Happy 4 months, Evan!

Its been a while since I've really written anything. Pictures may be worth a thousand words, but you still gotta hear it from the horses mouth. hehehe if that made any sense...

Evan is growing and developing in leaps and bounds! It just amazes me how the human mind develops. I think one of the best things about being a stay at home mom is being a front row spectator to God's ultimate creation. I watch as Evan makes connections in his mind of how this world of ours works. He concentrates and focuses on sights and sounds more than ever. I'm constantly looking for ways to stimulate his mind and he's always up for the challenge too! He's my own little research subject.

I've joined up with a group at George Washington University studying how depression, anxity disorders, and other social behaviors pass from one generation to another, i.e. mother to child. I've really signed Evan and I up as test subjects, but the research is really interesting. I took Evan into their 'playroom' where they hook Evan up to all kinds of machines to chart his reactions to different toys, sounds, and situations. They put this cute little skull cap on him that had electrodes and wires comeing off of it to collect data about his brain waves. I would have loved to borrow that for halloween! They put 4 more electrode patches on his cheeks to measure his rate of blinking and eye movement. 2 more on his chest to gather heart rate. And they strapped a belt around his chest to measure breathing. By the end of it he was a sight to see sitting in a car seat! Wish I had my camera with me.
Here's my drawing of what he would have looked like if I had my camera with me...

They had him look at different toys, bubbles, listen to a tape recording to monotone voices, and had me intereact with him with a mask on and different toys all while there was a white noise machine that would give off pulses of noise every few minutes. And they've intereviewed me about my personal history, if I've ever had certain fears or anxities in my past and what my stress levels would be in different situations. They get pretty personal!
At 10 months they will bring a video camera by and have me record him while sleeps at night over 2 nights. And every so often I send in a sample of his saliva to track his cortizone levels. And a few more visits in the playroom and at my home. All over a span of 2 years.
What's in it for me? Well, $150 by the end of the 2 years and little toys and gifts for the both of us along the way, but the knowledge that Evan and I will be single handedly saving millions of lives is good enough for me! ;)

Other quickies:
- Upon Evan's reaching his 4th month in exisitence, he's alreay traveled cross country to Seattle 3 times, and been out of the country once. I think we're gonna have to start collecting frequent flyer miles for him too. I'm gonna put a map on his nursery wall and track all the places he'll go.
In fact I'm in Seattle now! And the only way I have time to blog is cause my sister has got him. I love being home.
- Halloween! Evan was a cute little ducky. We actually bought his outfit a month ago and he's so freakin cute in it that I've dressed him in it many times before just to take pics! I love the little duck feet! I placed him on his tummy just to see him kick his little duck feet! (he's actually trying really hard to hold himself up :) We took him trick or treating, and I think he really enjoyed watching us eat his candy.


- Not a weekend has gone by where we didn't have somewhere to be or friends were visiting us. It's great to see our friends and have them stay with us, but I can't shake the feeling that I should just open my home as a bed and breakfast while I'm at it.
- Brian and Lisa are old high school friends of Mark and they were here to tour DC and spend time with us. Brian is the amazing photographer friend that snap this great pic of Evan that I can't stop staring at.

There's just an energy in the picture that I love. I can see Evan ready to jump out of it. Like he's ready say something or laugh out loud. I love it! Thank you so much Brian!

I had a great time with them, touring parts of DC I've never been before. You'd think that I would have seen it all by now given how much we go into DC. Its definately more interesting by foot.

Well, there's more that I want to blog about. Like my recent thoughts on family history, my views on life post pregnancy and how no one told me about the insane amounts of hair I'd be loosing, marriages and births,the $$$$$ spent on gifts and never receiving a thank you note, let alone acknowleging that they received it, my sister's rise to homecoming fame, student of the month and a new job at Stadium Flowers as a graphic designer, Mark's new job at Booz Allen Hamilton as a senior consultant, and of course Evan's many milestones... but it's getting late.
I've got a flight to catch tomorrow. Pray for me that Evan will cooperate and sleep the entire time!