Walking in its many forms (and first steps)!!!

Anyone who has spent much time around Evan has gotten to witness his "knee-walking" technique. This evolved from his realization that it is difficult to crawl with things in his hand, but not wanting to walk yet. Both of Evan's Grandmas said that we have to get this on video before he starts walking, and we finally got a good clip . . .

At it turns out, we got this video just in time because Evan took his first steps yesterday!!! One of the parents at daycare has a daughter who also started walking kind of late, and they said that what finally made the difference was having regular shoes instead of the soft-soled slippers. This weekend I picked up some shoes for Evan and we tried them out on Monday. He was much more confident standing with the increased stability, and when we put him a couple of feet away, he walked right back to us!!! The really cool part is that after we changed him into pajamas (we waited until this point to take the video because the outfit he came home from daycare in was pretty ridiculous) and took off the shoes, he was still able to stand and walk! In the second part of the video you can see him shaking his head to say "no, mama, I'm tired of this game" but then he humored me anyway . . . thanks kiddo.

Table manners

For some time now I have been putting off giving Evan a spoon to feed himself. This is largely because I imagine spoonfuls of food being launched catapult-style across the room. But, yesterday we finally decided to go for it and let Evan feed himself some pears (yes, I did intentionally choose something that matches the neutral decor of our apartment . . . just in case). We were pleasantly surprised by his display of table manners.

At some point the feeding experience devolved into the irresistible fun of sticking our fingers in the bowl of pears, but given his squeamishness about certain food textures we decided to let him enjoy. I guess we'll work on that table manner for next time . . .

Has it really come to this?

About a month ago, Evan went through a bit of an eating regression and pretty much stopped eating anything "chunky" except goldfish crackers and cheerios (thankfully he is still a champ with pureed fruits and veggies). So, we are pretty excited when we find a new "chunky" he will eat. But as you can see, this does get a bit ridiculous. I never thought I would say "Yay, way to eat that doughnut! Great job!" Ahhh, the unexpected twists and turns of parenthood (though I wouldn't have it any other way) . . .

Fun with Grandma

Last week, my Grandma came to visit us. She couldn't believe how much I had grown since she saw me 3 months ago! I showed her all my new tricks and we played with toys together. It was a lot of fun.


And, on Thursday we had a fun outing going to Costco and out to lunch. French fries are so awesome! I can't wait to see you again Grandma!!!

Hiking, swimming, pad thai, and guinea pigs . . .

Yup, that pretty much sums up our trip to Brattleboro, Vermont this weekend. We packed up on Saturday morning and Evan helped out by testing out the water bottles for us.


We strategically planned the drive to coincide with Evan's naptime. Sweet.


This plan did not fail us, as Evan woke up happy and ready to play.


We stopped for lunch at a little cafe in northern MA, and Evan got to try a few new foods. For the record . . . potato chips - yum . . . bacon - yuck.


After fueling up, we headed into Vermont and set out to hike Haystack Mountain. We've had a lot of fun trying the hikes in our hiking with kids book, which we highly recommend to anyone living on the east coast.


The hike started out okay, but Evan quickly lost patience with the whole process. After getting almost to the top, we missed the turn to the summit and ended up on a side trail. So, with Evan's mood and the weather both turning on us, we abandoned our summit attempt and headed back to the car.


The next morning, we pretended to be Bostonians by hitting the Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. Glazed donut - yum . . . blueberry muffin . . . yum. To work off all that good breakfast, we took Evan for his first ever swim in the hotel pool. I think the water was a bit chilly for him at first, but after a while he actually did go in up to his waist.


We wanted to sneak in one more hike during the weekend, so we visited Chesterfield Gorge (another one from the book - this one I highly recommend). Evan's tolerance level for being in the backpack was pretty low, but the hike was only a mile long, so it was a good compromise.


At this point, you are probably thinking "wait a second . . . I've been reading this blog for a good minute and haven't yet heard anything about pad thai or guinea pigs." Take heart, the craziness is quickly approaching.

We stopped back in Brattleboro for lunch and went to a Thai place that was right next to a little city park. Now, we love Vermont, but it is germane to this story to mention that the state as a whole is pretty liberal, and Brattleboro is especially so in that "we appreciate your individuality" sort of way. So, as Evan was enjoying some pad thai from my plate (yes, for the record, pad thai . . . yum!) we were not entirely surprised to see a lady playing interactive games with her pet guinea pig in the grass right outside the window. Occasionally, the guinea pig would get away from her and she would be on all fours with her head stuck in the bushes looking for it. It was quite the spectacle. I looked at John and said "well this is Vermont" to which he responded "hmmm . . . Vermont - the guinea pig petting state."

So, we had a wonderful weekend in a beautiful area, Evan tried a lot of new things and even liked some of them, and we only sampled a little bit of crazy. Not bad . . .

Mother's Day gift

Evan was incredibly sweet and made me a Mother's Day gift at day care yesterday! We have a bit of a running joke about the spelling of Evan's name, because his cubbyhole and picture at day care are both labeled "Even". We say that we might have to name our next kid "Odd".

Anyhow, when I picked him up yesterday, there was a mug in each kid's cubbyhole that they had made for Mother's Day (with a little help from the day care providers). I was completely expecting to get a mug that said "Even", which made it all the more hilarious when I found this:


Needless to say, I almost fell over laughing. And, after thinking about it, I realized that this is an awesome gift because it reminds me to treasure all of the funny things that happen when raising a child and that nobody is perfect.

Happy Mother's Day from the Heemstras . . . John, Jen, and Avan

Peek-a-boo and shape sorting

Evan is learning all kinds of new tricks and games all of a sudden, so we thought we would share a couple with you. First, he loves to play peek-a-boo with his bib during mealtime. As you might imagine, this is much less messy if he waits until he is done eating his food. But, we're not always so fortunate. . .

Also, thanks to our wonderful friends, Evan has two new kinds of shape sorters to play with, and he has become quite skilled at this. He can get pretty much any of the shapes in, but he likes the circle because it's the easiest (I guess you can say that we've taught him everything we know).