This weekend we hosted a birthday party for Auntie and Grandpa…our annual August birthday bash.
It was a lovely day so we all decided to have a picnic in the park, then come back home for cupcakes. It was so relaxing in the park, I forgot to take any pictures, so we’ll have to start with the cupcakes Lucy and I made…
the gang’s all here…
about to sing the birthday song…
partygoers and birthday celebrants. Happy Birthday Grandpa and Auntie!
Well that was fast. April is now in the books and 2010 is officially one third over with! Below is a collage made exclusively with pictures taken from April.
Notable happenings from the past month:
Celebrating Jill’s birthday in SF (too bad John couldn’t make it!)
One of the things we like to do with Lucy is make up stories. Not a day goes by where Jill isn’t improvising a tale for Lucy, and just about all of the stories are based on Lucy’s ideas. “Tell me a story about…Wubie’s food bowl on the ceiling!” Lucy will say, and Jill will dutifully start telling the story.
Another thing we like to do is illustrate Lucy’s ideas. We’ll gather in front of Lucy’s easel and she’ll start shouting out ideas like “We’re at the beach!” or “Wubert is in trouble with bumblebees!” As she does this, we’ll scribble frantically with crayons, hopelessly trying to keep up with our little girl’s imagination. Almost all of Lucy’s stories star Wubert, who usually plays multiple roles in each story. He’s also usually in some type of trouble.
Here’s one of Lucy’s stories…
“Doo is having a picnic at the beach with Wubert. They have a bucket and a shovel. They have cake. Wubert goes in the water (there are fish!) and Doo has to save him. Wubert’s sleeping. I’m tickling Wubert. I am walking with Wubert on a hill. I’m first. It’s really sunny, and there’s cake.”
Wubert is Lucy’s best friend, worst enemy, and favorite toy. He is a very patient cat.
He endures from her things which he would never tolerate from anyone else…like being dressed in hats and covered in blankets.
He has seen her grow from a tiny baby, and it seems he knows her vulnerability, and that she is little, and still growing.
He loves to play with her, and when she is asleep, he often sits next to her, watchfully, or if it has been a very long nap, prods her to wake up so he can play with her.
He rarely bites or scratches, unless he is really provoked. It takes a lot to get him to do it, and she almost always deserves it.
Even when he is napping, he always seems to have an ear cocked listening for her. The vet says this is the kind of interaction that will keep him young, keeping his mind active and occupied.
Here’s a video of Lucy reading to koala, shopping at the bookstore, and playing with Wubie. It’s a bit leisurely-paced…and about 9 minutes long. So get a cup of tea, settle in, and enjoy!
Here are a few more pics to show how the kid (and us) have changed over the last two years and ten months.
Lucy always gets a twinkle in her eye when we tell her, “Wubie used to be bigger then you. Now look!” (though something tells me Wubie doesn’t get the same sense of glee from this observation.)
We were reading one of Lucy’s fave books, Father Christmas by Raymond Briggs, when Lucy decided it was about time to write her letter to Father Christmas.
We got out her letter-writing kit, and with some prompting, she dictated to me:
Dear Father Christmas,
I like your reindeer. I would like a train set. And Wubert would like a dry towel.
(The dry towel being for after he got out of the tub and was a “soggy moggy.”)
I left the room for a moment, and when I came back, she had started to write another letter in her own hand. So I left her to it.
She used all the stamps on her letter, just in case.
A bit later I wandered back in to see Wubert in the midst of creating his own letter. I suspect he did not want a dry towel after all…and was making his wishes known.
We sent the letters out the next day. We’ll keep an eye on the post and report any interesting mail.
We went to the California Academy of Sciences on Friday. Though we had fun (especially since we got to hang out with some old friends), the kid was quite a handful at times. Luckily, all of our years spent w/ Wubert, our Siamese cat, gave us a smidge of experience dealing w/ little loved ones who occasionally transform into pint-size terrors.
For those who haven’t been fortunate enough to spend some time w/ Siamese cats, here’s a little something about them from Wikipedia:
“They are extremely vocal, with a loud, low-pitched voice – known as “Meezer”, from which they get one of their nicknames – that has been compared to the cries of a human baby, and persistent in demanding attention.”
I guess in his own way Wubie has just been doing his part in helping us prepare for the kid. Thanks, Captain Fuzzface—now shhh!
Lucy’s garden has been growing rapidly since we planted it last weekend. Seeds have sprouted!
Around mid-week, the cat grass showed the tiniest of sprouts before we went to bed…in the morning they were much bigger, almost half an inch!
Each day they grow several inches…and Wubert has taken an interest.
The other plants are sprouting too, the catnip, wildflowers, and lettuces each show tiny sprouts. Just waiting on the alpine strawberries to shoot up…they were planted a bit deeper, so we hope to see them soon.
