the poor child (the baba, not the evester) from her plastic tape and twine prison, eve proceeded to hug her, give her kisses (put one whole cheek in her mouth), and share her milk very equitably.

we all thought it was adorable.

and then em, eve's papa, and i took evester and her baby to lunch the next day. while waiting for the bill, papa decided to have a little game, which must have been inspired from flashbacks of being an older brother to two much littler sisters: he smashed the doll's head into the table.

well, the usual response to this is terror/fright/sadness/tears from the human baby when she sees her play baby so brutally mistreated. but we must remember that this baby is genetically predisposed to love slapstick, so instead of wailing with tears, she bubbled over with laughter.

while she does still hug the baby and love it, she seems to prefer watching its head hit the ground. i suppose this means that any future as a babysitter has been foreclosed. oh well, it really is a terrific present, as are all of them! thank you, everyone, and merry christmas!

find the kind of person that you wanted to be.

2008-12-20T21:49:00.008-05:00

so it's been 13 months and change since the e.l.f. arrived, and i find it difficult to remember any previous life. this eve-sie delights and lights any room that i share with her. i've been reminiscing, here alone in the apartment waiting for my christmas bus. firstly i remember all of our lovely, lovely friends, generous to a fault on stipends and softly eager to hold this child. 13 months ago, i remember already starting to think about remembering -- stumbling into the hospital room with my new tattoo, unable to sit, strutting proudly with my new daughter. but more than that, i remember how many wanted to meet eve so soon. so this post partially exists as a continuation of the strut, because i just can't get over how much i love this pups. it also exists as a testament to eve's community -- this child has had eyes for friends from birth, and knows you by sight. she's babbling constantly, flagrantly (and momma and poppa are cleaning up their language in accordance with her new-found skills) but i know i speak for her when i say: "Hi! Hi! Hideedee!". and i'm sure she also says i love you, and merry christmas -- because this pups owns my guts, and that's what my guts are saying, too.

a day in the life

2008-12-12T21:56:00.003-05:00

in the past 24 hours or so, evesie has been busy. if you know the olivia books, this would be a good time to superimpose this little pups onto olivia as a way of understanding her activity level and the engagement that she has demanded. if you don't know the olivia books, shame on you. the first one is about eleven pages long, so it's not too challenging of a read.

here are some examples of what she's been doing at home:
discovering that wearing my crazy purple socks as opera-length gloves is funny

'helping' to decorate the tree. the elvis ornament and a donkey were her first 'attempts,' which is to say, 'casualties.' she loves the lights, as well as the concept of ornaments.

playing her drum, always with drumsticks

'talking' to anne on the phone

tackling her papa with kisses

saying hi to her papa about seventeen times in a row

climbing the stairs in our building.

walking along the walls in the apt.

peeing in her very own little potty while gnawing on my toothbrush (fantastic! and ewww)

peeing in her very own little potty while gnawing on ted's toothbrush (wonderful! and hilarious!)

gnawing on her own toothbrush while her mama styles her (evesie's) hair: wet, blow dry, apply product. papa's product.

moving twenty cds from one surface to another via her 'rents

learning how the volume knob works on the stereo

dancing her little heart out to the bobfather and los beatles

sleeping

i think this video and picture will convey just a tiny fraction of the joy she brings to these activities and the many, many i left out

your brand new leopard skin pill box hat

2008-12-11T15:59:00.002-05:00

my mother-in-law and i found these boots for eve-sie -- one of those beautiful moments where the eyes of 2 shoppers lock onto the same object at the same time. we rushed to the shelf and found them in the pupster's size. this picture demonstrates the hereditary delight eve takes in footwear. this picture is not staged. this little girl wore nothing but these boots, a diaper, and a grin for at least 45 minutes while scooting around with her toys.

the moving picture show

2008-12-05T11:51:00.002-05:00

eve has exerted her tyrannical influence over her hapless parents once again and coerced them into buying a video camera. i imagine that you look forward to her broadcasts of world-domination-through-an-agressive-hugging-campaign as much as i do. here, you can see her dancing with her peace and hope, saying 'hi' to her mama in exchange for oatmeal, and reading a book at her em and ab's house, surrounded by three generations of adoring spectators.

photos from thanksgiving still to come. i'm grading papers today, so they might be posted sooner rather than later!

my little samson

2008-12-03T13:54:00.003-05:00

friends, as you can see in this daycare picture, eve has been shorn. after weeks of this pups blinking through strands of hair while trying to shove more and more food into her mouth, i broke down and took her for a hair cut. she behaved bravely, only needing to be held for the stylist's final feathering snips. i have some of her hair in a little bag. does anyone else find this practice strange and victorian?

in any case, this picture is meant to help you through hump day and give you a taste of the evester in a still shot before we put up some video posts!

the universe paused

2008-11-23T20:37:00.014-05:00

this pups celebrated her first full rotation around the sun last week. as i write this, we are mid-celebration and the eve-ster shows no signs of birthday fatigue. these photos are in chronological order due to volume, but i think they demonstrate the sheer joy that eve feels in nearly any experience. of course, the events captured here might inspire elation in anyone. evidenced, we have present opening, shade wearing, straw sipping, candle blowing, cupcake eating, new clothes wearing, and fledge petting. all in all, pretty much a perfect storm of pups luxury. this babbling, nearly walking, dancing, lovely lovely child continues to teach me all sorts of sentimental and fundamental lessons about the better angels of our nature. at the EXACT SAME TIME, she WEARS MY ASS OUT.

they say it's your birthday

2008-11-17T12:27:00.005-05:00

evesie-pups: as of 6:31 this morning, you're one year old today. thank you for sleeping past the anniversary of the exact minute of your arrival among us.

i won't vouch for you or your papa, but i know i feel a little more rested today than i did a year ago. i'm even more awed by your existence, too.

for all you fans-of-eve, we'll post more pics later, documenting the day's festivities. for now, please enjoy these shots of our little girl on her first morning in the world. for comparison's sake, i've also included a more recent morning pic, along with the evester's very convincing 'braveheart' impression.

i never did eat a pumpkin pasty. . .

2008-11-14T14:05:00.004-05:00

a year ago today, i was looking for harry potter-esque recipes and talking potter-centric trash on facebook, all in preparation of the h.p. trivia night to which ted and i and my enormous belly were invited.

how things have changed.

today, i've been looking for carrot cupcake recipes for the evester's first birthday celebration. not only are we not in durham (sniff), many of those friends who were expecting us at trivia night 367 days ago are not there either (sniff, sniff).

but what do these days have in common?

colors: pumpkin pasties and carrot cake are orange-hued. eve was wearing pink and khaki this morning (one of my favorite outfits from the huge box of clothes that hope sent!), just as i was wearing those colors a year ago. i think that was all that still fit my massive frame at that point.

and feelings: i was feeling a similar fullness then and now, centered around eve. then, she wasn't among us (she was only a jordan at that point), but i couldn't believe how much my life and thoughts revolved around her, nor could i believe how much more aware eve made me of our wonderful and caring friends and family. i was, emotionally and physiologically, full to bursting. and now, my thoughts are seldom far from eve. she's made me fall in love with her more than i could have ever guessed, and the joy that she shares with the world deepens my love for all of you who've come along with us so far in evesie's life. now, i'm only emotionally full to bursting.

