Button Happy

Sorry for the delay in updating... even Jerin was heckling me about it. So I started writing this really long update, and who comes along to press the bright green power button on the cpu? yep. Its his next favorite button to press besides the dvd drive. He likes the dvd drive because you can put things in it and pull yourself up with it from a sitting to standing position. The masking tape I put on it was a bit of a deterrent, but when he's determined, its as good as a wet noodle.

It's SO hot outside. DC has even declared it a code Red with ozone alert because of the poor air quality. It may be 100 degrees but with the humidity the heat index is saying it feels like 110 degrees. eckh... There's an excessive heat warning till 6pm tonight. So they're handing out free water and free bus rides all over the place. Yesssss, I feel SO much better...

Mark's sister Rose spent part of the weekend with us. It was nice to have her here so Evan could have someone else to play with and I'm sure Lucy loved the extra pampering attention. I took Rose downtown to catch the chinatown bus back to NY. That was the first time its ever taken me only 20 mins to get into DC! I don't make it downtown too often because of traffic, so I figured I'd spend some time there. I didn't know it was going to get so hot, so I took Evan to the National Museum of American Art for some culture and AC. He's in a new stage where he likes to test out the noises he can make with his voice. His latest noise, sounds very much like a police siren. Lets just say I got tired of getting looks.
Next stop, the zoo. I figured Evan was old enough to start appreciating the animals at the zoo. He was so cute! Every time he saw an animal he'd say "da!" or "aah!" That started out being his imitation of the whimpering Lucy does, then it evolved to the noises he'd make for anything on four legs. He especially got excited seeing animals that moved around a lot, made noises, and went up close to him. Its so much fun to see him excited about new things. We had a good time even though we both were so hot and sweating bullets and had to pay $16 for parking!

Andrew Liew and Andersen stopped by for a visit as well on their way to Baltimore. It was so good to finally see and hold little Andersen! I was so jealous that Mark was there when Andersen was just a few hours old.
They got Evan this really cute blue robe for his birthday. I was so busy admiring how cute it was I nearly missed seeing that Liew had even embroidered Evan's name on it! They also gave me a turtle! And not just any turtle. Its one that's solar powered and lights up at night! hehehe ok so its not a real turtle. Its meant to light up your yard, but I thought it was too cool to put outside with the dog poop. So its sitting on the table in my pink room. (the pink room is the room that was painted bright pink by the previous owners, but I've kept it pink cause its my crafty room. Mark thinks its hideous and always tries to convince me to repaint it.)

Our New Pet: One thing I don't like about Virginia is the HUGE bugs here, and the mass quantities there are. They all seem to find there way into our house every summer. This is one of them. We had to go online to find out it's a wheel bug. We found out first had that it likes to eat blood when it killed and ate the other bugs in the jar! Or perhaps it was so hungry it resorted to eating the other bugs?
In our basement we've caught creatures that look like huge spiders, about the size of your thumb, but jump about 3 ft in the air when you try to squish them. Everyday, guaranteed, we come across silverfish, ants, and flies. There's little bugs that look like grains of sand that run around our sinks. And there are the daddy long leg spiders that try to spin webs in the worst locations. They're not too smart, but I sometimes leave them alone if they're in a hard to reach place hoping they'll eat the other bugs. Anyway, I've learned to toughen up and deal with them, but the one thing that I can't deal with are ticks. I've found them on Lucy, on me, and even on Evan. That was the last straw because ticks can carry Lyme disease. So I spent an afternoon laying pesticide granules all around our house and covering every inch of our lawn. I hope it works. Any other ideas? I'm SO open to them.

In Evan News:
He said his first cuss word the other day. Mark was sitting on the stairs eating a plum, Evan saw it and came waddling over. "MUM! Mum mum mum mum!" Sorry not for Evans, and Mark quickly finished it and popped it in his mouth. Evan was so let down after anticipating food. "Aaaahhhhh, Dam!" I heard it all the way from the kitchen. "WHAT did you say?!" We were rolling in laughter, but poor Evan still had a look of disappointment on his face. "Mum!"
We think it was a cross of him saying "da" (his way of saying dad) and "mum". Well, glad it was just a fluke and not a word he likes to repeat.
Our friend's kid, Abe, used to say "see it!" all the times he saw something he recognized. You can understand that a little 1.5 yr isn't going to enunciate. So little Abe just slurred it out as "sheit!" Repeating it anywhere, anytime. You can't help but laugh.

We also 'celebrated' Evan's first birthday again. We went back to watch the video from NY of him going at his vegan cake and the video was all screwed up. We taped over an old tape and something went wrong and we got big horizontal stripes of death of the old and new video and mixed audio on the screen! So we have a video of cute little Evan eating his first cake to strobe lights, to disco bowling, and to the not so cute tune of the Humpy Dance.
So for our own peace of mind, we redeemed our "free birthday cake" coupon from Safeway and staged the whole thing over again.

Meanwhile, back on the Chang Ranch... We painted our living room this Sat. We've been going back and forth on colors since we moved in the place 2 yrs ago! I wanted a color that was sophisticated and modern but not too out there. We'd like it to help up the visual value of the house when we decide to sell. So, its light french grey. It actually turned out more blue than gray, and I was a bit disappointed, but we finished painting anyway. Now its starting to grow on me. We painted 3 walls and we thought about doing something dramatic and different on the fourth wall to transition to the dinning room. I'm thinking maybe some really mod wall paper. Or big square panels of shellacked wood or really textured silk fabric. For a while I really wanted to try decoupaging a wall with a couple shades of copper colored pieces of paper because of the great shine and texture it would create. Anyone with other ideas? Winner gets an all expense paid stay at the Chang Hotel to admire their creation! ;)

I guess that's about it for now. We have a busy Monday ahead of us. Evan's got a play date with George Washington University, where they want to hook him up to machines and see how he responds. :) I wonder if these tests are really a ploy to determine if he's up to par to be admitted to GWU when he's older? The new early admission registration, your DNA sample please.