Evan Goes to a Party

Yesterday Evan experienced his first proper birthday party. His little friend from playgroup, Edie, turned three-years-old. Edie's mom, Jennifer, hosted a gathering of a few friends and family members at Sunnyside Park.

Evan enjoyed several things: 1) one and a half chocolate cupcakes, 2) the climber and the swings, and 3) flying a cheap plastic Elmo kite. There was music, and bubbles, and, oh yeah, other kids, too. Notice in the previous list, I didn't say anything about Evan enjoying the company of other children. He was aware of their presence, and was sometimes distantly interested in them-- but he was mostly content to do as he wanted-- digging in the sand, gathering handfuls of wood chips to put on the end of the slide, etc.

He did attempt to be sociable one time, though. There was a little girl there, Seely, age 2, who he handed a small pile of wood chips to. She gladly accepted them, and a brief love affair blossomed. They walked around the play structure together, piling wood chips at the end of every slide.

Kids parties are strange and fragmented affairs. It was evident that each individual child enjoyed being there, but they didn't really play together at all. Maybe party games happen when they're older.

Judo Chop!

The Boy sure is a weird little bugger.

Nearly every time I pick him up (after being headbutted in the crotch and peppered with a rapid-fire "UP UP UP") he does this little back-patting motion on my shoulder blade and a shimmying wiggle dance of excitement (like someone just dropped ice in his shorts). It's endearing in a comical kind of way, not unlike watching him ninja-walk up to the garbage and tossing Andrea's perfume in the can.

But lately his mounting ritual (for I and Andrea are his pack horses, of course) has taken a turn for the worse. One of his less endearing habits is the stealth whack, whereby he looks you in the eye while mounted, smiles his impish grin, and smacks you upside the head. With a giggle. Well, for me at least, this has been modified slightly:

Headbutt ... UP UP UP ... back slap ... wiggle dance ... massage dada's throat ... JUDO CHOP! ... giggle as dada nearly drops you on the floor in surprise. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Perhaps Master Evan will grace us with a picture of his martial arts technique when he awakens from his nap in a little while.

Grading Day

Today's grading day at the Devenney household, that wonderful time of the semester when deadlines for final grades loom and precious fuck-around time becomes dreaded work-time.

So, here's a picture series of us saying 'screw that' and playing with the Boy outside on this excellent spring day. Grading can wait until tomorrow. Bloody students and their stoopid grades...

The Boy, 27 months and counting, with pudding on his face.


Smiling jack all the way.


Ain't he cute?


TEETH!!!

And for your motion capture viewing pleasure, here are a couple of mpegs with the Boy talking. Yes, you heard that right; the little bugger is finally starting to say something other than close-lipped mumbling. These are about 4.5 MB in size, so not too bad. Take a look at Talking Part One and Part Two.

Mom Rocks the Poetry House!

Wednesday night, Andrea and her colleague from the CMU English Department, Julia Fox, held a poetry and short fiction reading as part of the Great Lakes Faculty Forum, a speaker series sponsored by the department. Both ladies did a smash up job for a crowd of about thirty people, and much fun was had by all. Below are some pictures from the event.

The first is Andrea and her mother, Patty, posing for the camera.


The next is Andrea reading her poetry, looking very literary.

The others are linked below.

Julia Fox, reading her short story.

Andrea and Julia.

Dan Pasiak, Andrea, and Courtney Pasiak, who will just love this web shout out. ;-)

Andrea, Kristen Heine, and Jessie Gordon, the Tuesday night coffe klatsch club.

Andrea, James Daybell (Julia's husband) from the CMU History Department, and John Pfeiffer from the English side of things.

Andrea, Eric Torgersen from the English Department, and his wife Ann Kowaleski.

Aww, the happy bride and groom ... wait, that's not it. Heh...

What's this have to do with Evan? Nothing! Ha Ha Ha!!

Relaunched and loving it!

Hey there family denizens, friends galore, and overseas guests!

This here is the relaunched Evanography, now with crunchy Blogger goodness. Pictures, stories, and other crap will now appear here in this format. It was kind of cumbersome to pop those subpages together, even in crappy Frontpage, so I decided to let Blogger carry the rocks out of the jungle for a bit.

The scope here has been widen as well. Obstensibly, this here blog is about Evan, but shit, can't Andrea and I get some goodness as well? And we are a part of his life, so now you get us too.

Don't fret then. This makes it easier to provide you, the reading public, with more timely updates (as in ANY!). Coming soon: pictures from Andrea's awesome poetry reading the other night.

Oh yes, and by the way, the previous pictures haven't gone away. They're still right where they always were, but the links to them are in the sidebar to the right, under the heading "In Ireland".