Crawling!

Lucy just barely started crawling this past weekend, a few days after she turned eleven months old! Sam noticed her crawling first, and he excitedly called me and J over to see. Lucy still doesn't like to use crawling as her main means of transportation (she prefers to walk with help at any given moment), but she will crawl if she wants to get (or get into!) something.

Last night, Lucy and I were in Sam's room while he was getting ready for bed. Sam kept scooting his books on the floor out of Lucy's reach, but she kept crawling over to get at them. She finally went all the way over to Sam's bookshelf so she could systematically remove all of the books onto the floor, one by one. Sam said (in a slightly joking but slightly exasperated tone), "Oh no! Why did we ever teach her how to crawl?!?"

And so it begins! We are now entering a new phase of keeping things out of Lucy's little mobile grasp.

Lucy update

Our Lucy Loo is eleven months old! It's hard to believe that she has been with us for almost a year. For about the past month and a half she has been very interested in learning how to walk. She grabs the pointer fingers of whatever person is nearby or holding her, and either stands up or slides out of their lap onto the floor so she can begin walking. She uses our pointer fingers as her little "walker" to help her get around:

 

She also likes to practice walking up stairs with help, and likes to lift her feet up onto each step. I'm trying to teach her how to crawl up the stairs, but she doesn't really like it. In fact, Lucy is not interested in crawling at all, despite our best efforts. She can twist and turn on the ground, and she can even rotate in circles while on her stomach. She can get up on all fours and even lean forward to twist onto all fours from a seated position, too. But she never wants to propel herself forward. Sometimes she scoots herself backward while she is on her tummy, but I don't think she consciously realizes that she is moving. So, in contrast to the happy "walking Lucy," this is what we usually see if we put her on her tummy:

She is still nursing a few times a day, but she is getting better at eating solids. Right now she has two teeth, and hopefully she will like to experiment with more foods as teeth begin to grow in. She is still a picky eater, though. Whenever she dislikes a food, she loudly spits it out (often so that the food sprays everywhere in the process). She doesn't mind getting messy when she eats, which is so different from how Sam was as a baby.

Right now she loves the crushers from Trader Joe's, especially the applesauce and the carrot-apple sauce. She will usually eat most baby food combinations that have either a pear or an apple base. She also will eat some little rice puffs, the maple-cinnamon crushers (that taste like churros), teething biscuits/cookies, and small pieces of hot dogs. This morning she ate a few pieces of scrambled eggs, but I don't know if that will become a trend. I just keep offering things to her, in hopes that she'll change her mind.

Oh dear! Earlier last month Lucy learned to wield her gooey cookie like a paintbrush on the wall.

She really likes puppets (despite what you see at the beginning of this video) and stuffed animals. We have a few puppets and stuffed animals that we use to play with her, and she likes to give all of them hugs and kisses. She also likes the puppets in the Baby Einstein videos. She often watches an episode when I am getting ready for the day, while she sits in her exersaucer. Several times Sam has wanted to watch an episode with her, and for some reason he feels compelled to sit in a plastic contraption too, so he drags the laundry basket next to her exersaucer. This is how our kids watch shows together:

She is reaching for a teddy bear here. I took this photo today.

She also likes to open and shut drawers and cupboard doors. Last weekend she worked frantically to dump out a huge bin of Legos while we were out at RB (see video). She also likes to play with Sam - he is still the best at getting her to laugh (see video). 

Lucy is a happy girl and hasn't really had any stranger anxiety. I'm grateful for this, because I can leave her in the gym child care without really worrying about her crying for me. I also don't have to worry about leaving her when I go to work.

Lucy claps her hands together and waves "hi" and "bye." She also can sign "more," "all done," and "milk." She also knows how to sign "book," but she needs a little help with that one. She likes to read "Where's Spot?" and "The Hungry Caterpillar" right now. Just as of the past two days, I think she has learned to say, "Uh oh!" (although it sounds more like "Ah-ah!"). But she knows how to use it in context, since she intentionally drops things off the edge of her high chair tray before saying "Ah-ah!"

Here are some more pictures:

She can't move herself forward on this bike with her feet, so for now we push the bike for her from behind. She loves riding her bike.

She wouldn't look at the camera because she was interested in Sam's episode of "Phineas and Ferb"

"Where's Lucy?" (See her skills in this video)

"Peek-a-boo!"

I think this was the first time she was really aware of the idea of self-ornamentation. She learned how to lift this necklace over her head and drape it across the back of her neck. I made a little "Oooh!" sound and she took off the necklace, lifted it back on, and made a little "Oooh!" sound herself.

