Peaches and blueberries

We had an exciting and fruit-filled week. Two of my cousins came to watch Lucy for a few days while our babysitter was away. They slept over on Thursday night and joined us for the Peach Social at the local historical society where my grandmother volunteers. They serve desserts made with local peaches and the building is open for tours. This was Lucy's 3rd social, and she was quite excited about it. All day she told everyone we talked to about the peach social we were going to. An extra perk was the exhibit of dollhouses and miniatures.

Here's a video from the social- at the beginning Lucy is finishing up the extra verse of ring around a rosy that goes "the cows are in the meadow, eating buttercups. Thunder, lightening, they all jump up!

Lucy checking out the dollhouses. She chose this dress out of all of her sundresses. I tried guiding her to a less formal one, but she said, "no, this my best one!"



Grandma and Lucy.

We finished off the week with a second blueberry picking trip with my grandmother and other cousins. It's the end of the season and these blueberries were smaller (about 1/3 the size of last time), but they were SO delicious (even I sampled a few). Lucy kept saying to me "These are so good!" as she ate berry after berry.

On the way to pick the berries.

Fun news...

We're expecting!!!

The due date is January 1st, and I'm about 21 weeks along. All's going well so far (aside from the first few seasick months). We found out last week that we're having a girl- hooray for sisters!

Here's a picture of me and the little bump (I haven't compared pictures yet, but I'm sure I'm showing a lot more than last time at this point).


Our nickname in utero for the baby is "kernel". We like the idea of this baby "popping" when she comes out into the world, coming into the fullness of who she is. Here are Lucy and I getting ready to pop too.

So far we've kept things pretty abstract for Lucy, telling her that there's a baby growing in Mama's tummy, but not going into detail about what a new baby will mean for her. We've been counseled that this is a good way to avoid anxiety- just answering her questions when they come, but not forcing information on her. So far she seems to be mostly taking it in stride, though we have noticed some separation anxiety with me, primarily around naptimes and bedtimes.

When we first told Lucy there was a baby in my tummy she said, "Lucy?" because we had just talked recently about how she used to grow in my tummy. I said no, it was another baby, and she asked, "What her name is?" (this was way before we knew it was a girl). I said we'd have to choose one, and that we didn't know if it was a boy or a girl. She responded, "Maybe Papa can help choose a name and Mama can help choose a name".

Blueberry picking

We were excited to join my Grandma and some cousins again for blueberry picking recently (an annual tradition). The blueberries were on the tangy side, but still delicious (especially in pancakes!).

Just like Sal in "Blueberries for Sal", some of the berries made it into the pail...


But most ended up in Lucy's mouth!

Grandma with one of my cousins.

And the whole crew!

We also went for a hike that weekend on some local trails. Lucy loved hopping down from the rocks- here she is at our snack time.

Fun in motion

Grandma Judy had a guitar for Lucy to play- Lucy's favorite song was "Hold tight" and she sang along with it again and again and again. :)

Some silly dancing in her swimsuit.

And spinning around in the pool- Lucy definitely got lots of practice with her kicking/pool navigating skills.

Highlights from out west

Here are a few highlights from our trip with Grandma Judy. I took a ton of pictures, which I've tried to winnow through!

Lucy loved her new swimsuit and matching sunglasses.


We had some delicious meals, including tortilla soup with fresh avacado and nachos. It was such a treat to be hosted so wonderfully by Grandma Judy.

One afternoon we had a fancy tea party. We made cucumber and avacado and tunafish tea sandwiches, and had cherry and chocolate parfaits for dessert. Lucy had fun getting all dressed up and drinking her berry tea.

Grandma Judy and Lucy enjoyed their story times.

Lucy loved when the sprinklers came on in the back- here we are running around in them with noodles.

Groundhog day

Today is Lucy's half-birthday. Growing up we always celebrated half-birthdays, singing half the "happy birthday" song and sometimes having half a cake and a small present. It's a fun tradition. So hap- bir- Lucy!

Lucy and I had quite an exciting afternoon, prompted by what I thought was a minor event. As we were saying goodbye to our babysitter, I noticed a small animal in the bushes at the edge of our lawn. It was gray and the size of a very large, plump cat, wide with a flat tail, and was munching on the grass. We only saw it from behind and I had no idea what it was but thought it was interesting, so we opened the door to get a better look. Apparently this totally freaked Lucy out. She started crying and told me to shut the door because she was scared. I guess she's at the age where kids start developing fears. Thus began about 45 minutes of talking about the "little animal" outside, with Lucy periodically saying, "I was so scared!" We went upstairs to look on my computer to see what it could be, since I thought that might help Lucy feel better. After some fruitless searching on the web, we called my grandma, who helped us figure out what it was (go Grandma!)- a groundhog!

Here's an excerpt from one of our many conversations upstairs about the groundhog- we were on the computer anyway so I just typed it out. It took us 15-20 minutes to make it back downstairs.

Lucy- It’s scary downstairs.

Me- Why?

Lucy- Because the groundhog come and he went away. So we not going to go downstairs.

Me- But you’re safe- he’s outside and he’s scared of you. Can we go downstairs for dinner?

Lucy- No. It’s scary downstairs. You know how animals come to our house sometimes, mommy?

Me- Yeah, they come sometimes.

Lucy- Why little animals come to our house and meet them? [I think she meant, "meet us"]

Me- Because they want to eat grass and we have grass in our front yard.

Lucy- Maybe he should run away and go to another house to eat some grass. I want him to go to another house and eat some grass. Because we are here.

Later she told Matt about it on the phone:

Lucy- After we say bye to Meg, we saw a little animal outside eating grass. So Mama called Grandma to call what it is. And grandma thought it was a groundhog. In a little bit, I talk to Grandma, and..[this was said to me] you tell him the other things. [back to Matt] When Mama opened the door I was really scared.

towers, summer rain and jumping in

We just got back yesterday from our trip to see Grandma Judy. We had a wonderful time relaxing and playing, and spent an insane amount of time in the pool! I'll post some pictures once I get settled in. In the meantime, here are a few from before we left.

Legos are one of the most popular toys in our household. Matt and I have almost as much fun with them as Lucy does. We spent the end of a date the other weekend building a massive tower for Lucy (we'd promised as she had accidently knocked hers down right before bed). It was surprisingly fun.

Here is a detail of the steps leading up to it- at the back there was a little porch/dining area.


A few Saturdays ago we had a family morning at the beach. We got caught in the rain afterwards, and Lucy and I had a blast jumping in the puddles and getting soaked. I love summer rainstorms.

And here's a video of Lucy jumping in from the dock, an art which she practiced often at Grandma Judy's pool!