My girl

I often wondered before Mitchell was born if I would still love Evie the same way once I had to care for two children.  I didn’t doubt for a second that I would still love her.  But my love for my little girl is so all-encompassing and I wasn’t sure how it would affect us when I had to split that love and give some to another baby.  It broke my heart a little to think about it and I showered her with as much love and attention as I could before Mitchell came.  It’s been three months now and I can say with absolute certainty that my love for Evie has changed.  It has grown and blossomed into an even greater love.  Having a second child helped me to step back from seeing Evie as my baby and to really appreciate the awesome little girl she is becoming.  

I always knew that she was special, but seeing her as not just as a big sister, but a big GIRL has really blown me away.  She is so caring and sweet.  She’s concerned about people’s feelings and if she thinks that you are hurt or upset, she doesn’t hesitate to say “It’s ok” and give you soft pat on the cheek with her chubby little hand.  She loves to help out whenever she can.  Cooking, cleaning, laundry, feeding the dog- you name it and Evie wants to help with it.  Of course, her idea of helping usually leads to more work for us, but it’s the thought that counts right?  The other day I was making scrambled eggs and her eyes lit up when she saw the eggs.  I couldn’t resist the “I help you Mama?” and sat her up on the counter.  I cracked an egg into a bowl and she didn’t hesitate to pick one up and do the same, dropping the entire cracked egg, shell and all, into the bowl before I could stop her.  She was so proud – “I do it myself Mama!” and she even helped me fish out the pieces of shell.  Evie has proven to be an amazing big sister to Mitchell.  She will comfort him without being asked, give him his paci and cover him with her blankie.  She loves to read him stories and sing him songs, and she can be very protective of him.  Our babysitter has told me that she doesn’t like the other kids to get too close to him and tells the “No!  That’s my brother!  That’s my Baby Mitchell!”.   Evie is also really smart.  She knows colors and shapes and how to count to 10 (almost – for some reason she always skips 5 and goes straight to 6).  She can recite books to us.  She has a great memory.  This can be a good or a bad thing depending on the situation!  We used to be able to say “You can have that later” when it came to candy when we didn’t want her to have it and she would just forget about it.  Now she doesn’t forget!  She starting to understand the passage of time better, but only in terms of things that happen in her day.  She wanted to go to the zoo and I told her we could go tomorrow.  She said that she wanted to go NOW.  I told her to look up in the sky and pointed out the moon.  I said, “When the moon is in the sky, the animals are all asleep so we can’t got to the zoo”.  It was around 7 and the sun was just beginning to set and she said “Mama – there’s the sun!  We can go the zoo now.  The animals waked up!”  Somehow she knows that the sun in the sky means that it’s daytime.  I explained that the sun goes up and down.  Up in the morning and down when it’s time for bed.  So the sun was going down now and everyone was getting sleepy.  I yawned and said I was tired and she said pretend yawned and said “Me too!”  As if.  That kid has more energy that the Energizer Bunny!

I have always loved babies.  They are so sweet and squishy, they don’t talk back and I’ve always loved to hold and take care of them.  I love rocking Mitchell to sleep, holding him close and smelling his sweet baby smell.  Having an infant and a toddler at the same time has been interesting because, while I still adore babies, I have discovered that having a two-year old is pretty amazing too.  Evie just has so much enthusiasm for everything.  We have so much fun doing the silliest, simplest things.    We pretended that the couch was boat the other day and we rolled off of it into the ocean.  I was flailing around on the carpet, trying to get away from Crosby-Shark and pretending that I couldn’t swim.  So Evie tossed me her blankie and ‘pulled’ me back on the boat.  And then she fell into the ‘water’ and copied me.  We must have done this for at least a half hour, laughing and giggling the entire time.  It’s so simple, and yet she asked again and again to play this game over the weekend.  Sunday we went to the zoo for a few hours.  I had told her that if she was very good in church that morning, we could stop and get some donuts and have a breakfast picnic.  She was so excited about this and was such a good girl during mass.  Pat wasn’t feeling well so I loaded up the kids and off we went to the zoo.  We put our picnic blanket down in the grass and Evie thought it was great to get to take her shoes off and eat on the ground.  After our picnic, we explored the zoo and went on a Dinosaur walk.  The Columbus Zoo has a dino boat ride and you can see the dinosaurs in certain areas of the zoo.  We told Evie that when she’s a big girl and uses the potty, she can go on the dinosaur boat ride (we’re willing to try anything to get her to go at this point).  Since she’s not big yet, we went on a dino walk and looked for the dinosaurs in the trees.  We had a ball!  Later, just as we were about the leave the zoo, I noticed that a show was about to start so we decided to check it out.  I’m so glad we did because it was fantastic!  Evie loved seeing all of the animals.  And I don’t know what I liked more – the show or seeing the happiness on Evie’s face.  

Donut picnic

Dinosaurs!

Laughing at the show at the zoo

My love for Evie has changed.  It’s grown bigger and deeper.  She makes life interesting and reminds me to be silly.  She helps me see the simple side of things and to have fun even if I’m having a bad day.  It’s hard not to be happy when your little girl looks at you and out of nowhere says “I love you so much Mama”.  :)