I think she looks like some of my baby pictures in this shot.

Lucy's first time going down a slide

Currently my absolute favorite picture of Lucy and Sam

Spring Planting

My family - particularly J - indulged me over the weekend and let me focus on some major gardening projects in the yard. J and I woke up early and started to work while Lucy was asleep. After she woke up, we even figured out a system to keep her happy in the garden for another hour or so while I continued to clear out one of the garden beds. J worked mostly in the front of the yard and driveway, pulling out weeds that started to sprout among the gravel.

This is how you can contain an imp while you work in the garden before breakfast. We even set up a little Baby Einstein show for her to watch for a while - she loves the scenes with the animal puppets.

At the end of the day, we made some major improvements in clearing out the bed and planting flowers. There still are some weeds in the flower bed, but we pulled out all of the grass and were able to work around a lot of the California Poppy plants. As for the flowers we planted, I'll think of them as my Mother's Day gift from J, since he was so patient and helpful with the kids while we worked over the weekend.

Here are the annuals that we planted in the bed this year:

•  Cumbanita (Red) Geraniums
• Trailing red verbena
• Mounding viola (violets)
• African Marigold (Sam's pick - I don't care much for marigolds but I do like the bright color)
• Some orange zinnias
• French Marigold (Dwarf) - this was in the verbena six-pack. I'm not sure if the plant tag was added into the pack by mistake, but we planted it and will see what opens when it blooms.
• Purple African Daisy (J's pick).

I think that this May Night Salvia is going to be me favorite addition to this garden bed. I bought three of these, and they are a mounding perennial. I love the color and texture that they add to the space, and I think I will get a couple more this week. I hope they do well in this space.

We planted this Ruby's Tuesday Dianthus to replace the Bowles Mauve Wallflower that we planted three years ago.The wallflower plant grew to be immense, but I think it might have grown too large for its own good. A huge root system began to pop out of the ground and the whole plant died over the winter. Hopefully this dianthus will thrive in the same location. It is supposed to bloom throughout the spring, summer, and fall.

We still have a lot of work to do. My sister sent a landscaper to look at our yard last week (as a present to me), and I hope to have his team help out with the weeding around the back. We want to pull out the weeds and put down some landscape fabric to prevent any future growth.

For Mom: Gardens and Garden Quotes

Today is my mom's birthday. I've been thinking of her lately, not only because of her birthday, but since Mother's Day is this coming Sunday. A few days ago my older sister proposed the idea that my siblings help to clear out the garden bed in honor of my mom, which I thought was a good idea. I wish I could be there to help.

My mom liked to garden, but she also was practical in understanding how much time she could devote to yard work. For one thing, her allergies were bothered by certain weeds. I particularly remember her waging war against what she called ragweed - although in writing this post I realized that the plant that I remember her calling "ragweed" was actually kochia (ragweed looks very different). When we lived in Colorado, she pulled up lots of kochia from our huge, huge yard. She also would pour vinegar on weeds to kill them and stop them from growing back, which was her natural method of applying weed killer. I remember she also spread a black tarp ground cover and rocks around the area of the front of the yard in Colorado, to limit all of the weeding (our property was about 7/8 of an acre). Sometimes the kids would be enlisted to help pull out weeds, and would scout out these kochia weeds among the gray rocks:

For one or two years during our time in Colorado, we also planted a large vegetable garden in the backyard. I especially remember growing bush beans, probably because I thought those were the most fun to collect at harvest time. There also was a huge rhubarb plant in the garden, which I think was there before we bought our house. I remember we bought special hoses to help water all of the rows of vegetables. If I remember right, we could hook the hoses right up to the spigot of our well, because the garden was right next to the well house.

My mom was really thrilled to move into my family's current home, since the previous owner's late husband had planted a garden with different flowers that would bloom at different times of the season. My mom also planted some things in the yard which fit with her own particular interests and aesthetic, like the colonnade apple trees in our front yard. I think she planted a raspberry bush in the backyard after I moved away to college.

One of my mom's favorite quotes about gardens was one that I'm pretty sure was in her grandmother's garden, and her mom (my grandma) had a plaque with this same quote:  

The kiss of the sun for pardon, the song of the birds for mirth, one is nearer to God in a garden than anywhere else on earth.

