Grandma Goes Global

My parents recently went to Costa Rica for a wedding, and we're mildly jealous.

So we colored our bath water blue and used our imagination.  Ahhh, smell that salty ocean air as we splash in the surf.

 

 In other vacation news: on skype Grandma told Lucy a story about being on a boat, seeing monkeys, and one actually eating a banana out of her hand.  Lucy's take?  "A monkey ate Grandma!"

Science Center

Last Friday was a rainy day, so we headed to Des Moines to hit the Science Center, the central Iowa museum for kids.  Lucy called it the "Science Contest" after the Curious George promo that talks about introducing kids to math and science concepts.  An aside, a friend here told me she saw a t-shirt for sale in a DSM shop that said: "Des Moines, come let us exceed your already low expectations!"  With that in mind, we had a great time.

As usual, we arrived about an hour after we planned, partially because I got 15 miles down the highway and had forgotten the baby rider and had to turn around (or carry Jamie in my arms or the car seat the whole time - yikes!)  The photo of me and Jamie was taken by Lucy, one of her better shots.  I could have included the one of my can of seltzer that she snapped, to then look up at me and say "The seltzer just said cheese!"  You, however, can imagine that one.

The Science center has just three large rooms for exhibits.  One spaced themed, with a planetarium-style theater, one action room with lots of cause-and-effect and interactive displays, and one for the littler kids.  We started with the non-toddler themed rooms, as I was afraid if we began with the toddler activities, we'd never leave.  Lucy actually went into a show at the planetarium and sat for about five minutes until she got scared off by the big bang.  She came home telling Eric about the "talking horse" at the museum, referring to the Horsehead Nebula.  :)

The "Ball Wall" kept Lucy busy for a while.  The contraption was kind of Rube-Goldberg-esque, with lots of balls that kids could put in different baskets where air flows sucked them through tubes.  It was really too hard for Lucy to follow the track of a ball, but she really enjoyed the transfer of balls from place to place, and worked to share with a friend here, too.

A train set never disappoints.  It was hard to wait our turn behind all the four-year-old boys!

Blocks?  You mean we don't have these at home?

Finally to the toddler area for a quick show of how far Lucy can jump.

We love magnets.  And robots.  And especially magnetic robots.  This wall was covered with the different parts for kids to assemble their own robots against a background that was supposed to look like another planet.  Lucy must have spent 20 minutes there, changing out the legs of her robot.  "These legs.  No, no, no, these legs."

Iowa style, this is some sort of farm-production exhibit with conveyor belts and cloth fruits and veggies to send to market.  I'm not sure why, but around 4:30, right before we left, the place really cleared out, allowing Lucy an uninterrupted shot at working the conveyors. 

And the Bubble Bay!  Yes, the floor is as soapy as it looks.  I saw at least four kids (including mine) hit the ground.  I believe it might have been Lucy's favorite spot.  We spent a ton of time here; trying out the giant wands, chasing bubbles, and getting soapy.  This seemed to be a girls-only hangout.  Do boys not love bubbles too?  We actually came home with 2 of these wands, and now have the stuff to make our own giant bubbles in the back yard.  I'm thinking a bubble party in the near future.

Can you see the exhaustion?  What a fun day.  Only problem is that now, Lucy thinks that whenever it rains we're headed to the Science Center.

And beautiful Baby J?  Not a peep.  This is what he looked like all day long.  Hey, who knows.  Maybe we will go back next time it rains!

Mother's Day

I celebrated my 1st "mother-of-2"s day this weekend in numbers:

1000 kisses on the sweet cheeks of children
100 loving hugs, most willingly given
20 minutes at the park to play
13 hours with no-nap Lucy
10 dirty diapers
7 trips to the potty
5 charms on my mother's bracelet
3 perfectly written letters on my card
2 wonderful children
1 happy mommy

 Eric made a card with Lucy.  The blue is the pond and the yellow stripe are the 5 little ducks who went out to play, over the hills and far away.

 Did I say she was a prodigy?  Eric tells me she wrote the letters totally backwards.

 Excited park face. 

Little Prodigy

 It's been a long-standing joke in my family to call Lucy my little prodigy whenever she does something spectacularly silly, such play peek-a-boo by covering her ears.  Here, I'm half kidding but still really proud.  This is Lucy signing her name to a card, where you can (if you know what you're looking for) make out the fact that everything but the C looks almost like it should.  We've been working on pre-writing skills like holding a pencil and drawing lines and shapes, but this was the first time she actually wrote more than one legible letter.  Unfortunately for everyone who didn't receive this particular Easter card, she refused to repeat it.

Maybe this was what the Easter bunny was so proud of?

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.