Eva's Changing, and Down to the Wire

I wanted to take a second and pause all of this moving chaos to say that between the time we left to look for a place in Richmond and the time we came back, Eva seems to have rounded some kind of developmental communicative corner and can now...talk to us.

The changes are both subtle and overwhelming at the same time. If you ask her if she enjoyed the playground a few weeks ago, she might have made an affirmative noise back in her throat and smiled, but now she'll think a second and say "Yeahhh!" If you ask her what she did, she might say: "Swing!" or "Slide!"

It boggles the mind. I can give her several things for dinner and ask if she wants more, and she can specifically ask for more beans (as opposed to whatever else is on her plate). If you ask her what she wants for breakfast, she'll say "Egg!" or "Cereal!" or, as she tried the other day, "Cookie?"

The most important thing about food is that it come in a bowl. Inevitably, if you tell her whatever we'll be having for a meal, before the last word dies on your lips she asks "Bowl!??!" in a slightly frantic way. When you tell her, yes, you may have it in a bowl, she immediately asks "Spoon?!!?" with an even more worried expression on her face. Only when you assure her that she can even have a spoon does she relax. The allure of the bowl extends far past the high chair, too. The first and last thing she wants to play with in the bath is the bowl we used to use to rinse her off-- we've had to move on to something else, as that bowl is hers now.

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Only one more bath time in that tub for her, though, and that's tonight. We've decided to completely load up during the day on Friday and leave on Friday night, staying with relatives in Zanesville before making the drive to Virginia on Saturday. This time, it'll be for good-- eight hours in one direction, and no imperative to go back the other way except for visits. The reality has as of yet to sink in.

I find myself becoming a slower and slower packer, though, as I remember this birthday party with these dishes, or how the cat always slept on that blanket, or how Eva's nursing stool hid perfectly under that chair, and what it was like the first time we took her up the steps and into the kitchen and told her "You're home, little baby."

Ten years in Ohio and five of them in this little house. As thrilled as we are to be taking the next step, our departure from this place is surely a bittersweet one.