In honor of my mom, I started to decorate my yard today by getting a hanging flower basket. I've also gathered a couple of quotes about gardens that I think she'd enjoy. She also would probably be amused by this sign, since it fits with the way my family jokingly interacts with each other (which is best described as wit or sarcasm that is laced with oblique religious references or a slight air of puritanism). Here are some other quotes that I like and I think my mom would like, not only because of the content but because most of them are a little bit more old fashioned or historical in nature:

Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow. - Francis Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden. - Francis Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.  - Audrey Hepburn

If you want to be happy for a lifetime, be a gardener. - Chinese proverb

Nothing is more the child of art than a garden. - Sir Walter Scott

Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Earth laughs in flowers  - Ralph Waldo Emerson

We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses. - Abraham Lincoln

Happy birthday, Mom! You are loved and missed. It was fun to find these quotes today and make a new memory with you.

Spring Cleaning

Since Lucy has been born, I have been trying to find a good balance of caring for her and keeping up with household tasks. There is so much baby stuff in our house right now, that for a while I felt like all I could do was keep the clutter at bay. (And sometimes I could only get the clutter and mess cleaned at the end of the day, after the kids were asleep.)  Part of me has realized that I need to "let go" a little bit when the clutter accumulates (something that I considered would be a possibility when I was pregnant). But I also want to make sure that my house is clean, because it's the only way that I can truly feel relaxed when I'm at home.

Between caring for Lucy and work, it was difficult for me to do more intensive or time-consuming household cleaning tasks, even something like vacuuming. And I have longed to do Spring Cleaning this year, since I wasn't able do to much last year when I was pregnant. And now, thanks to a recommendation from my friend Joanna, I think I have found a way to better stay on top of household tasks.

I have been following @cleanmama on Instagram for the past few weeks. She has a weekly cleaning routine with a different task every day, which she posts each morning. And, for just this month, she has been posting a Spring Cleaning task each day as well (for her "Spring Clean in 30 Challenge"). It's been really nice to wake up and have someone tell me which tasks to perform - she has great ideas for cleaning areas that I don't normally consider, but get grimy, dusty, or full of cobwebs (like light switch plates or the corners of ceilings). Although some of her tasks don't always fit with what I need to clean, her program has been a good general guide.

Since I'm such a goal-oriented person, I've been doing well under this program. The house is cleaner and I feel more on top of things. Now I just have about a week left of the Spring Clean Challenge! If anyone is interested in starting up the challenge, you can follow her on Instagram or check out her website.

The other thing that we have implemented is a Responsibility Chart for Sam. Sam has had a smattering of responsibilities around the house for the past couple of years, but we haven't had a consistent pattern or list of all of the things that he is expected to do. We got the Magnetic Chore Chart by Melissa and Doug to hang on our fridge, and I think it has been helpful for Sam to see (and get to mark off) the tasks that he is expected to do. I think he'll use this chart for a few years, until Lucy is old enough to take over. (Some of the options for tasks and responsibilities are more appropriate for a smaller child, but we have found enough that fit with what Sam is expected to do.)

What do you do to stay on top of household cleaning chores as a family? Once I finish this Spring Clean Challenge, I hope to move my energy outdoors so I can truly tackle the weeds in the garden...

Lucy as a Carriage

Last night we were leaving J's parents' house when it was fairly close to the kids' bedtime. Lucy was starting to get a little bit grumpy and tired, so J said to his mother, "We'd better leave. She's turning into a pumpkin."

As we drove away, Sam asked why J said that Lucy was turning into a pumpkin. We explained that this figure of speech goes back to the Cinderella story, and that it means that when a certain time has been reached on the clock, something can change into something else (similar to how Cinderella's coach turns back into a pumpkin at midnight). I said something to the effect that "turning into a pumpkin" means that a baby is starting to get fussy and angry, instead of being happy.

Then after school today, Sam had a friend over to play. This little boy asked if Lucy was a happy baby, and Sam said confidently, "Yep! She's happy. She's a carriage!" Ha ha! He must have extrapolated that happy babies are called "carriages" or "coaches" if fussy babies are "pumpkins." Cute boy.

"The Phantom Tollbooth" Awakening

Sam and I have just started to read The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (with annotations by Leonard S. Marcus). Sam and I are reading The Phantom Tollbooth section together, and then I'm going back through the chapters and reading the annotations on my own. It is so fun for me to pull out this book and read it with Sam. It was one of my favorite books as a child, and it's fun to re-experience and remember aspects of the plot (especially now with the perspective of an adult, while simultaneously getting to observe how Sam reacts to the story). In some ways, I feel like I'm reading this book for the first time all over again.

This is one particular quote that I enjoyed in one of the annotations tonight:

"As Pilgrim's Progress is concerned with the awakening of the sluggardly spirit, The Phantom Tollbooth is concerned with the awakening of the lazy mind" (Emily Maxwell, in her rave review of The Phantom Tollbooth in New Yorker, November 18, 1961).