SUMMER LOVIN'

The past week has been a whirlwind of adventure for us at the Yankee & Peach house. We made it to the water park not one, not two, but three different times in the span of four days. Yes, folks, it has been hot in Atlanta.

Speaking of whirlwinds...

Blue Eyes of Destruction.

Following Evie is like tracking the path of an F2 twister. (But on a baby-sized Fujita scale, of course.) It's typically an erratic route of tossed toys, annihilation of paper products, a solitary shoe or scattered article of clothing, but with a bundle of diapered cuteness waiting for you at the end of the trail.

I get hype for bedtime!

Mom likes performing crazy cheerleading lifts with me before I go to sleep. 

Uh... Dad?   Please stop her.   Now.

Just checking to see what Mom missed with the vacuum. I should wear white gloves and point out all the places Mom overlooks.

What? I have a personal standard of "clean." I won't crawl just anywhere, ya know!

Cleanliness doesn't apply to my toys. They can go anywhere I put them. My toys, my rules. 

Hmm... I'm eight months old now. In my opinion, I'm plenty old enough to pull up on objects and try to walk by myself. See that sharp corner of the TV stand? I want to get up close and personal with it!  Watch this, I'm gonna freak my parents out!

A D O R A B L E.  'Nuff said.

Check out my chompers!  I have four more coming in on top! 

And FOUR is the number of hours I stayed up after midnight on Saturday night when I decided to wake and express my displeasure about these dental nuisances to my Mom. I love my midnight conversations with Mom.  Although she's a good listener and lets me do all the talking, I suspect she's half asleep for most of our really good heart-to-heart chats.

My Pop came all the way from Rhode Island for a visit. He said he was here to fix an MRI machine at Emory, but I know he was actually here to see me.

Try to harness all this energy, Pop! I bet you could run an MRI for a week just on baby power.

You want me to share? Okay, I guess you can have the blue cup. I have 7 others. You're not taking the yellow one! It's my favorite!

Our cute little ambassador for GT. This is what we sent her wearing to school on Monday. 

 

And when I picked her up, she was wearing this. Yes, that's a Christmas bib on a baby in the month of June, but more importantly... it's RED. Everybody knows you can't have the color red associated with anything Georgia Tech. This confirms my suspicions that there are closet UGA fans employed by the Goddard School.

OFF WITH THE RED, MOM!

If you come to our house, you will be handed a baby and a ball. They will be waiting for you at the front door.

THE END

FAITHFUL COMPANIONS

We had quite a nice Father's Day weekend. (Yes, I'll speak for Chris... though he may disagree, but I'd doubt it.) Momma and Dadda escaped to Chastain Park to see Harry Connick, Jr. on Saturday night while the Neal grandparents and Uncle Battle were responsible for feeding, bathing, and bedding the little munchkin all by themselves. All went well (at least, that's what they told us!) and everyone survived the night un-harmed and in good spirits.

However, we were left wondering what questionable cuisine Grandmumsy Neal might have slipped the little lady during her Saturday night play time because we noticed a bit of diarrhea in two of her diapers the next day. (Mumsy Neal has the tendency to "let her try new things and explore everything!!" - thus rendering our leverage over healthy food null-and-void.)

We eventually dismissed the "problematic food theory" after we realized Evie is teething again and has a tendency to swallow a LOT of saliva during the process, thus creating runny diapers. (TMI, we know. That's the life of a parent, right?)  

No worries, though. Evie is crawling full-steam-ahead, pulling up on any object that will support her, and has two little pearly whites emerging from her upper gum line to match the two little chompers she already has on the bottom. Geeeeeez, what's next? Puberty?!

Trot incites instant laughter whenever he's around Evie. And he's ALWAYS around.

Evie has fully mastered the technique of forward crawling. She is now working on her crawling-while-holding-multiple-objects-she-refuses-to-release approach to mobility.

Trot: providing friendship, affection, comedic interjection into many situations, and a sniff test, if necessary.
(Evie is again showing off her crawling-while-holding-objects skills.)