she takes her time and doesn't feel she has to hurry

2008-11-09T11:27:00.011-05:00

this pups is about to complete her first full revolution around the sun, and i think we must be celebrating her birthday all month. she's been opening presents for about two weeks. this trend will slow to a trickle right after thanksgiving, only to go all vesuvius in late december. it's a shame that no one loves this baby. above, you'll see evesie with her granddaddy, matthew and isabel, her grandmother, wearing the hat her papa got her, wearing the dress and shoes her grandmother got her, and wearing the snowsuit and boots that came from her other grandmother (she loves them both, and really everyone, equally). this pupper wants for nothing but loves everything.

she's killer diller when she's dressed to the hilt

2008-10-30T20:28:00.008-04:00

the sole purpose of this post is to horrify eve's grandmothers.

eve is such a good girl.

everything that happens will happen today

2008-10-27T20:38:00.007-04:00

we saw david byrne play a great show on saturday (shout out to the in-laws for superior eve-sitting!). the show was split about evenly between mainstream talking heads songs and the new album he did with brian eno (eponymous with this post's title). we enjoyed ourselves very much save for one very odd regret. both of us wished that we had brought eve with us. she had been grooving to all of the right concert-preparation albums, and did her funky eve-dance for all the right reasons. we thought eve-sie could have surely picked up a few more bops and grooves from the show. next time, we're buying some baba-size earplugs and hauling this pups to the show.

turn on your radio, baby, listen to my song

2008-10-16T21:35:00.008-04:00

on wednesday this week, the evester got picked up from her wonderful, magical daycare (wmd from now on) by her papa. he called me on the way home to let me know that eve looked like she was 'kate bush on tour in the eighties.' i didn't know what that would mean until i saw her, and then once i saw the outfit created at wmd, it seemed totally obvious--the perfect description.

in honor of this sartorial strategy, we put some music on the big speakers and let the babski have at those towers of song. this kid loves her music, as you can see.

she also LOVES her uncle ty. he exudes some sort of magical quality that makes him evesie's number one priority when they're in the same room. seriously, she couldn't get enough of this guy over the weekend. it was utterly adorable.

the last three pictures are from wmd. the evester is doing her pretty smile for larisa and sergei now, so that's pretty awesome. i still can't believe how ridiculously happy she is all the time. it's a good thing i have over three thousand photos on my computer to consult if ever i'm in doubt. gosh, i love her.

inside the gates of eden

2008-10-04T19:53:00.013-04:00

this pups woke up in one fabulous mood this morning and hasn't stopped. one fascinating aspect of this mood includes a complete dependence on all things poppa-related, and next to no time for her mother. very funny, and very exhausting. i'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that i shoveled donut holes down her maw while e-$ showered. no, i think it is a simple genetic preference.

so we grabbed this pups and hauled her to an apple orchard. appropriately, eve-sie showed a deep love for apples, gnawing on one while we sauntered among jonathans, cortlands, and other varieties. i kept remembering the scene from prince caspian, when the pevensies find themselves among the scattered ruins of cair paravel and roast apples over a fire. unfortunately, we were not able to find narnian ruins. i suppose aslan's gift to us was a beautiful day and one happy old baba.

also, a horse bit me.

we'll go honky-tonkin

2008-09-30T23:01:00.004-04:00

this is an emergency post. i intended to leave the slide show up as first for a few more days, but these pics can't wait. in the past twenty-four hours, evesie pups has expressed her musical self several times, banging on this awesome casio at daycare and bopping in her high chair while we listen to some amazing covers of songs from the second disc of 'the white album.'

her melodious and dancing self has also experienced her first true fall day. it was chilly here today, and this trendy puffy vest from nan and pop arrived just on time! while the rents rifled through a box looking for coats of their own, the pups fell in love with her papa's cowboy hat. she thinks it looks best on her, even though her head's a wee bit small for it. she just might be right.

pardon me, madam, my name is eve

2008-09-28T01:03:00.001-04:00

this post was intended to show you how much eve is enjoying her new daycare experience, but i just couldn't help but add a few more pictures from that past month or so. the 'rents are back to the real world, going to jobs during the day and hanging with the evester on evenings and weekends. i won't speak for ted, but i miss that little baba of mine while she's off eating play-doh and playing in sandboxes. i'm sure she misses us too, even though there is ample evidence to the contrary in these photos and in her single-minded determination to play with the daycare toys until i scoop her up and take her home.

i could apologize for how saccharine the elvis accompaniment is to this slide show, but no one should make excuses or amends on behalf of the king.

mama, don't let your baby grow up to be a cow(girl)

2008-09-15T00:03:00.007-04:00

in two days and about six and a half hours, eve fehskens will arrive at the ripe young age of ten solid months. due to a little thrush issue, the evester got to meet her new chicago pediatrician this week. her visit to the doctor also confirmed a little known fact about this baby of mine: she's completely average. that's right. she's weighing in at the fiftieth percentile in height, weight, and head circumference right now. the e.l.f. is absolutely normal.

because her physiognomy cannot escape averageness, the above pictures illustrate the ways her personality diverges, possibly, from that fiftieth percentile. as many of you know, eve came into the world screaming and full of affection and hilarious. since then, she's worked very hard on perfecting each of those qualities. to them, she's added thrill-seeking, starting conversations with strangers, shrieking with laughter, and eating everything in sight. perhaps this little septet of personality traits and affinities should be ample evidence that the evesie pups brings the wild cowgirl to these amazing cow pj's that feature heavily in the above photo spread.

due to a rash of cold weather, the pups needed sleeves and long pants to stay snuggly warm at night. after just five hours of waking up every forty minutes to her whimpers, her brilliant 'rents figured this out and promptly purchased sleeves and pants the next day. behold, the cow pj set. i can only take credit for supporting the find. her papa discovered this set deep in the racks of cat and bunny themed sleepwear. i can't believe it's taken us this long to find the absolute perfect nighttime ensemble for this pups. tonight i'll probably dream of her leaping over the moon after becoming the fastest draw (sippy cups, not six shooters) in the west.

'cause you know, darling, i love only you

2008-09-04T19:38:00.006-04:00

we just got back from western new york and had the loveliest time. there are scads of photos floating around and i'm sure we'll post again -- the cameras were clicking the entire holiday weekend. in the meanwhile, i wanted to share a few highlights. evesie-pups sure loved buffalo! here, she spends some quality time with her grand-daddy, my mother (waiting for evesie to name her), and sally fehskens. we got home and evesie now thinks that her 'rents are the most boring people on the planet.

in case of accidents she always took her mum

2008-08-26T22:05:00.010-04:00

this blog's new goal is to reference every song from the white album. i believe we are well on the road to meeting that goal, embracing every opportunity and clutching every hope.

clearly, evesie has been enjoying herself. we took her to the field museum with the promise of mummies. she particularly loved the mythological creatures exhibit, but also found great amusement in the egyptian tomb. the gator didn't frighten her at all (in a previous blog post, we did try to feed her to another artificial croc, so this is apparently old hat).

aside from mummies and reptiles, her newest joy is sucking the life out of her sippie cup, which generally contains a mixture of juice and water. if these are not present, she will also go all succubus on an empty sippie cup. this situation leads to tremendous reverberating burps. these herculean belches amuse us all, particularly in public.

evesie cracks herself up, and then passes out. especially when olympic records are being broken -- this is a recipe for sleep.

well i got here following the southern star -- i crossed that river just to be where you are

