my all-time favorite compound modifier

Evan was in an unusually affectionate mood tonight:

Eric: "Evan, you left your magnifying glass in the restaurant. Good thing I spotted it."

Evan: Oh! Thanks... um... loved-by-Evan Daddy!"

the baby's ringing

Today at 4:40 a.m.:


Sage (from her crib): "BwwaaaaAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

Eric (leaping out of bed while still more-or-less asleep): "I'll get it."

Touché

Eric: "I think 'shampoo' is about the funniest word there is."

Evan: "What about 'shampoop'?"

There's nothing quite like

being greeted, as you approach your house, by a five-year-old boy running up the block wearing a swim mask and waving a light saber at you. (Evan told me he was Luke Skywalker, and that the mask was essential gear "on the icy planet of Revenge.")

rerun

Sonja and the kids have been down in Oregon for the past five days -- I hung back to finish up a big freelance assignment that's due next Monday. It's been, I think, the longest stretch of bachelorhood I've experienced since, well, bachelorhood, and the silence has been deafening. To help fill it, here's an Evan exchange I remembered from last Thanksgiving. We were visiting Grandma Sue in Illinois, and Evan came down with a terrible stomach bug. What frustrated him most (after he'd stopped throwing up) was that we wouldn't let him kiss Sage:

Evan: Well who can I kiss who's cute?

Eric: You can kiss me!

Evan: You are not cute to me! Who can I kiss who's CUTE and LITTLE?

now there are two of you

Our next-door neighbor, Carol, is an identical twin -- something I didn't realize until the other evening when her sister was over helping her garden. Evan, who to my knowledge has never seen a pair of twins before, took it in stride. He pointed at them, said "Two Carols!" and went about his business.

abbreviations

One of Evan's Playmobil toys is a little yellow-and-red DHL truck. The real-life versions of these trucks are ubiquitous, yet nobody in this family has been able to figure out what DHL stands for. Well, last night Evan informed us: it stands for "Federal Way Rescue."

small wince

Last night Evan looked at his babysitter, an 11-year-old girl from the neighborhood with a sweet and somewhat rabbity smile, and said, "Wow, you sure have grown-up teeth."

the element of surprise

Tonight Evan asked, angrily, "Why do I have to do all the cleaning up around here?" It was a brilliant question -- I was completely unprepared to answer it.

Sage said it, not me

Eric (placing diaperless Sage on the floor): "Now don't you pee on the floor while I'm going to get you a diaper."

Evan: "She's thinking, 'That stupid Daddy. I'm going to go pee on the floor.'"

Eric: "Evan! That's not a very nice thing to say!"

Evan: "Well *I* don't think you're stupid."

big daddy

Evan: "I ate my soup a lot faster than you ate yours."

Eric: "That's true. But I have a lot more soup than you had, because I'm a lot bigger than you."

Evan: "Yeah. I could probably fit in your stomach."

rfd

This morning, both Evan and Sage were crawling around on top of me, and I was trying to keep Sage from swiping my glasses and keep both of them from bonking heads and/or falling off. Eventually Evan said, "Is this a recipe for disaster?"

Evansitting

My friend Courtney has passed along some memorable Evanisms (she didn't want to post a comment because that would link readers to her own blog, in which she details her experiences as a mob informant). Here's Courtney:

Inspired by the fantastic grandfather comments in your previous post, here are a couple of my recent favorite quotable Evan moments:

At a sailing party I hosted last Sunday, Evan was full of compliments. When was the last time a 5-year-old boy complimented you on your hair or, better yet, your voice? And both compliments were delivered in such a simple, gentlemanly fashion. "Courtney," he said, "I like the way your hair looks." And, "Your voice sounds just like my friend Aurora's mom's voice, and I REALLY like it." The biggest crowd-pleaser was when Evan asked to be taken for a second sailboat ride and I had to explain that sadly, the wind and water were a little too gusty/choppy for small people on the sailboat. He said confidently, "Well, then, it's a good thing I am five. I can still go."

