Getting to know Evan

In a short addendum to yesterday's entry, I must in good conscience mention that we had friends over for dinner last night and Evan's table manners were atrocious. His entire meal ended up on the floor; I'd be surprised if two bites passed his lips, he was so busy flinging food around. So much for brilliant parenting and perfect children...

In between demonstrating the yin and yang of table manners, Evan took 6 steps all on his own yesterday. He looked so natural and comfortable walking towards me that I nearly forgot for a minute that he can't actually walk, and frankly, I think he did, too. His balance and ease were far more advanced than his usual death grip on my finger would lead me to believe possible and he didn't even appear to be concentrating at all. One shot at this vision was all I got -- the second I started cheering, he remember that he doesn't know how to walk and dropped to his knees. He has staunchly refused to try again and I think it'll probably be some time before he forgets himself and repeats this trick. But for a second there, I got a glimpse of the future, how ever far away it might still be.

Even without the walking mastered, Evan comes into his own a little more each day. Yesterday, I watched him feeding Julia's dolls with a plastic baby bottle, last week I saw him actually fitting together Lego pieces instead of just tossing them around the room. He's been easing into imaginative play for a while now, but recently, I've noticed that there's absolutely nothing babyish about the way he approaches any of his toys any more. Simply put, my baby is now a kid, and I'm sad and fascinated by the transformation all at the same time. This weekend, I watched as he sat down with one of those classic Fisher Price shape sorters -- the kind with a canister, a lid that has shapes cut out of it and several different brightly colored shapes to fit inside. He dumped out all of the pieces, put on the lid and easily fit all of the circular pieces through the round hole. When he'd finished with the easy pieces, he picked up a triangle, thought for a second and then removed the lid to the container and dumped in all of the rectangles and triangles by the fistfull. The he replaced the lid, turned to me with a smile and applauded himself. I could see his future clearly in that moment. If Julia is the kid who will study intensely for every test and quiz, beating herself up for weeks if she misses even a single question, Evan is the child who will skip the monotony of his textbooks and instead rely on creative shortcuts and his charm to get by. I hate to say it, but in the end, I suspect he'll get farther with his approach to life than Julia will with hers.