Tough Day

Today was one of those days that makes me wonder why I ever thought I could be a stay at home Mom. Evelyn was in fine form, stubborn , refusing to listen, asking "why" every time I ask her something or gave her a task direction, calling mama every 45 seconds and then having nothing to say, being mean to her kitten.... usually such a great girl but there are those off days. Of course this happens when Les is at work for 72 hours and today was the first day of what is shaping up into a memorable weekend. It doesn't help that my neck is bothering me pretty bad today and I can't seem to get out from under the pain and we had several, small but annoying tasks that needed done. I haven't had a chance to finish a thought until just now, I swear days like this can leave me feeling like I have post-traumatic stress.

It was funny because last night Les and I were at the dinner table talking about how far we had come from those long weary first days with her. We were remembering the first time we were like , " ok well parenting may not be the cake walk that we thought..." (silly mortals). We were in Guangzhou at our room in the White Swan, Ev had been with us for about 14 days or so and she got sick. Vomiting , coughing, etc., we had just used the last piece if linens in the room for another round of throwing up ( did you know that if you give a baby 8oz of formula and they vomit, the formula multiplies exponentially and you get 8 gallons back? ) and I realized that the crazed/glazed look on her face was the Benedryl and that we had a kiddo that gets wound up on that stuff. Nice. Oh yes, and this was the night before the 24 hour journey back to Alaska, so we were trying to pack! I ended up pacing the halls with Ev all night while Les packed up and secured us for travel. By the time we got to the airport and Ev finally fell asleep on the plane, she had been awake and crying for over 24 hours.....

You know what? Maybe today wasn't so bad after all.

The pictures are from a brief truce in the yard this afternoon.

A Visit with Brevin

My sister Melissa and my nephew Brevin came from Ohio for a visit. We all had fun I think, there was plenty of swimming, sand digging, squirt gun fights, tickling, popsickle consumption and general mayhem. It was funny watching Evelyn with a younger kid to boss around, we had to keep a close eye on her or Brevin would have had to just sit and wait for when she wanted to hug and kiss on him. Brevin is 18 months old to Ev's 3 years and she does not hesitate to lord it over him even though he is the same size as she is. I am sure that I won't ever have to worry about Evelyn letting other kids push her around even if she is tiny.

It was just nice to have my sister here for awhile. As we have gotten older it gets more difficult to get time with just the two of us. Nothing can take the place of a good long snacking and gossiping session with your sister. It was hard to see them off but hopefully Christmas will get here fast.

Bodacious Billy Bones

Well, almost exactly one year after we lost our cat, The Grinch, to cancer of the mouth, another 4 legged creature has chosen us to be his family. Billy is an orange tiger, polydactyl. He showd up one day, having lived about 2 months of his life as a wild cat and he took to us right away. He was never shy or freaked out. He is actually quite gentle and pliable and is doing great with Evelyn, even if her preferred hold is the strangle hold. We still have an old veteran around here, Stella, who is 13 years old, deaf, asthmatic, diabetic and a general mess, lovable, but a mess. Ev is so used to watching Stella lay around that she was quite surprised the first time that she saw Billy jumping around on the furniture. When Billy first showed up, it was with his Mom and his siblings, they never did warm up to us and when they decided to move on, Billy decided to stay. Who are we to argue with the workings of the feline mind????

It has been hot here on the Outer banks and as I am still recovering from surgery, our beach time is much more limited than last year, thank goodness for those cheap kiddy pools! We have to keep ours up on the porch as the mosquitoes down here are QUITE numerous and bloodthirsty. Evelyn doesn't really mind though, it means she gets to skip the sunblock. We were out there Thursday afternoon for a good long while and it was so fun watching Ev splash around and imagine herself as a mermaid.

First Post Ever

SO this is the first post.... Well, We are the Dillon's and we live on the Outer Banks in North Carolina. Leslie and I have been married for 13 years, he is in the Coast Guard and I am currently filling the position of stay at home Mom. We have one very special little girl, Evelyn (a.k.a. The Butter Bean) , she is three years old and adopted from China ( Jiangxi Province- Yichun City) and she never stops amazing us. We have lived in Ohio, New York, Alaska and we are now in NC until 2009 I think, but with the military- you never know.

We were married in 1993 at the ages of 20 and 21 and I think for a young couple from small town Ohio- we have had some adventures. We often laugh that some of our personal stories can start with openers like " Hey, so, you remember that great dim sum we had in Hong Kong?" , or, " I wish we could have still been in Alaska when the volcano blew. sigh".... those stories, I think make us sound more exotic than we are.

I couldn't possibly recap our life so I plan to just jump in with whatever is on my mind and I guess our story will emerge.

Right now we have the pleasure of trying to keep an incredibly intelligent three year old occupied , we also call this Monkey Wrangling. Ev sure keeps us hopping but she is so sweet and cute that we really don't mind. Yesterday Leslie was outside working on making and Adirondack chair for the front porch and he certainly could not get anything done without his audience, so I went out and snapped a few pics of Ev as she ate a popsicle and watched her Papa at work. The pictures I managed to get without her talking are the only times that she wasn't offering a constant stream of advice and commentary to Les.