2008-08-17T17:52:00.009-04:00

we're loving our new neighborhood, taking at least one long walk a day, and sometimes more than that. bookstores, record stores, restaurants, and the great lake. ah, yes, unemployment and a late cool summer couple together beautifully. evesie seems to tolerate hanging with the 'rents, particularly enjoying us for rickshawing her about in her lovely mclaren stroller, and lolling on us for very serious, very important power naps. the above pictures are mostly from the lake, which she seriously loved. this baby adores the water. in fact, so far she is absolutely fearless. she is also crawling in her own haphazard way. in the last picture, she demonstrates her starting position while sporting two of her new favorite garments. thanks, mom! she couldn't wait to try them all on.

it feels silly to me, attempting to write any post when i look at this beautiful little girl. as usual, dylan says it so well, in 'mississippi' -- "all my powers of suggestion and thoughts so sublime, could never do you justice in reason or rhyme." yeah, evesie. before you can even form full words, you've rendered me speechless.

cross-country baby

2008-08-08T23:59:00.007-04:00

so in less than a week, evesie made it from north carolina to the midwest to the pacific northwest. true to her rock star lifestyle, she's been thriving on all this mad fun and fun madness. to commemorate this time, she's chosen to get her two top front teeth, so her smile is going to get even greater in the coming weeks.

these pictures represent her recent relocations: hanging out in her new room, complete with fancy dragon rug from our marathon trip to ikea (thanks, em!), her fancy dress for anne and nathan's gorgeous wedding (thanks again, em!), and her love of portland breweries and hotel amenities. this girl has good taste. that hotel bed was magically comfortable, and evesie's expression conveys just how wonderful it was.

we're all back home in chicago and enjoying our unemployed lifestyle with walks around the neighborhood and trips out to target in the burbs. one of eve's new favorite games is getting kisses and then having her face fake-barfed on. seriously. she laughs every time. more chi-town pictures soon!

BFF!

2008-07-22T18:59:00.002-04:00

our friends mark and amy had us over for dinner on saturday and we had the loveliest time. i think eve had the best time, though, because she got to hang out with mark and amy's beautiful daughter, audrey. as soon as eve saw audrey, she started clapping and laughing, and the feeling was reciprocated.

audrey bean and evesie pups! does it get any better?! well, yes, it does. all it takes is matching pajamas.

get my baby some sophistication!

2008-07-17T20:01:00.013-04:00

exactly eight months ago, eve and i did a bunch of work, and then we slept really well. that work began with me laughing--that i had gone into labor early, that we were missing a harry potter trivia night, that our house was filthy and nothing was packed for the hospital. today, i did a bunch of work printing out my dissertation for about seventeen hours, and now eve is sleeping really well. she did a lot of work, too. apparently, she's quite the little drummer at day care, and she spends a lot of time having milks and food. this evening, she figured out how to drop her fishies back in their musical aquarium, and she also learned how to throw them. so eve probably did way more than me today. no wonder she went to bed first. it's important to note that we also began today laughing (and pleading for more sleep) as eve sang, kicked and windmilled her way into the morning. in the eight months between these two mornings, this pups has only gotten funnier, sweeter, cuter, and more wonderful.

this week, i've been having my own little pupster retrospective, and i wanted to share some highlights in this post. due to the magic of digital photographic technology, i can assure you that each picture is from a day or two around her 'birthday.' the last two pictures were taken today. as i agonized over which one to choose, ted reminded me that i could post both. how novel!

so there you go, nine pictures for eight months. enjoy watching her eyes get bigger and smiles get more varied--i know we do.

teeth like god's shoeshine

2008-07-06T15:32:00.006-04:00

here are a few various fotos from the last few weeks. the top shows our little cowgirl, with hope's sun hat blocking the rays. photo 2 demonstrates eve's sincere love of apartment hunting. she really did enjoy it, at least much more than i did. fotos 3 and 4 capture our little vampire's first two teeth -- the incisors. it's really really funny-looking. finally, eve continues her pursuit of greater heights, and likes nothing more than to sit on my shoulders and survey her domain. this generally involves fistfuls of my hair, which is not my favorite sensation.

the sweetest girl in the world

2008-07-02T09:33:00.003-04:00

i get songs stuck in my head a lot of the time, and blather various snippets at the significant women in my life. one of my absolute favorite songs of all time (a rotating list, of course, and highly influenced by whatever i'm listening to at the time) is the following, which pops into my head whenever i see pics like this of this one pups...

The sweetest girl in the world
Is my blue-eyed Jane.
We fell in love like turtledoves
While the moon was shining down.
I asked her then, I asked her when
Wedding bells would ring.
She said, "Oh, dear, it seems so queer
That this could happen here."

You are my little pal,
And I never knew a sweeter gal,
My little blue-eyed Jane,
I love you so.
And when the sun goes down
And the shadow's creeping over town,
Just meet me in the lane,
My blue-eyed Jane.

Janie dear, listen here,
I've come to say farewell.
The world is drear without you, dear,
But now I cannot linger here.
I'm going away this very day,
Oh please, come go with me.
I'll be sad and blue wanting you,
Longing all day through.

My little blue-eyed Jane,
You'll always be the same sweet thing,
I know you'll never change,
I love you so.
And when the sun goes down
And the shadow's creeping over town,
Then I'll come back again,
My blue-eyed Jane.

And when the sun goes down
And the shadow's creeping over town,
Then I'll come back again,
My blue-eyed Jane.

dylan does a sweet cover, but for my money this song is owned by its writer, the Singing Brakeman, Jimmie Rodgers.

the funniest woman i ever seen was the great-granddaughter of mr. clean

2008-06-27T10:10:00.003-04:00

we're back in durham after six days and 1800 miles of driving. as you can see from this video, not all of our waking hours were spent in eve's new car. we also managed to see all the indiana grandparents and great grandparents, much to everyone's mutual delight. at her peace and hope's, eve discovered a love of roses, cilantro, and basil plants while being carried around their edenic garden. she also said a sad good-bye-for-now to her dog-dogs. recent reports and observations indicate that eve and zoe already miss each other, but argos has completely forgotten his nc roots.

at her e.m. and a.b.'s, eve had a bout of baba hysteria, as you can see on this video. yes, she is completely naked, and yes, that's one of the reasons she's laughing so hard. this is just a cut of the whole sequence, which lasted for about four minutes. after that, eve got all diapered and pj'd, and promptly fell into a happy pups coma.

during the trip, she also managed to get and nearly get over some nasty diaper rash (hence the lady godiva moment), and cut three teeth! the first two to come in are her top incisors, followed by a bottom front. our little vamp.

and of course henry the horse dances the waltz!

