Favorites

I have been meaning to write this little post for a while. Lucy has a accumulated a bunch of favorite objects/songs/etc from which we can not deter her. I thought I would be nice to document these favorites. Mostly I just like thinking about the funny little things that Lucy does these days that show her truly awesome personality.

First and foremost Lucy has a favorite blanket and it so happens it is quilt that I made for her first birthday. It took her a while to choose a blanket and up until a few months ago it really didn't matter what she slept with. Actually for a while she would throw all her blankets out of her crib, as if her favorite covering during the night was nothing. Now she is quite content with the quilt and it makes me giddy to know that I made it for her.

And then there is her favorite stuff animal, Pooh. Every night when we sing her a song before bedtime she asks for Pooh. Usually we find him cast on the floor the next morning but regardless he must be present for bedtime. I guess he takes up too much space in the bed. Consequently Pooh is also the stuffed animal that must endure Lucy pretending to give diaper changes and Lucy pretending to put Pooh down for "nappy time!"

The bedtime ritual brings up another one of Lucy's favorites, the song we sing before she goes to bed. For a while we sang a variety of primary songs before she went to bed, but now there is only one that she wants to here "I am a child of God." Pretty sweet huh?! For a while she called it the "God" song, but as her words and phrases have improved it is now called "Child of God" song. It is pretty darn precious. Every night we ask her what song we should sing, and without fail "Child of God" is the song she chooses.

Her favorite song to sing during the day, one with motions, is the "Itsy Bitsy Spider." She used to make us sing it all the time, now she sings it. It is a very abbreviated version. "Itsy Bitsy Spider up sprout...down spider, WASH the spider out....SUN, itsy bitsy spider...." All with hand motions. Currently "washing the spider out..." is her favorite part of that song. Apparently she is not a fan of bugs near the house either. Though in the spider's defense it is outside in the song. Bugs in the house, not cool, outside, totally okay in my book. She also loves "Head, shoulders, knees and toes." She often jumps to "eyes, ears, mouth and nose" part before even getting to her toes. Can you tell I love watching her sing?

On to other favorites, in the last month of so I have started asking Lucy to pick out her clothes. Sometimes we end up with some pretty amazing combinations, sometimes we end up without pants. Such are the choices of Lucy. In the midst of these clothing choices Lucy has decided on a favorite shirt (onsie). It is her "rainbow shirt". As soon as she sees it, she MUST wear it. In fact, fully clothed Lucy will begin to place it over her head if she sees me putting it away. Today she had it on over two shirts that she put on previously. I tucked in the bottom snaps and off she went as happy as could be because she was in fact wearing her "rainbow shirt!" The "cupcake shirt" comes in a close second. Apparently it is not quite a pretty as her "rainbow shirt".

In terms of favorite activities, Lucy loves to dance, waving her hand up and down dancing on her tips toes. Actually she is always on her tip toes, walking, running, dancing, etc.  Her favorite dancing songs come from the Mickey Mouse CD, the two Winnie the Pooh songs on Jimmy's IPOD and the Brave soundtrack. Which if any of you are into Celtic music you will totally enjoy the movie brave. We had the soundtrack before we owned the movie. I grew up listening to the Chieftains and the like. It brings me back. Lucy just loves to bust a move, regardless of the origin of the music. Between her dancing and running she is one active little girl.

As far as arts and crafts she LOVES to "color paper" i.e. draw. A few crayons and piece of paper and she is all set. Lately she asks me to help write her name. What a smart little girl. Watching her color is amusing because half of the time her face is two inches from the paper. She is very detailed oriented I guess. If we happen to have stickers she is in heaven.

Which brings us to another favorite, stickers. Every time we go to the library  for story time she requests stickers at the check-out desk. Every time we go to the grocery store she pleads to get out of the cart to ask for stickers. It is incredible to me how well she remembers things these days. She will downright meltdown if we don't get the stickers and she completely enamored by the same stickers every week.

She is also quite fond of numbers. She loves to count. Often it goes something like this "1,2,3,4,5,4,5,6,7,8,4..." And then later during some other activity "...8,9,10!" It is only when she is not really think about it that she will go from 1-10 without stopping. I must say, I am pretty impressed that she can go beyond 3.

 And lastly, Lucy loves to talk on the phone. Mostly her fake phone, but also on our phone as well. When we allow her to talk to her grandparents/aunts/uncles/etc... she will grab the phone and walk around pacing, which I know I have mentioned before, just like her daddy. When she has her fake phone her favorite person to call is Gabby (her best little friend), Grandma Coop and Daddy. The conversations usually revolve around her latest activities and what she sees as she is walking around. My favorite part is the small laughs that she introduces throughout the conversation as though she responding to what the other person is saying with exact understanding. I enjoy watching this activity. I am not so sure I will enjoy it when she is a teenager

Lucy is becoming quite the little person. I might be a little sad that she growing up so quickly....