Once more, Trot administers the sniff check on Evie. I should remind him that  deodorant (hopefully) won't be necessary for years to come.

 

 Blocks, blocks, blocks. I love blocks.
Or more appropriately: triangles, triangles, triangles. Obtuse, acute, or right angles...  It doesn't matter as long as they make a good sound when I smack them together! They're all polygons to me! (hahahah... poor kid has Tech grads for parents!)

 

Hmmm. I know this round object is of some importance to many people in my family. I guess I should learn what to do with it.  ("Scholarship!" says Momma.)

Already practicing her pull-ups on the kitchen table.
I seriously thought it would be years before she'd be able to do this, but once again, she proves me wrong. 
Ahhh... parental expectations shattered. I better get used to it!

And... last but not least:

Parents gone wild at Chastain Park!
A lovely little picnic spread.   Wine and cheese.   Candlelight and music.
Sooo very romantic and fun!
Yup, we were home and asleep by midnight.

GOOOoooo-oooooAL !!!!

England made one, the USA made one... of course, that officially resulted in a draw, but in my eyes, if the objective was to make it out of the first round of the World Cup, then I guess we won!

More importantly (at least in our egocentric eyes), was our own personal goal for Evie this weekend - to crawl in the FORWARD direction. She met that challenge head on and passed with flying colors.

Here are a few pictures from the weekend of forward progress:

Why should I crawl if you're already going my direction, Dad? Can't I just hitch a ride on you?

She's got a pretty good squat going.
Future power lifter, posiblemente?

Stop! Stop! Stop!
I'll do this my own way, thank you very much.

And by "my way," I mean I'll sit and clap for myself and the good job I'm doing!

One of the many reasons the USA "won." Good karma vibes sent from the Yankee and Peach kitchen.

"Gooo - ooooal" cupcakes. You can't just have one.

 

This is the face of summer. Excitement over fresh blueberries!
If only you had seen Daddy and Momma's excited faces after those blueberries progressed their way through her little digestive track.

I'm so ashamed I can't even look at you. My mommy dressed me like a girl.

 Dressy dress, hairbow, girlie shoes.
Oh, I cannot even look at the camera. This is so embarrassing.

What, you say there's a mud puddle outside I can play in? I'm ashamed no more! Tomboy revenge at last!

Mom's always passing me off to be fed by other people. My sweet friend Vallie came for a visit and decided to take over mommy duties for a little while.

 

Uncle Battle gets the honor of filling my belly too!

We're also having some forward progress in the teething department, if a runny nose and chewing on everything she can get her hands and mouth around are any indicators. Evie got her two bottom teeth at 4 months, but nothing has emerged since then.... guess it's about time!

Food tastes so much better when you have entertainment accompanying it!

Uncle Battle is becoming a pro at this food dispersal stuff.

Here's a reward for making it all the way down to the bottom of this post:  Crawling videos! 

They are short and sweet, but you will get the point: She's MOBILE!

SUPPER AND A SHOW

Grandaddy and Mumsy Neal stopped by the Yankee and Peach abode to play tonight. They dropped in under the auspices of "visiting Evie" but we all know they really just fancied some of Katie's cooking for supper.  Those crafty kinfolk are always sneaking in and finding a place at the supper table (and now we know where Uncle Battle gets it.)

Can't these people find where the food goes?
My mouth is RIGHT HERE!

Evie's grandparents were just in time to feed Miss Priss, play outside in the baby pool with the little lady, get shoo-ed out of the pool by Nomar-the-water-crazy-dog who decided to sit on Evie (whilst IN the pool), then get eaten by mosquitoes after tonight's rain, and then trudge back inside for some yummy gnocchi, chicken, garlic bread and salad that Katie whipped up in a Julia-Child-on-drugs style frenzy. It may sound like a gourmet dinner-  but, in actuality, that was the extent of the sustenance inhabiting Katie's cupboard - at least till Knight-in-Shining-Armor Chris got home from Publix with bags full of reinforcements.

After we were all fat and happy from the pigs-at-the-trough-chow-down, it was time for our post-dinner entertainment. Obviously, that means Evie was running the show.