2008-06-15T19:25:00.009-04:00

this pups loves her some canines. we were cooking dinner and placed eve in the center of the kitchen in her favorite seat -- the saucer of delight. few devices in life bring such pleasure. she was having such a good time, and in such a great mood, that the only possible addition was to merge the kitchen and the animal kingdom into one harmonious, furry world. as the photos demonstrate, evesie and zoe were all for it. argos harbored some very real, very valid trepidation.

oh, hans castorp

2008-06-09T22:22:00.006-04:00

in this house, we like 'the clash.' that joe strummer outfit is probably one of my favorite bands in the world. 'the clash' have a song that begins with this sneering vocal: "this is a public service announcement...with guitars!" the song continues to list all the things that should be available to people and that, sadly, aren't. things like food and safety.

eve's list of necessary items for survival would likely include a pile of toys. she's a little bit less like 'the clash' and more like hans castorp, the eponymous hero of this post. hans is the main character in thomas mann's 'the magic mountain,' which is probably one of my favorite books of all time ever. in that masterpiece, hans visits his cousin who is staying at a sanatorium in the swiss alps because he has tuberculosis. spending time in a sybaritic mountain retreat was reputed to be the proper--nay, necessary--way to treat the illness. hans develops a small catarrh while spending time with his cousin, which necessitates his seven-year-long stay up in the mountains, collecting theories of time and the world, warm blankets, books and records.

hans castorp and 'the clash' go together, and they both have something to do with eve. in one of ted's better punning moments, he rewrote the first line of that above quoted song so that you could sing it like this: "this is a public service announcement...with catarrhs!" the dogs have long loved this version of the song because it involves big side-slapping pets and shouting and walking in circles.

eve loves puns and the dogs, neither of which you can see evidence in these photos. you can, however, see how she's become a bit like hans castorp of late. when she plays with toys, she collects as many of them around her as possible, and then methodically takes each one up, inspects it, pulls its ears, chews on it and talks to it. if hans were a baby and not a floundering young man, this is probably what he would do, too. i'm sure she's saying something important while she talks to her toys because her actions seem so deliberate and methodical, and yet joyous at the same time. unfortunately, she's also exhibiting that other not-so-fun side of hans: illness. this poor old pups is battling a little ear infection and a little chest infection (a, should i dare say it, catarrh?). in spite of her recent diagnosis, she's mostly up to her usual tricks, as you can see in the final picture of this post, but she's also prone to sad and sleepy moments, like two of the photos in the series.

let's hope in the coming days that she becomes more like those anarchist art school boys and less like good old hans.

so we live a life of ease

2008-06-01T10:22:00.006-04:00

on our bi-weekly trip to babies 'r us (part of our 'nice little saturday), we saw a guy walking out of the store with one of these kiddie pools. we decided immediately that we had to get one (in keeping with our latest mode, known popularly as impulse buying). fortunately the kiddie pool was only $6 and has already proved to be the best $6 spent recently. evesie loved it. so, in the interest of expanding her horizons, we must now plan a trip to the ocean once it's warm enough for her. the other great boon about the kiddie pool -- something about the plastic-conditioned water allowed us to sculpt the perfect faux-hawk. after said styling, evesie promptly passed out and didn't really wake up until this morning -- still rocking the faux-hawk.

papa don't take no mess

2008-05-28T21:08:00.011-04:00

as i'm sure you know by now, this pups loves to have a good time. having such a good time usually means that she eventually needs to pass out, hence the first picture in this post, taken on our free-from-work monday this week. eve did memorial day right by sleeping in, having apple juice for breakfast, and falling asleep in the evening on the porch swing. she filled the interim moments with skyping and indulgent consuming with the 'rents.

the rest of the pictures were taken this evening. eve is showing her special brand of mamaffection in this series. i'm never sure when the mood will strike her, but when it does, she gets very serious about her loving ways. tonight, i feel sure that she was trying to tell me how much she missed me. the pic of my pants was taken during her bath. it seems that if she can't cover my face in drool, then she'll cover my legs in bath water. what a sweet kid.

why was her affection so dramatically displayed tonight? you see, dear reader, eve was at day care for a loooong time today. it wasn't because we were both tied up with work things. oh, no. it was because we were buying eve her first car. after months of back-breaking contortions getting her car seat in and out of our little sedans, we gave up, sold the cars, and got a baba suv, by which i mean a small suv and an suv suitable for the baba. even though she probably won't drive it any time soon, i consider this to be eve's car. maybe if she's a really leggy eight year old, she can take it for a spin in some abandoned parking lot. it's possible. i mean, have you seen this kid?

everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey

2008-05-26T11:42:00.010-04:00

we hit the zoo yesterday for e-$'s big birthday bash (we've been celebrating all weekend) and evesie had a ball. true to form and as anticipated, she found the chimpanzees the most alluring. they seemed to like her, too. a new favorite game is to perch on my shoulder, which generally includes a handful of hair and interesting vomit possibilities, and pretend to be our little capuchin. she also rode an elephant statue, and ignored the actual tusked beast while trying to grab a tree.

hope everyone is having a beautiful memorial day!

have you seen the little piggies?

2008-05-16T21:09:00.005-04:00

spending time in that strawberry patch must have flipped a switch in the old evester's little head (she really does have a little head).

this week, she started eating her dinner in the fancy german modernist high chair that we bought for her ages ago, when the eve was still a jordan. in these pictures, the high chair doesn't appear to be nearly as sleek and austere as it really is, but that's because i fashioned a cushion for that little pups's little head so that she could start getting her munchins and crunchins in her own seat instead of being held by one of us. the cushion is a lovely bath towel that is taped together in the back. i think this bit of ingenuity on my part proves that i'm john locke to ted's jack 'hero' on 'lost.'

anyway, the pups loves her chair almost as much as she loves eating. after every bite, she's discovered that she can bang the tray and make a very nice sound that conveys satisfaction and the impossibility of being satiated simultaneously. in these pictures, she's trying to get avocado out of a bowl by foregoing the spoon, and chilling with prunes plastered all over her face. i bet that diaper was fun at daycare the next day.

the first picture in this post was taken one morning this week. instead of lying on her back and talking to me while i get ready, she's started sitting up and playing with an assortment of toys. eve's first law of thermodynamics is that if there is one toy, there must always be another present, for i, as a baby, have two hands at all times. ted just pointed out to me that he holds the same rule, but it applies to pillows instead of toys. nice.

strawberry fields forever

2008-05-10T17:44:00.006-04:00

we hit the strawberry patch today and brought home one metric ton of this low-growing fruit. evesie loved it, and it was a gorgeous day. thanks to hillary and greg for inviting us! sorry we didn't get any group photos, but the camera battery died...probably something to do with the 1,000 plus photos of this pups.

the future's so bright, i gotta wear shades

2008-05-08T19:20:00.009-04:00

i feel the need to begin with this non-sequitur: our good friend anne o'neil-henry has been living in gay paree for the past several months, and she's solely responsible for introducing the blog to its euro-based audience. so fervent is her support of 'the amazing fehskens baby,' as she once called eve, that the first picture in this entry is currently her laptop's background. anne: eve can't wait for you to get back to nc so that she can grab your hair and give you a gross, slobbery kiss. and thanks for all of your transatlantic blog hits!

the pics in this post have been taken over the past two weeks, and they represent all of the evesie pups's new tricks: wearing protective eyewear, chewing on fingers (hers and those of her loved ones), holding up her massive cheeks with smiles, and lounging on her own (she can't sit up by herself for very long, but long enough for us to take pictures like this one).

not represented here are her other newfound talents, which include rolling over twice in succession, giving argos a belly rub, the aforementioned kissing, and maybe--just maybe--saying 'mama.'

what will that pups do next?

and the days go by. . .

