papa don't take no mess

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

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?

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

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

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. . .

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!