Evie Singing

Evie finally graduated from her high chair and into a booster seat.  We made the choice to move her a little before Christmas because she was able to climb up into her high chair all by herself and at that point, I'd rather her just climb into a regular chair.  Plus she sits in regular seats at restaurants, usually, rather than a booster, so if she can handle that we figured it'd be good practice at home to have her in her own seat at the table.  And, frankly, I was just tired of the amount of space the high chair took up - having to navigate around it and the dogs to get to the trash can was finally enough - plus the clean up of wiping down the separate trays, the crumbs that get caught in the seat, the yogurt that inevitably ends up on the buckles.  Eeeeesh!  Just put that kiddo in a regular chair already!  So we did.

She loves it. She climbs up in the chair and buckles herself in.  She's got plenty of clearance for her legs but the table isn't too far away.  It was a good Christmas present.  We also bought her a placemat that has the map of the world on it.  So far she can identify Russia, China, Australia, Brazil, and Greenland.  We're trying to teach her one new country every couple of days.  Of course, right now she mostly knows that Russia is orange so I don't think she'd be able to do it on a different map, but still...

Yesterday we went to visit April, Jason and Ivy for the first time since Ivy's birthday in November.  We used to get together with them once a week but now that we're so busy with school and the distance between our houses has more than doubled (in Nashville we were about 10 minutes away from each other; now Jason and April live in Mississippi so it's more like 30 minutes from our new house), it's much harder to see each other.  But the girls had a great time playing together, especially on Ivy's Frozen car.

Friday night, Kathy came and stayed with Evie while Seth and I went to a movie with some of my friends from school.  Kathy said they had the best time.  They played with her new kitchen, had dinner, read books, and Kathy even got her ready for bed, though Evie was wanting Mama when we walked in.  We had perfect timing because Kathy had tried to put her down less than 5 minutes before we got home so she hadn't been crying long.  She is a Mama's girl, though, when it comes to bed time.

For the last two years almost, since Memmaw died on January 16, 2013, I have sung Evie to sleep at nap time and bedtime with two songs.  The first, a song of my choice usually dictated by either the first thing that pops in my head or something that is seasonally appropriate (or sometimes Evie has a special request), and the second and final song is always "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" which was the song we were singing when Memmaw took her last breath.  That experience was not my first in watching someone pass away (I had the privilege of being with Pappaw during his last moments on earth as well), but it still stuck with me in a beautiful, peaceful, spiritual way, and though I no longer cry every time I sing it like I did for a month or two after Memmaw's passing, I occasionally still get a catch in my throat as I sing, thinking about the meaning of the song, the memories of singing it in church and with family at various times, and the joy of having faith.

Despite having sung it to her pretty much every night for more than 700 days, Evie has never sung along with me.  Until this week.  One night, she turned to look me in the eye (she usually rests her head on my shoulder) and started singing along.  Out of the blue.  She knew many more words than I knew she knew, and she carried the tune pretty well.  And when we finished the verse, she said, "Evie singing."  I said, "Yes, you are."  She said, "Evie singing Mama."  I blinked back some tears and said, "Evie was singing with Mama, and that makes Mama so happy."