Evaline

I think Evaline might be a little jealous of her sister's glasses.  Well, maybe not of the glasses themselves, but of the attention that she's getting from having them.  Make no mistake, after three years of not being able to see, Cora deserves some attention.  But, maybe Evaline does, too.

And it just so happens that I've got an Evaline story up my sleeve. An Evaline story that has absolutely nothing to do with the photo above.  I just thought that was a pretty cute picture of her.  And yes, those are Thomas the Train underpants.  PS.  Why do they only make Thomas underpants for "boys"? Why can't girls like Thomas, too?  Why, according to the underpants makers, do my girls have to be satisfied with either princesses or Dora?  C & E don't even know what Princesses are...I'm not even sure that they know the word, why would they want to wear them on their tush?  Enough.  I'll save that for another time.

Back to my Eva story.

Eva is our shy girl.  When we go someplace new it usually takes her about a half hour to warm up, if there are lots of people there, it might take her longer.  She's got a bit of me in her - if she's in her comfort zone, she's great, but out of it and well, it takes some warming up.  She's pretty much always been this way.  She was the one who experience more separation anxiety as a baby.  When they were at the large daycare, she had the more difficult time getting comfortable in the large-group setting. And so on, and so forth.

This past weekend, however, she amazed us all.  It started with the visit to Santa.  She happily sat on his lap AND talked to him about what she wanted for Christmas.  Who would have thought?  She won't talk to hardly anyone, but she talked to him.  Well, I mean, maybe it shouldn't have been a big surprise, I mean, it was SANTA after all.  And for hours afterwards she talked about how nice he was.  (Cora would hardly go near him even with Ian holding her.)

Then, at the large Wiley Family Christmas on Sunday Evaline commanded every one's attention (about 40 people) when she stood on a chair and declared that she would now sing a Christmas Lullaby: "We wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New one Year!"  Which she sang at the top of her lungs, and when she received ample applause, she promptly replied with an encore performance.  And a HUGE smile on her face.  She was LOVING the attention.  (Cora was happy to sit quietly with her Aunt Katie.)

Considering that her run looks more like a prance...I'd say we've got a girl headed straight for show choir on our hands.  (If she's got her mama's vocal chords, they'll just have to choreograph it so that she is conveniently positioned away from all microphones...just like they did with me in Varieties...)