I remembered another favorite quote from Evan: The night Lloyd and I babysat, Sage was crying shortly after I put her down and I went to soothe her, and Lloyd said, "Let me do it!" I was hesitant because I hadn't seen his baby soothing-abilities, but I let him go downstairs (we were upstairs being jailed and whatnot). After a few minutes, Sage was still crying and I wanted to go help, but Evan said very calmly, "Courtney, Lloyd can handle it."

nicknames

When Evan was a baby, he loved rice. Occasionally he'd even manage to ingest some. For a while, one of our nicknames for him was "Rice-In-His-Hair." (The other was "Little Big Mess.") But tonight at dinner, Sage managed to get more rice on herself than Evan ever did. When I lifted her out of her high chair, I realized I'd have to take her into the front yard and let the crows clean her off before carrying her to the bathtub. After I'd brushed every last grain from her front, I acted on a hunch and unbuttoned the bottom of her outfit. Another half-pound of rice fell out.

Evan has been reading a "Captain Underpants" book, and tonight announced that Sage's new name was "Captain Diaperpants."

su barrio

We were returning from a recent outing in the car. As we turned onto our street, I heard Evan say from the back seat, "Now we're back in the Evanhood."

If I ever rename this blog, it will be The Evanhood.

request

This morning at about 6:30, Evan came downstairs with his security blanket, crawled into bed between Sonja and me, and said, "Daddy, I don't like the way your breath smells. Can you go brush your teeth?"

recent poems by Evan

I think he thinks all poems have to begin with "When." Must be the influence of Larkin ("High Windows"):


When the sun shines
it seems like a piece of gold.



When it is cloudy,
it looks like there are big
snowballs in the sky,

but they are full of rain,
and snow.



When I look out the back bedroom window
and I see Benjamin,
I feel excited, because we always have fun together.
I run to the front door, and open it,
and I go out, closing it behind me,
and I run through the gate
and I start playing Playmobil with Benjamin,
who has brought his police van and a robber
and his police car and his police station
to my backyard.

just remembered this one

Also about a year old. (I'll be airing classic episodes until Evan's writers deliver some new scripts.)

Eric: "I think you gave me your cold, Evan."

Evan (sniffling): "No, I've still got it."

bugs are resourceful

Evan said this about a year ago, but I didn't have a blog then, so I'm reporting it now:


Evan: "Bethany is scared of mushrooms."

Eric: "Why?"

Evan: "Because once she saw a mushroom with antennae, and it was chasing her."

Eric: "Hmm. I don't think mushrooms have antennae. And I know they can't move. Maybe what she saw was a bug that looked like a mushroom."

Evan: "Yeah, or maybe it was a bug that was using a mushroom as an umbrella."

BOV II

In China, a successful book often spawns a whole bunch of Coco Canal ripoffs. I remember reading, in Rachel DeWoskin's memoir "Foreign Babes in Beijing," that the popularity of "Who Moved My Cheese?" in China had led to the publication of dozens of Cheese-themed books: "Stop Moving My Cheese"; "Understanding Other People's Cheese"; and, most memorably, "Chinese People Eat Cheese? Who Moved My Meat Bun?"

So it's no surprise to read in today's NYT that Harry Potter ripoffs are rampant in China:

These include “Harry Potter and the Half-Blooded Relative Prince,” a creation whose name in Chinese closely resembles the title of the genuine sixth book by Ms. Rowling, as well as pure inventions that include “Harry Potter and the Hiking Dragon,” “Harry Potter and the Chinese Empire,” “Harry Potter and the Young Heroes,” “Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-to-Dragon,” and “Harry Potter and the Big Funnel.”

All of which is to say... I'm not sure what, exactly. Maybe that Evan is Chinese. Or that if you live in China, you should keep your eyes open for "Harry Potter and the Bombs of Voldemort."