Celebrations and life with Lucy

Hello everyone! Yes, we're still here, though my "blogging while busy" skills are clearly lacking. I'm going to do a wordy post, and then will get the pictures up soon. We've had a great month, starting with a visit from Grandma Judy (Matt's mom), who helped us celebrate Matt's graduation from Divinity School (hooray!) and his birthday. Then a week later Caitlin, John and Sam joined us for a brief visit before they headed to Thailand (they'll be there for the next few years working with Children on the Edge).

Lucy is keeping us on her toes, and herself too- she's in an experimental walking stage, trying out new things like walking on tip-toes, or with her eyes closed (not great results on that one) or looking up at the ceiling. She's quite the active toddler, running around, spinning until she falls, climbing on everything, etc. This is such a fun age- I guess every age has its perks, but it's especially fun as she's so much more aware of her environment and becoming her own person. She's been learning a new word or two every day, it seems, which is lots of fun. Recent words include spoo- spoon, powdah- powder, knee, at- hat, cah- car, moo- moon, bottah- bottle. Although she has lots of words, her favorite way to communicate is by saying "eh". Amazing how much meaning she can put into it, using it to say "I want that", or "stop" or "help" or "let me do that". I'm sure someday we'll look back on this stage fondly, but it can be a bit trying after the 15th "eh" in a minute.

Lucy is quite particular about doing one thing at a time, and can be very determined. Recently at breakfast I offered her a sip of my juice, but first she wanted me to take the cereal bowl off her plate. The same thing happens when she sees a new toy or object- she'll deliberately hand me the other one, holding it outstretched until I take it from her, instead of just dropping it, even when I encourage her to do so. She also finds little bits of dirt or fuzz on the ground and picks them up and gives them to me. I'm not sure what this says about her personality- will be interesting to see when she gets older.

A rambling account of recent fun developments with Lucy: Lucy loves pretend feeding her dolls and us, most every time she eats. She'll take turns eating herself and then giving it to me and then to Matt, and has a very satisfied smile when we've had some. Sometimes she'll start laughing on purpose to get us to laugh, and then we all giggle together. Whenever Matt or I are gone, Lucy constantly asks about us- "Mama?" "Papa?". She'll ask 3 or 4 times within 10 minutes about Matt sometimes. She's also started asking after "Mimi" which is what we call my mom, though I think that Auntie Caitlin and Mimi have merged a bit in her head (when Caitlin was visiting she called her Mimi), as a very wonderful and special person. :) Lucy gives us kisses now- she'll hold up her head with her lips open, and will kiss us right on the mouth- so cute. When we talk about going outside, she'll say "shoes!" and motions for us to put hers on. She loves unloading the dishwasher with me, handing me each spoon and fork separately. Today she also unloaded the groceries with me, handing me each item. It makes doing these chores a lot more fun. Also today, she came in from the other room with her bunny hat on- she had picked it out of the bin and put it on herself. She loves shoes, especially wearing ours. When we meet new people, she often notices their shoes and points to each person's pair and then to her own.

That's all for tonight- I'll post some pictures soon, I promise!