I've got skills. Check out the balancing act.
 Don't try this at home, kids.

First face-plant of the evening into the carpet. 
Crawling in the forward direction just wasn't happening.

Okay, really Grandma? I am not a vacuum cleaner!

Haha! Victory is mine! 

The pink ball holds the powers of the universe! 

Or maybe just some nice spittle from Trot.

Mother, you are only a small mountain between me and that magazine.
I will conquer you, as I will conquer the tearing of each and every page in that glossy publication.

Yes, we frequently leave our child crying on the floor with potential suffocation hazards nearby. We believe it builds character - as well as lung capacity.

By our next post, I hope to have something to report in the way of forward motion. It may not happen and we may quite possibly just have a backwards crawling child. That's fine with me, as long as the backwards-ness doesn't carry over into other future skills to be learned. Like potty training. I'm not even going to carry on with that thought...

Evie "Walking" after Trot

Put my thing down, Flip It, and Reverse It

Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines!
In Lane 1, we have Evie. She's in the starting blocks,  revving her motor skills...  she's on her mark... she's set... and off she goes...  IN REVERSE! 

Our little lady crawled for the first time this weekend. Except she went backwards. Yes, in reverse. As in, the opposite direction of forward motion. She was down on all fours, doing the wiggly-butt bouncing motion that munchkins do to get their momentum going.  

She was all psyched up - you could just see it in her determined little face. She was working so hard and with such fierce concentration. She pushed off from a sitting position, braced her arms, got her little knees under her, -- and then went scooting backwards. The look on her face was a combination of "holy crap, I'm moving!" and "holy crap, that's not the direction I wanted to go!"

Chris and I were cracking up. She was so focused on going forward, but then her body kept betraying her and she would go the opposite direction.  Oh, well, at least she's getting somewhat mobile, which means momma and dadda have to really get on babyproofing everything soon. Evie just has her gear stick confused - she's gotta get out of reverse and put that thing in drive! 

Here's a few photos to document what we thought was quite a hilarious occasion:

Yeah, I got this sitting stuff down pat!

Watch out, doggies! I'm coming for you.

 
Hey, uh, Trot... you mind doing a quick diaper check for me? I was working pretty hard, might have let some slip.

What?!   A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!

Just like everyone else in this household, Trot does my bidding.

Go get me a ball, Trot.

Okay, back in the starting position. Uggggghh... not sure about this.

Head down, check.  

Elbows locked and ready, check.
Good form, check.
Bouncing butt, check. Here we go... 

Whoaaa! Too fast, too fast! I gotta slow down.

And in other non-crawling news, we spent another Saturday at the water park. This time, we plied Uncle Battle to go with us with the promise of a home-cooked meal for lunch. (the joke was on him, it was MY cooking!)

Actually, he really wanted to go. He's an adorably hands-on uncle to Evie - even though he has yet to change a diaper. (gggr!)  I told him the water park would be us and a bunch of one-to-twelve years old kids and he realized that this age range is right at his maturity level and he was all for it.

I only tolerate these people for the food...
and the awesome hot pink shoes.

Like his niece, Battle only tolerates us for the food.

This picture will be on the next cover "Out and About" Magazine for their cover article "Modern Family: Two Men and a Baby."

The little rockstar's gotta have her sunglasses on to go to the pool.

I love my dadda. Such sweetness.

Battle's plan to pick up ladies using Evie as bait didn't work.  

That's actually a really good thing, considering all the lizz-adies in attendance at the waterpark were either young enough to put him in jail, or old enough to know better.

He decided to show off his skills on the slide instead.

Dadda and EvieBug in the lazy river.

There's actually nothing lazy about this river- the river's current is quite fast so it's a pretty decent workout to make it around while holding a baby afloat, especially if you decide to be a rebel and go against the flow.
 

A few more weekends in the not-so-lazy river might be a benefit to momma's post-prego bootie. (Well, that and a membership to Jenny Craig and a little lypo wouldn't hurt.)