Easteriffic

On Saturday when she woke up from her nap, I reminded Lucy that the Easter bunny would be coming tomorrow.  She peered out the window and asked, "In his car?"

Our "celebration" of Easter revolves entirely around eggs and bunnies.  I feel like I should explain to Lucy that it has a bigger meaning, but not having explained anything remotely church-related, it would likely be a long conversation.  That said, we did have a rockin' good time on Easter Sunday.

Easter eve, we wrote a letter to the Easter bunny and put out some carrots for him to eat. We had gone to the mall that day, and saw the bunny sitting there waiting for kids to take pictures with him.  There was no line, so Lucy got to wave and give hugs without the pressure of buying a $12.75 photo.  Price aside, her face was not washed and her hair not combed either, but I think the visit gave her an idea of who she was waiting for.

 

 The note was dictated to me, the only thing I changed was "he'll" to "you'll be so proud of me."  I couldn't squeeze out of her what, exactly, the bunny was going to be proud of.  When she woke up, Lucy just couldn't believe that he'd eaten the carrots.

 This is Lucy's excited face when she woke up and remembered that there would be an egg hunt with candy and prizes.

I love this picture as she struggles to lift and show off her basket.

Baby J's cameo, wearing his Easter suit.  I like that he seems to be looking at his Easter basket.  In fact, he fell back asleep before we opened it.

While Jamie napped, Lucy and I dyed eggs.  As a parent, I've learned to give up on a few things that I used to think absolutely unacceptable: driving around aimlessly wasting gas to get a baby to sleep, letting a child run water in the sink for fun, wasting 18 eggs.  Having seen what spaghetti sauce, finger paint, and Iowa mud do to clothes, I stripped her to underwear before starting the project. 

Our eggs were beautiful, complete with Tinkerbell stickers.  Lucy insisted on emptying out her basket to put the eggs in, and then carried them around the house.

The new basket was tippy, and this is what the eggs looked like once they'd been dropped on the floor.  A different kind of beauty.  Finish the day off with a dinner and a good friend, and it was perfect.

1st Bath

Jamie finally took the plunge.  Poor guy has been waiting for me to find the newborn cradle portion of the pink tub he'll be enjoying for the next months.  I know I had it out and washed it, but now it's gone - or at least hiding somewhere.  So, under some pressure and direction from Grandma ... "Sheesh, Kristin, the kid's almost a month old!  Just put a towel in the bottom of the tub." ... I finally dipped and scrubbed him.

 There were surprisingly few tears during the whole bath.  Despite the little terry cover-up you see in the picture above (which is supposed to keep him warm), there were some lip-quiver-shivers.  Cute as can be, but they make me feel like a meanie. 

 Lucy was quite intent on helping.  Translate: I had to work to make sure she didn't tip him over or get soap in his eyes.  Unless you've been to our bathroom you can't see how hard this was to do, as we are literally crammed between the closet and the toilet, elbowing for bathing baby J real estate.  At one point Lucy suggested she climb in the tub with Jamie to help.  Must have seemed like a good plan to her, but I'm not sure how she actually envisioned that to go.

 Finally, after 3+ weeks, my beautifully clean baby boy.  Wish I could say sweet-smelling, but I bought some Johnson's natural baby wash with "allerfree" fragrance and it's foul.  I think the plant-derived ingredient they used was stinkweed, though the ingredients just claim "fragrance" without specification.  Had to lotion him up to get close enough for a post-bath cuddle.

Another baby milestone, check.

Still Life with Baby

I had a conversation with a good friend yesterday that had her expressing amazement at the fact that I had left the house with two kids.  She said when her 2nd was born it left her home-bound for a long time.  We didn't talk too much about this, so I'm not sure if she tried and failed to leave the house, or it was just too much trouble to even bother to try.  I have made a major effort since the arrival of Jamie to make sure I'm still moving around and getting Lucy to her social events (as much social events for me as for her - perhaps more).

I'm thankful that Lucy is still as enamored with Jamie as she was the day he was born.  I often get her motivated to leave the house by "taking her baby" out the door without her. 

 

 Our latest event was VEISHEA, an ISU celebration that included a parade, concerts, and a day of booths and exhibitions on campus.  It was named after the original colleges at ISU: Veterinary, Engineering, Industrial Science, Home Economics, Agriculture.  People around here have been talking about this for weeks now; apparently around here it falls into the category of "Very Big Deal".  It kind of seems like Bumstock, but bigger and for the whole community. 

This weekend's weather was awful.  I was conflicted about bringing Lucy to the parade, should I stay or should I go kind of feeling.  There was a lot of asking Lucy if she wanted to go, as the whim of a two-year-old makes my decisions.  I guess I needed her on board if I was going to pack everyone up and head out the door into 35-degree weather with a whipping wind.  She was totally in.

What I didn't know, however, was that kids don't go to the VEISHEA parade without a halloween-style treat bag.  Every time she lifted her hand to wave to someone, she was hit with a tootsie roll or dum dum.  Fabulous - this kid now LOVES parades.

 The parade was standard-plus.  It was generally a local parade with a couple of impressive floats thrown in.  Apparently there are balloons?  I'm picturing something like at the Macy's Thanksgiving parade, but since we arrived at the parade about 20 minutes after it started, I'm not sure that this is accurate.