2008-05-05T10:49:00.005-04:00

the evester is a happiness factory. lest you become immediately appalled that i'm referring to my baba as some sort of industrial age workhorse of the victorian variety, linking her to the production of smog and our ever-deepening carbon footprint, let me explain:
this kid runs on happiness, and it is tied with pee and shouts as her top production. happiness goes in; happiness come out. in vast quantities.

she spent last week in the company of my dad and step-mom, hope. she had an absolute blast in their happy company. she had to be constantly exhilerated--how else could we have gotten her to smile while being stuffed into a civil-war era cannon? of course, even the happiness factory shuts down occasionally; hence, the last picture of the sleeping baba in her throne of a jogging stroller.

we are thrilled to be back in durham, as of saturday afternoon. ted had the house nice and clean, and eve immediately trashed it with all of her stuff, including her very own suitcase full of new clothes from all the grandparents. i had nothing to do with this, of course. while we are grateful to be home among the tedster and dogs and cat and fish, we're so happy to have had all that good time at the beach, and we hope all those grandparents enjoyed themselves, too!

what do we got--a lot of sand??

2008-04-29T11:49:00.005-04:00

well we've entered our final week of beach living, and evesie pups has been playing with her new batch of grandparental caretakers, loving every smiley-faced minute of it. above are a few pictures from last week, with e.m.. i wanted to highlight some of the evester's new tricks, such as sitting in windows, stroller piracy (or piratical strolling?), and holding her own bottle.

i would also like to call attention to the title of this post, which is a line from 'the little mermaid.' the fehskens people who read this blog will probably have recognized the line immediately, given the instant recall that all of them have for every song lyric and line in that movie, thanks to sally's obsession with it at a young and tender age. it is the title of this post not because we out here at the marine lab have a lot of sand. in fact, there is very little sand on the island, especially considering that it's an island.

for the whole weekend that ted was here, he repeated this phrase over and over again. when we were in sand and when we were away from it. therefore, any picture i see that was taken over the weekend immediately recalls that line and its near ubiquity. even if said picture features eve in a pirate hat, miles away from sand. and lest you misread my emotional response to this pavlovian response of mine, fear not, dear reader: i like having this line bouncing around in my head, though i sure do wish i knew the rest of the song.

"can you just put it in my mouth?"

2008-04-24T22:40:00.004-04:00

once upon a time, matthew fehskens, also known as fifi and mateo, spent a summer asking his mom the question that is the title of this post. any time food magically appeared on the table and the meal was announced, this phrase would come wafting through the house, carried by matthew's dulcet tones. you may be wondering at what age matthew ingrained this fabulous (and i do mean that) phrase into our collective memories.

i can't remember.

but it wasn't more than three years ago. that i know.

as you can see from this video, the evester will be saying this phrase as soon as she possibly can. here, she's eating mashed bananas and being totally entertained by her e.m.'s hand. smiling at e.m. is her newest favey. somehow, that very same e.m. managed to entertain this baba and hold the camera steady for the duration of the meal. impressive stuff!

"No sound is dissonant which tells of Life."

2008-04-22T08:39:00.010-04:00

the duke gardens, with my estrogen posse, and samuel taylor coleridge:

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told;
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge; -- that branchless ash,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends
Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,
That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)
Still nod and drop beneath the dripping edge
Of the blue clay-stone.

Now, my friends emerge
Beneath the wide wide Heaven -- and view again
The many-steepled tract magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up
The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles
Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on
In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,
My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined
And hunger'd after Nature, many a year,
In the great City pent, winning thy way
With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain
And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun!
Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,
Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!
Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!
And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend
Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,
Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round
On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily; and of such hues
As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes
Spirits perceive his presence.

A delight
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,
This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd
Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze
Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd
Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see
The shadow of the leaf and stem above
Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree
Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay
Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass
Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue
Through the late twilight: and though now the bat
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow titters,
Yet still the solitary humble-bee
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know
That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure;
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,
No waste so vacant, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes
'Tis well to be be bereft of promis'd good,
That we may lift the soul, and contemplate
With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook
Beat its straight path across the dusky air
Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing
(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)
Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory,
While thou stood'st gazing; or, when all was still,
Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.

"This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison"

1, 2, 3, 4, can i have a little more?

2008-04-17T23:32:00.006-04:00

evesie pups has an endless capacity for hugs, kisses, laughs, and food. janet and mary grace have spent the week showering her with all of these things, making this one crazy happy pups. today, she finally got some sand between those freakishly long toes of hers, and the kid seemed pleased with the sensations. of course, she also liked the long bath this evening that washed all that sand away. please also notice how happy she is to wear her bloomers on top of her head. this blog really might become a 'stuff on my kid + stuffing my kid into stuff' forum. it's just too tempting. we found a canon today that would have been just perfect for a photo, but alas, we couldn't get to it without scaling a brick wall, which obviously didn't happen.

maybe we'll get that picture next week.

we would be so happy you and me

2008-04-13T23:46:00.006-04:00

well, it's the end of the weekend, and ted's gone back to durham, leaving the evester and me with janet and mary grace as fabulous company and wonderful help. before the big switcheroo, we managed to work in tons of fun this weekend with the newly arrived fehskens, ted's aunt karen, and his grandmother, memommy. the above photos are documentation of these good times, though ironically, none of the above-mentioned guests, except for janet, are in them.

i've always known how delicious is this baby, but apparently, her gustatory appeal crosses species. not only did this gator think she'd be tasty, but an otter, a sea turtle, and a creepy fish were awfully interested in her. we're not sure how edible she was to the sharks because she conked out for most of our tour of the aquarium. i'm sure they would have liked her, though. i mean, really, WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE?

fun is the one thing that money can't buy

2008-04-10T15:34:00.006-04:00

i've been hanging with eve all day every day, and have the lower back pain to prove it. eve has adapted quite well to the life aquatic, even going so far as to acquire a seahorse and lose her shirt. i believe we've watched that wes anderson 'classic' too many times with this pups, as she's now dressing like the zissou. when combined with a beautiful seascape (pics coming, i'm sure) and her thousand-yard stare, it's enough to make this parental unit feel a bit more like phil conner than steve zissou (sorry if that's too much bill murray reference -- i mean to say like i'm in groundhog day, but at a beautiful beach instead of wintry pennsylvania).

you've got to admit it's getting better

2008-04-06T23:14:00.005-04:00

just when i thought the evester couldn't be any more adorable, couldn't find another way to steal my heart, she ups the ante. this kid is serious about her toys, as you will see in these pictures. we've succumbed to the world of interactive baby containers, which provide the baba with lots of sensory exploration and reasons for sporting a genuinely astonished visage, and which provide her 'rents with many, many photo ops.

after loading the cars with these and many other seats for the babski, we trekked out to beaufort this afternoon. we've arrived at our little beach home away from home, and the pups has settled in nicely. she's currently sleeping in her ridiculous pack n' play. the rainforest- themed mobile that came with it was apparently so entertaining that it compelled her to rotate her little self ninety degrees counter-clockwise before falling asleep. i know this because i broke first tonight (instead of ted, who is usually the weaker-willed or kinder-hearted, depending on how you look at it) and checked on her.

we'll post again soon--hopefully with some ocean pictures.

avuncular!

