Midnight Musings

This is actually the second time Evan has gone camping, but it's the first time he was alert enough to have a clue as to what was going on. We went to visit his aunt Courtney in Augusta this weekend and we camped in the nearby Mistletoe State Park. Evan had a great time hiking, sleeping in the tent and eating rocks. Sadly, we couldn't keep the kid from sticking the gravel in the campground in his mouth. I understand the first time. After all, you have to stick something in your mouth to make sure it's edible. It's all the other times he stuck rocks in his mouth that worry me. You would have thought that the first time would have been enough to learn that they were indigestible. Apparently not. I guess granite tastes pretty good.

Actually, he spent most of his time moving gravel from one place to another. A lot of that "another" place was in our tent. There's a video of this at the bottom of the post.

Of course camping isn't all heavy lifting. He also had to help granddaddy set up the camper.


Evan also helped set up Mama and Daddy's tent. Of course with the weather, we had to take a little play break when we were finished.

Of course after all that work, one tends to get a little dirty. Evan's not fond of being wiped up, but he dealt stoically with Mama's irrational need for cleanliness. After all, he's just going to get dirty as soon as she lets him down. But Evan is beneficent, so he waits patiently for her to finish.

Saturday night we went to a place in Clark's Hill, SC, called La Cantina. The food was pretty good, but it's about as in the middle of nowhere as any restaurant I've ever visited. The owners have a quirky sense of style. Obviously, Evan loved the place. He's taken up the habit of pointing at things and proclaiming "Wuh dah". I'm not sure he put the finger down the entire time we were there.

This is a hand-made clay and stone oven in which they cook their steaks. Evan was amazed by this thing. After we watch the guy cook the steaks and went back inside, Evan kept trying to walk back outside to the oven.

We also went hiking on Sunday morning. I carried Evan most of the way and he slept most of the way. Here's the picture we took about a quarter mile in with Evan conked out on my back.

Kim carried Evan during part of the trip back just to see what it was like. Evan was nice and perky for this shot. We stopped at the same place on the return trip for the Mama and Evan shot.

It was a long three day weekend for Evan and he was pretty much zonked by the end. Courtney walked him around the campground in his stroller and they found a feather, but Evan couldn't hold out for long. He fell asleep and didn't wake up until we were an hour from home.

Evan had a little party at his daycare on his actual birthday, but we couldn't organize the family party until today. Kim started getting things ready for the party days in advance and decorated my parents' carport quite nicely for the party. It was mostly family and we cooked out and had a cake that my sister Courtney made and Kim and she decorated. Evan had a blast opening up presents and destroying his little mini-cake, but between his few sips of sweet tea, cake, cookies, and other goodies, he kept us up half the night with a stomach ache.

Actually, I just found out that Kim didn't take any pictures on our camera, so you'll have to go over to the granny blog to see those, but here are a few recent photos too keep you sated until then.

Evan likes to demonstrate his detachable head. He also turned one year old today, and actually not too far from the time this post went live. Kim took the day off from work to help with the party at the daycare and then she and Evan went swimming in the pool. Kim spent last night and this morning working on Evan's birthday cupcakes. I think they turned out pretty cool.


Evan's big party day started off with a trip to Burger King where he played in the play structure.


He was shown the cake for his approval.


I think he approved.

Evan went to watch his cousin David graduate from Georgia Tech this weekend. Daddy forgot to take the camera, so we're stuck with second-hand photos from Karen, David's mother. Evan was amazingly good considering the five hours we sat in the Georgia Dome hearing speeches and watching people in black robes walk across the stage (including two trips for the masters students for some reason.)

Here's Evan and me before graduation in front of the Ramblin' Wreck.

We didn't bother to take any pictures of Evan during the ceremony. Part of that was because it was a graduation, and therefore largely uninteresting visually. The other part was that Karen and her camera moved to a location where she could see David more easily. We did get a couple of pictures of the kid with the graduate on a grassy knoll near the Dome. Oh, and Evan just started walking without any assistance a couple of weeks ago. At the time of the video, he'd only walk between us, but during a trip to Brunswick where we'd left Evan with my parents, he started launching himself into open space to walk wherever he felt like. Unfortunately, his bravery outmatches his balance. Hence the skinned nose and bruised forehead.


After graduation, we headed up to 5 Seasons in Sandy Springs for lunch. I happened to mention this in passing to Karen in conversation earlier in the day and it ended up turning into where we went. I'm not complaining. It's my favorite restaurant (and brewpub), but I didn't want to tell them where to go. Luckily, everyone seemed to like their food. Evan was awesome during the five-hour ceremony, but he ran out of gas on the trip to 5 Seasons.


I don't think Evan got to eat much table food here (he did eat half of a waffle for breakfast), but he ate a couple of containers of baby food. I'm really hoping that's water Mama's giving him in the straw.

Afterward, we hung out at the restaurant and talked.


And Evan took a little walk.

Evan started crawling on his hands and knees instead of the old military crawl, but that's so passé . Watch this.

It's been a long day and I'm headed off to bed, but I thought I'd leave you a quick photo from today's drive down the Peaches to the Beaches yard sale route. If you look really closely at the bottom of his mouth, you see a glimpse of his first tooth.

Evan really does party naked. Or at least he would if we let him.

Now, with apologies to U2 for butchering their "Sunday, Bloody Sunday," we cut to the chase. Evan went to the doctor for his 9-month well-child check-up Friday. They measured height, weight, circumference of the head, listened to his heart and lungs, and various other checks to make sure he's not some freak of nature or other problems. For those of you who remember his appearance during the first couple of months, part of the findings are a bit of a surprise. Mr. Pot Belly is now slightly above the 75th percentile in both height and weight. In other words, it's looking like Little Man won't be so little forever. That's a good thing. I'd have to disown him if he doesn't at least break the 6' mark.

Another part of this check up included checking his iron levels, which required drawing blood. First, they pricked his heel and squeezed droplets of red into a tiny vial, which they rushed off to be tested for iron content. If it came back below 11 (11 what, I don't know) they had to draw blood from his arm for a bigger sample. If it came back at 11 or above, the test was over and Evan would be free to go. It came back 10.9.

The nurse struggled to find a vein and after a failed attempt and no vein clearly visible, the nurse asked us to head over to the hospital next door to get the lab people to draw the blood instead of risking turning Evan's little arm into meat-flavored Swiss cheese. The lab tech filled the vial quickly with only one, quick stick. What a difference having a job that requires you to draw blood all day makes compared to the more generalist nurse. Of course Evan cried while being stuck, but true to his nature, as soon as I picked him up, he was back to grinning at the nurses who held him down and impaled him to steal his life force. He just doesn't know how to hold a grudge. This is a photo of Evan just seconds after being skewered.


That weird face is not from discomfort, but is simply Evan's new ham face. That's right. Every time the red light for the anti-red eye feature on the camera comes on Evan ham's it up by opening his mouth wide and leaning back a bit. Here is another example from recent weeks.

I wonder if he picked this up from me.


We also spent an afternoon a couple of weeks ago playing outside on a blanket. Evan got to watch the chickens scratching under the pomegranate, physically attacked me and had a grand time posing for pictures. This was before the new ham face, so he doesn't look quite so angry here.


And finally, Evan had his first trip to the beach a couple of weeks ago. We went to Jekyll and St. Simon's Islands. It was too cold to swim, and rainy at times, but we had fun, and Evan seemed to really enjoy the change of scenery.


And Despite the appearances, Evan didn't really help write this blog. He just thinks he did.