 You know you're in Iowa when ....

 Baby J got his first taste of the "Very Big Deal" under pink cover.  He didn't appear to be bothered by the marching bands nor the cannon on the fraternity float, which shot at least three times in our general area.

 The post-parade thrill.  A little frostbite on her nose, some beads, pockets stuffed full of candy, and Hello Kitty glitter pens tucked firmly under her arm.  It just doesn't get much better.

Grandparents Love Babies

 Baby J's first week was marked with a visit from Grandma and Grandpa.  As we got closer to my due date I started to get a little nervous.  Mom had booked their flight for the 29th, expecting to see a two-week-old baby, as I had had Lucy so early, and I didn't want them to come all the way out to Iowa to watch me be overly pregnant for a week and then go home, no grandson.  He arrived right on time, though, and Grandma and Grandpa got to enjoy a four- to eleven-day-old pumpkin.

 

 Feel the love, see the tears.  This last picture was taken right before Grandma and Grandpa got on the shuttle for the airport.  Lucy begged Grandma not to take her baby as my mom held and hugged baby J one last time for the next few months.

 Here I think that Jamie is thinking about the great visit, wondering when he'll see the extended family again, and hoping that his mom will survive without someone cooking, cleaning, and doing her laundry.

Lucky for J, we're doing okay.

Jamie

There's nothing like the sweetness of a brand new baby.  This is before the begin to spit up all the time and cry for 10 hours a day.  Even then, they're still sweet.  Now, even more so.

 

 

 

New Baby Boy!

 Our brand-spanking new baby boy (yet unnamed but we have a shortlist).  Born March 25th 2011 at 5:52 am.  6lb 12oz and 19 inches.  Perfect in every way!!

 

 Already sucking fingers those long skinny fingers.  His nails are long and sharp, too.

 Boy, do I look tired!  I also note here that Eric looks as though it's the middle of the afternoon and nothing's out of the ordinary.  Having a baby at 3pm after a full night's sleep was certainly less exhausting than having one at 6am not having gone to bed at all the night before.  I think if we switch birth pictures with new baby and Lucy, Eric would be the one who looked like he hadn't been to bed yet.

 

It doesn't take long to forget some things, like how to swaddle a newborn in a receiving blanket.  This is obviously an "us-job" and not one of the nurses here on the wing.  They have this kid wrapped up like a sausage.

 Lucy's first peek at baby brother.  When she woke up to our friend Sara she was really excited about getting to meet her baby brother and to touch him as well.  So far she thinks that I'm in the hospital to take the baby out of my belly so we can put him into her belly for when Grandma and Grandpa come.  Obviously the idea of being baby storage is more appealing than the idea of sharing any of Grandma and Grandpa's visit with him.

 So proud and in love with her baby brother ...

 ... until she got a cookie.

Wish us luck - the journey begins!

Best Indoor Fun

Last week Lucy & I headed 30 minutes north to try out an "indoor park" for the afternoon.  I'd seen it advertised with bounce houses (our favorite) and had been interested in going for a while, so we finally bit the bullet and hopped in the car.  As promised, there were five separate bounce houses along with a McD's-like climbing playhouse, and it was toddler heaven. 

Unless I was missing something major, I have no idea how this place stays in business.  Tuesday was a two-for-one day ($8 admission), and there were maybe 15 kids there total.  Though the bounces houses are clearly big enough for a bigger kids crowd, it appears to cater to the net-yet-in-schoolers, open only Monday-Friday 10-4.  One thing I have come to appreciate in staying home with Lucy is the ability to bring her somewhere on a Tuesday afternoon and not have her fight for space with all the big kids.  But back to the business - where do they make their money?  Busy vacation weeks?  The cafe that sells hot dogs and pizza?  They were open for us to enjoy so I guess it really doesn't matter, but it did make me think about opening a similar business in Ames which is severely lacking in childhood fun sites.

The first bounce house Lucy tried was the giant slide.  From the floor, it looks kind of intimidating, but that didn't slow her down at all.  Every trip was the same progression: climb, slide, jump with joy at the end.

 

 

Bounce master Lu here.  This is the kid that week after week amazes the other parents at gymnastics with her trampoline ability.  She bounces high and hard.

The playground also had a ball room with specific instructions to not remove any of the purple balls.  Carrying both of these not-purple balls here made it near impossible for Lucy to do anything but stand at the bottom of the bounce house slide and wait for a friend to share a ball with.  There was certainly no way she was putting one of those down.

We were there for almost three hours, and the pictures I took don't really reflect the amount of time Lucy spent in the stationary play structure at the end.  The bounce houses only really lasted her about an hour, and after lunchtime most of the kids migrated away from the bouncing.  (Hmmm, maybe kids really do know it's bad to eat junky food and then bounce around like crazy.)  The pictures also don't reflect the family with two four-year-old boys that kept on doing things like hitting Lucy in the back of the head with a ball and lifting up the end of a bench to try and dump me off it.  It's kids and moms like that who have made me realize I'm not a particularly tolerant person when it comes to the behavior of other people's children.  Thankfully, at two, Lucy still has few enough social conventions to allow anything like that to spoil her fun.

Finish off with the best shot I was able to get of the two biggest bounce structures and a video of Lucy up and down one of the slides.  A truly spectacular experience.