2008-03-31T18:18:00.008-04:00

this pups met her first uncle this past weekend, and it was a smashing success. matthew and isa visited. they really only needed to bring their delightful selves, but they also thought to bring finger puppets. apparently, finger puppets are the greatest invention in the history of baba-hood. eve laughed and giggled and made eyes for her new two favorite people. when they left, she went into a pups coma and was sad all day on sunday. she seems to have recovered, but continues to optically search the house for her new faveys.

you got no secrets to conceal

2008-03-27T19:49:00.003-04:00

well, the pups can't keep secrets. for example, it seems that she's been working on rolling over in private because we weren't totally aware of her efforts in this arena until today. her fans at daycare told me that 1) she got mad because they couldn't feed her cereal fast enough this morning; and 2)she almost rolled over in her crib two times.

so i put her on her back when we got home, and there she went. again. and again. and again.

then her papa came home and stripped her down to her diaper because she's happier that way, and then i caught this footage on camera. please notice fledge, the ever present and hardly impartial observer in the background.

spring cleaning

2008-03-24T13:31:00.004-04:00

eve used to love 3 things and 3 things only -- smiles, hugs, and milks. her rapidly expanding palette now includes easter ('eve'-ster), having her nose cleaned out (doesn't the blue of the syringe bring out her eyes?) and spring afternoons on the porch. it seems this pups has an eye for the finer things in life. lately, she has also enjoyed sleeping in her crib for long stretches, and eating sweet potatoes. being 4 months old seems like a pretty sweet gig.

this one goes out to the one i love

2008-03-17T17:00:00.007-04:00

sometimes, a solid dose of rem is exactly what the doctor ordered. this is true in two ways right now: evesie pups went to daycare today for the first time. therefore, i was thinking most of the day about this little one that i love to ridiculous excess. i spent more than a few minutes scrolling through the 776 pictures i have of her on my computer. at daycare, the pups had a good time, so good in fact that she only napped for about twenty minutes in the six hours that she was there. this puts her at a pretty huge deficit on sleep, which is why she's conked out on me right now and giving me a full-body nap-snuggle-hug. so, while i relied on rem's lyrics to sing my thoughts throughout the day, the pupster is currently relying on that more scientific valence to the band's name and catching up on some big time babski dreams.

now i realize that much of that previous paragraph makes little sense. that's because i spent much of last night missing out on rem sleep. was it because eve was up all night? nay, friends, quite the opposite. she was sleeping so soundly in her crib that i thought she surely couldn't be breathing. so i spent a lot of time trying not to sneak into her room to check on her.

so enough about michael stipe.

the above pictures are some of my current favorites of the pups. she's making so many new faces all the time, along with lots of new sounds, some sweet and cute and some just darn loud and funny. goodness she's great.

darling, darling, this is an infamous gift.

2008-03-09T21:58:00.004-04:00

early on, i realized that evesie-pups and i were meant to be best of friends. to my continuing disbelief, this has occurred and continues to be true. i have realized (life-lesson) that preferences can become permanent, with unforeseen consequences. ANYWAY. this little pups and this guy were hanging in a sunlit-room in southern mississippi, discussing various new orleans scenarios and their various consequences, when PUPS NUMERO UNO let me know exactly what she thought. i'm still waiting for the exact transcript, but i got the point pretty swiftly.

she's leaving home, part two

2008-03-04T09:48:00.005-05:00

so eve is at it again with getting bigger and doing more things on her own. while this is fascinating to participate in, encourage, and watch, i've realized that it's also a slippery slope from here. now that she can tripod, she'll be wanting to walk soon. and once she can do that, and talk, she'll be able to reason or maneuver her way out of any situation she doesn't like, and let me tell you, this kiddo has opinions. that sounds entertaining and challenging. let's hope it will be more of the former than the latter.

we're off for the gulf coast tomorrow. i can't promise a post while we're gone, but you never know what ted and eve will get up to when they're left alone together.

papa don't take no mess

2008-03-02T18:28:00.006-05:00

so this video post has been about a month in the making. evesie pups has discovered her voice, and boy does she put it to good use. however, as soon as we attempt to document it, record it, or let anyone else hear it, she shuts up like a clam. while she doesn't display the full range of her grammar in this video, she does give you a taste of what it's like to live with this increasingly loud creature.

i think there are several highlights to this video. one of them is that you can hear ted blowing his nose from across the house, and that when he does, eve gets startled, and her eyes get huge. it's also worth considering the choreography of this number. ted got underneath the arches that cross over the lovely play mat on which eve is depositing copious amounts of droll. ted has a large head and a very big halo of hair, so this was not easy or comfortable, but we all emerged unscathed (though ted was awash in drool), and the playmat remains structurally intact. i imagine christine and erik, to whom the mat belongs, are pleased with that news.

now, the video is long, and the pups doesn't really start talking until about 4 minutes in, but you may be hopelessly in love with her at this point, like her 'rents, which means that you'll wait through the first four minutes to fully enjoy the last minute and a half of talkiness.

soul power

2008-03-01T10:47:00.005-05:00

we've been exposing this pups to some mad culture. above, eve-sie sports her easter hat, generously given by my mother. you will also notice that she has recently discovered her hands. she will hold them out in front, look at them, crack a huge smile, make a sound very close to a seal bark, and then jam as much of both of them into her maw as possible. she then proceeds to suck and slurp them, dripping drool everywhere. it's much more adorable than it sounds. last night we all 3 went to see booker t. jones and maceo parker play. it was a little loud for the pups, so e-$ and i took turns in the lobby. booker t. sounded fantastic, playing a vintage organ through a leslie speaker. pups loved it. she promptly fell asleep during the intermission and missed the entire maceo show, somehow. this pups is immune to funk. it seemed like thousands of folks goggled over her and then remarked on what a good baby she was. and also a funky baby (blue-eyed soul, i guess). the 3rd photo shows this pups completely at home in front of the television. i rationalize this by stating that the program was educational -- anthony bourdain's 'no reservations,' a current complete addiction in this household.

she's magically delicious

2008-02-25T09:26:00.002-05:00

i'd like to start this post with two disclaimers:
1. i don't currently like lucky charms, nor have i ever succumbed to their oat and marshmallow magic. i find marshmallow--in its rock hard cereal incarnation or in its fluffy state--to be disgusting.
2. when i wrote in my previous post that this blog could easily become a 'stuff on my kid' forum, i didn't actually mean that's what we would start doing, even though this is a post that would fit in that category

so there i was in the target baby clothes section, looking for some pjs that will fit this ridiculously long kid so that we don't have to do laundry every five days just so that she'll have something to wear to bed. i looked around to show the sleeper with rainbows on it (for $4!) to ted and evesie, and they were nowhere to be found.

ted has a history of doing this, but hasn't actually disappeared in a store in a long time. back when we lived in charlotte, he would wander off in the massive super wal-mart, and i wouldn't see him for what felt like years.

luckily, he returned much more quickly this time. i heard him before i saw him. he said, 'erin, look what we found!' i turned around in time to see eve decked out in this amazing hat from the dollar section. of course, instead of taking it off of her, i started taking pictures with my camera phone, one of the first instances in which i can truly say it's a valuable and not superfluous device.

she never did seem to mind the hat. in fact, the other parents with babies in the section seemed more offended than she did. i love her.

oh you pretty things

2008-02-23T10:34:00.005-05:00

well, these are the four funniest of the most recent pictures of the one and only eve fehskens. currently, ted is talking trash to me as a way of working out his frustrations with his sub-par xbox playing abilities, and eve is sweet talking me and shoving her blanket in her mouth. while i could endlessly watch her adorable actions and listen to her hilarious sounds (i swear she was purring earlier this morning), the blanket/coo combo tends to mean that she's ready for some hugs soon, so this post will be short.

in the above pictures, you'll see an evesie pups sleeping on the floor in her room, with her arm covering her eyes. i think these pictures are utterly adorable, partially because this was, at the time of her slumber (and still now, come to think of it), the dirtiest room in the house. please also notice that the wrists of her pj's are cut at the seams in order to accommodate her plump wristers.

