happy birthday, ramona

I hope you know that we all love you as much as Biscuit does!

heard on the street

"Florence says, 'Happiness', and I say, 'Spiciness'!"

beach weekend, part 1

developing the if, then muscle

We drove to the coast on Friday. After a too-short nap (because of our ill-timed selection of when to fill up the gas tank), Lucy rode quietly in the back seat, looking out the window, then later she requested her favorite music and we all bopped along. It was great, and reminded us by the sheer difference how terrible it used to be to drive in the car with Lucy and the non-stop screaming.

All in all, she was a perfectly delightful traveling companion, except for one small glimpse into a possible future: at the very end of the two and a half hour trip, she started saying "Mama Mama Mama Mama Mama Mama Mama Mama Mama" etc. for no particular reason in a rather loud voice. I asked her to stop, and she thought for a second, then said:

"What will you do if I don't stop?"

friday cute shot

bread bracelet (of course)

thirty months

Dear Lu,
Two and a half! You are 30 months old and I am 30 years old. Your daddy says that makes me 12 times as old as you, but who's counting?

Here is you right now:

"Sunbutter on a spoon!" This is all you have been requesting for the last week. It started with honey on a spoon that was a conflation of your need for a cough remedy and your introduction to Winnie-the-Pooh, and as I write this you are sitting at the table eating sunbutter with two spoons out of a tiny bowl.


"Are you happy?" You say this incessantly, but only when I am clearly not happy. Are you capable of intentional annoyance at two and a half? I'm not sure, even though I've been reading and highly recommend the wonderful book "Your Two Year Old: Terrible, or Tender?". You are also fascinated in your books when a character is happy or not happy, and recently you added an emotion to describe faces in the middle: "thinking".

"I like Joni and Bob Dylan and Florence and DaDell [Adele]."  Your interest in music has ballooned way beyond Mississippi John Hurt. Joni Mitchell gets a whole album of love, the others mentioned lay claim to a single song in your heart. You enjoy a wide range of Beatles, most especially Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. When you listen to that and the chorus goes on your whole face lights up. This weekend you even requested [Neutral Milk] "Hotel" twice! Your Daddy is jealous of your early musical sophistication, he says he didn't get into the Beatles until high school.

The double kiss. This is awesome. You were really not a kissing kind of girl until this month, when you started to want lots of hugs and kisses before saying goodbye, or saying good night. This has evolved into a pre-departure routine which involves a big tight hug followed by you grabbing my cheeks and planting two kisses in swift succession right on my lips. Daddy, Nana, and Papa have also benefited from this sudden and delightful change of heart.

There is also an explosion of dancing, lots of waking up too too early, choosing your own outfits every morning, a continued voracious love of new books, more questions about "the little brother", and alternating fits of "No, I do it!" and "I can't do it!"

I love you, little rollercoaster.

Love,
Mama

friday cute shot

"I'm a Tomten!"

maybe we shouldn't have let her watch Jaws?

"A whale with a big mouth. I think it should have legs."

king of the wild frontier

I just saw the trailer for the new Wes Anderson movie and realized that I am going to have to buy my son a coonskin cap.

!!!

friday cute shot

a list of things before going to bed

fridge milk
water, you bring it to me in my bed
no potty
a hug
a kiss
rub my back
i think i want chicken*
mommy, mommy, i want other chicken
you forgot to say 'see you in the morning'



*Note: Chicken here is a stuffed animal and not a food, though I too was thrown off initially. Already in her bed at this point were Giraffe and Marsho (both two-and-a-half feet tall), Piggy, Oddie, the ladybug pillow, black bear, the lamb pillow, Baby, and Moose.

notes from daycare

El Jueves de Lucy!
1/5/2012

con Tia Jen, Finnley, Max, & Camila

AM Activities: Played/tumbled on mats, also built forts. Went to playroom and did some dress-p. Lucy put on 5 dresses, a crown, & necklace, I called her queen Lucy and she said, "I'm the queen of Mexico!" Then we all went marching around the house so she could show all of the friends her outfit.

Also had a fun circle, worked on compost outside and took a long walk in the sun.

Always a fun day when Lucy is at school!

                                                    -Auntie Jen

snow angels

Attempted family portrait.

It has been a mild winter in Portland but we've been itching to take Lucy to the snow, so on Saturday we had Mt. Hood adventure with the neighbors. The first thing Lucy did when we got there is throw herself face down in the snow, sopping up the experience. It was sunny and we had just gotten out of the car for a minute to get a parking pass, but she wasn't wasting any time. I hurried to get her coat before she soaked her three layers of shirts through.

Luca found Lucy's snow-eating inspiring.

Throwing and eating snowballs were the next two mile stops in her sensory exploration, she was digging the cold but Luca wasn't so sure. He picked up on the snowball eating and soon he was also smiling; the parents were trying to explain the difference between snow on the bank and snow on the parking lot and which of the two we were willing to let the little ones eat. Lucy wasn't really buying it.

Lucy, Mama, Figgy, and a snowball

We got the kids into the car and headed toward SkiBowl, but we got a little confused on the short way there and it ended up being kind of a long way. Relatively, when you're a kid in a snowsuit who is tired of the car wants to play in the snow. To stave off restlessness we offered up her favorite song as of late, Dog Days are Over; Lucy said to the stereo: "Make me patient, Florence!"

At Ski Bowl East we climbed up the hill, watching bigger kids ride a lift with inner-tubes and thinking about future visits. We found a snow hill to dig in and a slide, and some virgin ground for making snow angels. There was an intriguing circle setup with inner-tubes and tiny snowmobiles hooked to a metal twirly bar, but when we asked about it they said it was fifteen dollars for a pass even if you're only two. The first teenager on staff was almost gleeful to deny us: "Nothing here is free!" The second teenager on staff looked a little embarrassed. We improvised and Lucy and Luca hopped into an abandoned two-person tube for the ghetto version, a mama-propelled circle spin. The giggles indicated they didn't much mind.

On a side note, I think when I was little and my parents brought me up here, the inner-tubes were real things from real tires that you stopped into Les Schwab and got for free on your way up to the mountain. Today when we tried to bring a disc sled to slide on they said nothing from outside was allowed for liability reasons. Also, probably because the disc sled would have been free, and thus counter-policy. We did manage to sled in the parking lot while sipping hot chocolate we brought in a thermos from home, and the tiny little banks of snow were just the right height.

Attempted group shot. Two-year-olds in snow are hard to corral!

After lunch of fish and chips and burgers and malt shakes finished off with huckleberry pie, we had one last snow-stravaganza and we were ready for home.

Not deterred by it being much later than naptime, Lucy offers to drive us home.

friday cute shot

Coordinating handmade corduroy dresses for New Year, courtesy of Gramme.

walk to the park

 Scenes from a frosty early morning walk to the park on the last day of the year:

"This tree is beautiful! I want to climb it!"

"There is a hole. You should walk on the other side because there is no hole there.
I need to step in this hole to see if it is safe."

"Did you know that this plant can walk?"

"Do you want to follow me on my adventure?"