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I realize this week that I am not nearly as good as I used to be about writing down stories to remember to share on this blog.  Now that I am working and going to school full time, I just don't seem to retain the stories for as long, and if I don't keep an ongoing list during the week, I get to Sunday afternoon ready to write and think, What was it that happened that I meant to remember to write about?  So this week, I have a collection of stories that I have been meaning to write about that I don't think I actually managed to include in the last few weeks.

About a month ago, we were at Granna and Grannadaddy's house with Kathy, Rickie, and Grandma Jeanne.  We had dinner together and then started looking through some old photo albums of me as a baby.  I pointed to a picture of my Grandma, Grandma Jeanne, and asked, "Who's that?"  Evie said, "Grandma Jeanne," of course, because I don't think Grandma Jeanne has changed much at all in the last thirty years.  I pointed to a picture of me and Granna from thirty years ago.  Pointing to Granna, I asked, "Who's that?"  Evie said, "Mama!"  (Which is very complimentary to me since my Mom was very svelte in the picture).  I pointed to baby me and said, "And who's that?"  "Dat's Evie me!" said Evie.
 
Last week, as we were walking to the car after church and Evie was already getting sleepy, I mentioned to Granna (who had been coerced into taking Evie to the car) that Evie always gets up early even if she's been put to bed late the night before.  Sleeping in just doesn't seem to happen for her.  Granna asked Evie, "Are you an early bird?"  Evie replied, "Evie get it, early bird", though it was more like "Evie get it, uh-dee buhd".  I guess rather than the early bird getting the worm, the early bird gets gotten by Evie.

I love Evie's speech right now.  She invents her own syntax and I love how she still has some sounds she can't say (which is perfectly normal and expected).  My favorite right now, aside from uh-dee buhd, is when she says, "ChuuChu, Huh-bee," Eddah!  Fah-do me!"  (translation: ChuuChu, Herbie, Edgar, follow me!)

Evie's memory continues to amaze me.  She has a copy of Llama Llama Red Pajama and I would say that is easily one of her favorite books.  We read it often, though not nightly, before bed and she has gotten very good at filling in the words when I leave blanks.  I'll say, "Baby llama stomps and....."  Evie says, "Pouts!"  I say, "Baby llama jumps and...."  Evie says "Shouts!"  She can now do almost the whole book with just a few prompts.

She loves to read.  The other day it was 7:30 and I still hadn't heard her.  She usually gets up at 6:30 so I was surprised.  I decided to check on her and there she was, sitting in her bed, surrounded by books, reading one to herself.  She said, "Hey, mama," and then got out of bed to give me a hug.  Then she went back to her bed and I sat in the glider, expecting her to ask me if I could read to her, but she brought me a book and said, "Mama read it."  I said, "Okay, do you want me to read it to you?"  She said, "Uhn uhn" and walked back to her bed and got a book for herself and said, "Evie read it."  Then she flipped through the pages and would occasionally look over at me to make sure I was still reading to myself too.

On our way to and from daycare, we pass over several speed humps, which Evie can now identify as coming up because we've drawn her attention to the yellow sign preceding the hump.  She'll say, "See yedo sign!" and then start counting to three, and say, "Wee!" as we go over the hump.  She was doing this about a month ago, but now she's added a new thing: at the end of the two streets that these humps are on is a stop sign.  She'll say, "Last one, yedow sign," and then we go over the last speed hump on that street, and she'll say, "Dere's red sign!  STOP!"  Pretty observant.  She also pays attention to the other cars on the road.  If we've been driving with no traffic around and then we come to a stop light where there are a few cars, she'll say, "Dere's people!  People in da tars!"

Specific to this week is her new obsession with Sleeping Beauty.  She absolutely loves that movie.  I remember being very scared of it as I kid because, let's face it, Maleficent is pretty scary.  But either Evie's made of tougher stuff that me or she's not at the age yet where she understands that it's creepy to have an evil fairy cause a green orb to lead a princess up a dark, twisty tower while this voice is singing, "Aurora" to her....  Anyway, point is, Evie loves this movie and asks for it often and we give in probably more than we should.  But she likes the part where Maleficent turns into a dragon.  The weird thing is that she'll say, "Dere's Miss Pam.  Miss Pam turn into dragon!"  Miss Pam is her daycare teacher who Evie absolutely adores and is so excited to see every weekday morning, so I don't at all think that this is some kind of warning that Miss Pam is super creepy.  I just wonder where the connection is for Evie that it would be Miss Pam turning into a dragon...

Also specific to this week is that Evie has been able to play with Addie, Will, Ryan, Aimee, and Tia who are here from Texas.  They drove in on Friday and are leaving this afternoon, but Evie has had such a good time with them.  Yesterday when I told her we were going to see Addie and Will, Evie said, "Addie Will go beach!" which again just demonstrates her awesome memory because the last time we saw Addie and Will was at the beach.  She's pretty sharp, our kiddo.