i'm sure this will come as a surprise to many of you, but the last two pictures were not taken by ted while i was in chicago. i witnessed his decision to put a pita on the baba's head. i even tore off a piece of said pita in order to make a more even edge to balance against the back of the bouncy seat. while i was doing that tearing more so that i could eat the bread, i recognize that it also made for a much better, more wearable chapeau. maybe we'll turn this blog into a 'stuff on my kid' forum. the possibilities would be endless.

alive and well

2008-02-21T10:18:00.005-05:00

so, e-$ is out of town for 29 hours (10 left, but who's counting?). well, here is evidence that this pups thrives on change. this is the face that i woke up to this morning. there have been a few minor fits, but overall, no worries.

ain't she sweet

2008-02-17T10:37:00.007-05:00

here are some random fotos of this goofy kid. evesie has 2 speeds, and 2 speeds only. presented here is awake-and-alert. she does not really like to be cradled when she's awake. rather, she likes to be talked to and fawned over, all the while looking around at EVERYTHING. we keep telling her that she's a little baby and can act like one if she wants to, but she doesn't seem to listen and then her eyes wander and she starts talking again. her other speed, not represented visually here, is a pups-coma. anecdote: we are having some friends over for brunch today. retroactively, this means that we thoroughly cleaned the house yesterday afternoon and evening. this basically means that we tidied, vacuumed, and mopped for the 1st time since november 17th. evesie collapsed in exhaustion around 8:00PM, on the floor, in the dirtiest room in the house, covering her eyes with her arm and snoring. we then realized that we needed groceries, so we bundled her into her car seat and went on a late-nite kroger run. she slept through the entire trip. the sleeping-in-filth and staying-out-late does not seem to have negatively affected her.

dino-MITE!!

2008-02-14T22:45:00.006-05:00

way back in the days when evesie pups was a jordan, we watched 'jurassic park' because a) it's a great movie; and 2) i taught it in the class for which i ta'd; and finally: it's a great movie. while we watched, that little pups went wild in utero. we then decided that she loved dinos.

in fact, while we were in chicago after christmas, i returned to the hotel room where eve and ted were waiting for me, and ted told me that evesie had just told him that it was a good time for her to be left out in the wild to be raised by animals. if she went now, before she really mastered language, she would be able to return to humankind without too much traumatic readjustment. setting aside the paradox of how a five week old baby who had not yet mastered language could communicate something so complex and future-oriented, it's important to note that eve assured ted that while she didn't want to be raised by birds, she would happily fall in with a dino family. we haven't been able to convince her that 1) dinos are extinct; and b) dinos aren't mammals and therefore don't produce milks; and conclusively: birds, along with crocodiles, are the living descendants of dinos, so really she should reconsider her quick dismissal of all things avian.

the dino-frenzy came to a head when ted found a website selling hoodies fitted with teeth and eyes to look like various monsters. we told janet/nanet about these amazing hoodies, hoping that she could make one for evesie, and boy did she come through! just look at this amazing piece of clothing! i can't wait for it to fit her; in fact, i'll probably keep putting it on her until it fits, and then i'll probably make her wear it after she's outgrown it. the first two pictures are pretty decent captures of ragey pups--an angry and hungry evesie-saurus. the last pictures are when she's full and making eyes at her papa. please note the lovely blue eyes on the dino hood. this is the prettiest dino EVER. THANK YOU, NANET!

long overdue post

2008-02-12T20:47:00.001-05:00

a week ago today, evesie and i were just getting home from a surprise trip to indy. her papa was so happy to see her that he hauled this kid's increasingly weighty butt all the way through the airport when he picked us up. but before we discuss the deceptive heaviness of a baby: a shout out to the enduringly lovely and amazingly generous martha faul. it was martha who had the idea to fly me (and eve!) to indy to surprise christine for her big groundhog day birthday. ted's event-mindedness and thoughtfulness led me to make it a surprise for not only the birthday girl, but for my family as well. outside of christine's family, only the most secretive and helpful bob was in on the plan. well done, everyone, for making the weekend such a happy surprise for so many people.

and martha: THANK YOU SO MUCH! you made so very many people so very happy to see each other.

defiance of reason

2008-02-08T23:26:00.001-05:00

SO. there is sort of an actual sequence to this post, but we must keep in mind that it remains divorced from contemporary reality and actual events. this post reflects the first time in one week that i have had access to (a) a digital camera and (b) my baba. e-$ will soon post a slideshow of events that relate better historically, but i wanted you all to see this sweetness, b/c i am crazy in love with baba-smiles-a-lot (aka, tubb tubb the snuggle butt). the fotos are in reverse order (last photo first, first photo last, etc.), though all reflect post-bath baba. the tingling, creeping awareness of cleanliness ought to tickle your obvious bone. seriously, this baba loves her baff-ers, but remains reticent and questioning throughout (a reasonable position, i think). only at the end, post rub-down, lotion-application, and snot-removal, does the fab baba grin present itself. i can only applaud such pups for her patience for a good thing -- she must have asked her papa about his experience in a budapest bathhouse...

achilles ain't got nothin' on me by evesie pups

2008-02-03T14:04:00.002-05:00

so far, we've been remarkably blessed with a happy baby. i had to troll through all 572 pictures of the baba to find these gems. however, when eve-sie pups has a meltdown she doesn't cut any corners. her freak-outs amuse me to no end. my mind translates her screams into the following lines by dylan thomas. i'm sure she wants me to join her pure emotional symphony of rage.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

it was a normal day

2008-01-31T21:54:00.000-05:00

evesie pups was hilarious and wonderful and great and raging today. mostly, she was really good, but goodness must always be punctuated by minor meltdowns. the pictures are from tummy time on the boppy (please note the long thread of drool--both gossamer and viscous at the same time) and her evening bath. lest you think that she sported that amazing electric blue robe all night, i must confess that she was immediately changed out of it after the pictures were taken. she is currently milk-sated, sleeping in her papa's arms and showing off her meaty thigh because her gown has, as usual, gotten hiked up to her waist. goodness, i love her.

she asked me to stay and she told me to sit anywhere

2008-01-27T18:42:00.000-05:00

so, a friend recently told me that once you have daughters, you lose your toughness. i appreciated the insight but also realized that i was never tough to begin with. i know i'm biased, but i'm also jelly when it comes to this baby. seriously. i go all wicked witch doused with a bucket of water when she looks at me like this. i gush with disgusting papa love, particularly when she holds her little purple elephant. that's right. i have a complete weakness for elephants. eve-sie and i share a fascination for this noble animal. what's more, we both really like purple. baby girl plus elephant plus purple equals complete pushover willing to blog about how lame he is.

no more sweets for the sweet

2008-01-26T10:20:00.000-05:00

CAUTION: this is an epic post that speaks mainly of fussy babies and their drool, vomit, and poo. many, nay, most, of you will probably be bored to tears by this, so i recommend just staring at the pics if the text makes your eyes cross.

well, i was some kind of a mama yesterday. it’s only proper to begin at the beginning, which means thursday night, when evesie pups was a crazy baby. she had short periods of unprecedented adorableness, followed by long periods of whimpering, whining, wailing. she slept very little during the day, so this compounded the issue. the only times she wasn’t a sad little pups were when she was nursing, dancing to emo (matthew, your emo lyrics are way funnier than deathcab’s), or having a bath. a day like that guaranteed that i needed a beer with my pizza and duke basketball that night.

while we watched coach k’s boys TROUNCE those va tech giants, eve found peace on her papa’s chest in these amazing pj’s (thanks, amy, mark, and audrey!) and i found mine in the two chocolate chip cookies that ted brought home from his evening meeting.

now, some of you know that i suspect eve has an allergy to chocolate, just like her papa. i stopped eating it altogether a few weeks ago. they say (you know: ‘they’) that the way to find out if you’re allergic to something is to stop eating it for awhile and then eat it again b/c that way, your reaction will be stronger. i didn’t intend to make yesterday that testing day, but the cookies were awfully good and I was in no state to resist sugary temptation.

so. eve was in a much more fabulous mood all morning on Friday, which allowed me to make some zuchinni bread and shower between morning nursing sessions. this was amazing. the little pups sung to me while i was showering, and then as soon as the water was off, she was getting a little fussy. inspecting the baba for what the problem might be, i noticed that she was sporting a pretty enormous spread of drool on the front of her shirt. impressed with how much she had managed to produce in such a short time, i didn’t even consider that it could be baby vomit. i have no idea why.

telling her that it made more sense for me to get dressed and then change her out of her drooly clothes (this follows the oxygen mask argument on airplanes, as hillary and greg noted), we made our way to the bedroom so that i could do just that. she got increasingly fussy with the passing of each second, which was puzzling.

i finally picked her up out of her bouncy seat and noticed that she felt a little damp on her huge diaper butt. it was at this moment that i noticed the huge wet patch in her bouncy seat. when we arrived at the changing table, i realized that this little pups was on her third epic grump (our word for poop) of the day, and this one, due to my callous disregard for her comfort, had managed to run up her back and down one of her legs, soaking her and the bouncy seat in which she was festering in her own filth.

poor kid.

once everyone was clean and in dry clothes, she decided to switch from foamy epic grumps to throwing up everything she ate at every nursing session until late afternoon. through all these post- (or would it be anti?) digestion periods, she was sweet and cute and wonderful. this picture sequence captures one of those moments in which she was making eyes at her papa. i dressed her in her fab bodysuit from Kirsten because i thought it was a nicely ironic counter to her vomiting, grumping physical state. ted thinks she really looks like a boy in this get up and calls her evan luke, or steve, or kevin, depending on how she’s acting at the moment. in addition to her lovely smiles, please notice the long train of still-wet baby puke running down her left sleeve.

we did change her out of this bodysuit shortly after she puked on it. again.

she's about a mover

2008-01-24T07:48:00.001-05:00

so far, eve is one happy little girl. she likes nothing more than eye contact and talking. she likes to hear about anything, really. she particularly likes it when e-$ recounts the day's adventures, or when someone tells her dog jokes (jokes that don't make any sense at all). she starts smiling and baby-squeaking when you talk to her, giving a strong impression that she really wants to talk back (and she probably thinks that she is talking back). on an unrelated note, she also loves sticking her small hand in her huge mouth. i think this photo shows some definite baby blue eyes, though.

she's leaving home

2008-01-16T17:17:00.001-05:00

eve shocked me last friday during the day's session of tummy time. (note: ask ted what he hates about the phrase 'tummy time.' he's quite eloquent.)

she rolled over. since then, i've been trying to get her to do it again with varied success. this video captures one such attempt. i confess to helping her a little, but it wasn't too much cheating.

she's now one step closer to growing up and heading out the door for college. or perhaps we'll let her leave home earlier if she gets accepted to a magical british boarding school located in the scenic scottish highlands.

boy i wish i had teeth sometimes

2008-01-16T16:58:00.000-05:00

this morning we concluded a casually conducted experiment involving the baba and chocolate peppermint stick luna bars.

i was first introduced to luna bars by anne gulick at the lucinda williams concert in 2003. i was a first year grad student--terrified and naive in the ways of the world--and anne, a year ahead of me and wise in so many ways, told me that she had a luna bar for dinner. though even now i can't imagine surviving an entire concert on a single bar (but then again, i lack anne's impressive stamina), i will say that they've sustained me remarkably well every morning since eve has been born. if i don't eat one when i wake up, i quickly become a non-functioning zombie of the lowest state. it's pathetic really--my dependence on these overpriced 'health' bars. thank you, anne, for ensuring my survival, and consequently, eve's.

while we were in chicago, i cracked open my first chocolate peppermint stick luna bar (hereby known as cpslb). eve was getting ready to nurse, but she suddenly turned her head and started giving me ginormous gummy-mouthed smiles. guessing that she was excited about the smell of my fragrant breakfast, i told her that she could have the luna bar through breastmilk. this made her even more happy. it was amazing. we've repeated this scenario, minus being in chicago, two times since then, and she's responded the same way each time. above, you can witness this morning's photographic evidence as recorded by ted.

we have no idea why the cpslb's provoke eve in this way. perhaps it's proof that she really is elvish. the cpslb does smell like christmas, so that's possible.

monkey wash, donkey rinse

2008-01-13T09:52:00.000-05:00

so eve experienced her first toy last night. we bought this monkey while e-$ was pregnant and s/he (still waiting on a name and gender from evesie-pups, though i am suspicious that all toys will be 'pups' named 'eve fehskens' if we leave it up to her) has been sitting patiently waiting for discovery. the monkey was a big hit -- eve ended up hugging it and falling asleep while erin and i watched 'the bourne supremacy.' not a bad saturday night -- spies and simians.

SMILE

2008-01-09T21:04:00.001-05:00

watching eve and playing with her is a lot like listening to early brian wilson, way back before he was on a horse's dose of mind-numbing drug therapy (and this is no criticism, not a real one anyway. i love brian wilson deeply). but there are some beach boys records from the 60's that perfectly capture notions of innocence that are somehow innocent in themselves -- they don't trade on sentimentality or nostalgia in any way. rather, they just capture a moment -- and when you hear those songs, you (or, at least, me) find yourself in that moment. i'm not sure if this is eve's mentality or not (though as a self-confessed Romantic, i (secretly)(on a blog) believe it is), but the purity of her emotions astounds me. here i present to you happy-pups. we have some fantastic rage-y-pups shots that will later show up on a post already entitled "achilles -- what's he got on me? by eve fehskens."

boys on the side, please

2008-01-08T16:56:00.001-05:00

evesie and i are going to beaufort today, and we'll be there until tomorrow evening, getting to know the folks at duke's marine lab before we head out there in april so that i can teach an intensive 3.5 week course on literature of the sea. eve has chosen to audit the course from home because she's not into grades and credits right now, but she does like stories and water. in fact, she's not even enrolled in any school as any sort of student, so i have no idea how she convinced the registrar at duke that she could audit her mama's class. anyway, here are a few pictures to tide you over until we return or until ted posts. they range from adorably awake to adorably asleep. the johnny cash onesie is a gift from e.m., who worked long and hard as an internet shopper to get that prized little thing to us before evesie was born.

this kid is objectively adorable

2008-01-07T21:57:00.000-05:00

someone, we can't recall which person, said that eve was 'objectively adorable' at the duke party at mla. if you're reading this blog post, identify yourself so that you can receive proper credit for your statement that gets more and more true as eve meets more and more fans. this weekend, ted's dad and sister sally (hereby known as don abuelo and aunt ya-yee) hung out with eve. she also got to spend time with her relatives in burlington. we all had a blast, and i hope you like our documentation of the fun times.