Oh, and just in case I don't get to tell you all HAPPY EASTER!

By the way, here is the rainbow shirt in all of its glory....notice she is wearing a turtle neck underneath.....

Pack-n-play defeated and other such adventures

I am still in vacation mode, meaning I have no desire to start my lecture notes for Monday. Instead I am going to write about our fabulous spring break vacation.

On our drive back home yesterday I realized, and mentioned to Jimmy, that this is our last spring break (school associated) vacation for a little while. It was an odd feeling, but exciting none the less. So we went out with a bang. Our bang is not as exciting as most people's bang, meaning we did not go to Haiwii or something crazy like that. Instead we decided to crash on our friend's couches and visit the great cities of DC and the Chesapeake bay area. It was just the kind of vacation that we do. We drive a lot and we see a lot. It was crazy, but enjoyable. So without further adieu, let's explore our adventures.

Monday morning we ventured out of our apartment around 8 am, fully packed. We arrived in Bathesda MA around 11:30 am to visit our friends the Ericksons. They really are some of the most enjoyable and entertaining people. We really wish we lived closer because I am sure Melanie and I would swap recipes and Jimmy and Davis would swap insults/compliments all day long. Not to mention their adorable kids who Lucy just couldn't get enough of. She was calling every baby "baby Bear" after we left.

In the afternoon we went to the zoo. Lucy LOVED it. She was mesmerized with the otters and laughed when the elephant broke a long branch with his(or her) foot. Note: This was day 1 without a nap. She got pretty antsy by the end of our stay. So we decided to take advantage of the DC scene and found an Indian restaurant. Lucy wooed the waitress into giving her an extra mango yogurt smoothie, I got chick peas and masala and Jimmy burned himself on some really spicy lamb dish. It was wonderful. Did I mention that I love Indian food?

Then we headed back to the Ericksons, put Lucy to bed and played a game with Davis and Melanie before most of us went to bed.

Tuesday we got up, got dressed and Jimmy and I headed to the DC temple for a few hours while Melanie (bless her heart) watched all three kids. When we got back we decided to head into DC for lunch and some museums. It was POURING! Our first stop was the Air and Space museum. Lucy flew some planes, touched all of the buttons available and again, missed her nap.

Anticipating a cranky sleepy girl we decided to see one of the IMAX shows. Jimmy let me choose, since I am the sciency one, and so we decided on Hubble-3D. I had heard great things about it, and felt sort of ashamed that I still had not seen it. Our hope was that Lucy would fall asleep during the movie. We were somewhat mistaken. When we entered the theater Lucy was okay, but up until the movie started she was crying and carrying on. It wasn't until the movie started that she settled. And then, of course she didn't wear the glasses. So she watched most of the movie blurry. It still seemed to keep her attention until the very end were she lost it again and Jimmy took her out. Day 2 without a nap.

We left the Air and Space and headed to the National Aquarium. Have you ever heard of it? Neither had we. But we found out why. When we got there, around 3:30pm we found it cost $10 per person, and it closed around 5pm. We decided it wasn't worth it and headed for a lap around the Washington Monument because Lucy was not having the stroller thing anymore. When she is tired she doesn't do the sitting still thing very well. So she "ran fast" around the monument and then picked up the metro to head over to Dupont Circle to look at the shops.

Once we arrived, we grabbed a smoothie and literally did a circle of streets back to the same station, until we found that we should head back to the Ericksons to eat with them. It was decided that we would do Cafe Rio since they have it in DC. We got back a little late, Jimmy and Davis headed to pick up the food and we put the kids the bed. Once they returned we ate and chatted until we again headed to bed.

The next morning we packed up and headed off for our next adventure to see my best friend from college. She just had a baby a few months back and I was dying to meet her little girl and to have some fun times with her. Jimmy dropped me off around noon and he and Lucy headed up to Ocean city for a daddy-daughter night while I stayed with my friend Andrea.

 Jimmy's night with Lucy was eventful.  He took her to the beach (though it was freezing), he found out she doesn't like being in the car ("outta here!") and she showed her flexibility when she decided she would have no more sleeping in the pack-n-play. My favorite part was receiving the voicemail from Jimmy. It went something like this:

"Lucy knows how to get out of her pack and play. I don't know how she does it and I don't know what to do...." all said in a very desperate voice. I felt bad giggling a little inside. Jimmy really was a trooper. Turns out he could only get her to stay in by singing to her for 45 minutes. At this point in time her favorite song is "I am a child of God" which she calls "God" and the "Itsy Bitsy Spider."

I had a very relaxing afternoon and evening. I went for a walk, helped make dinner, and snuggled Andrea's adorable little baby. And we talked. Sometimes its nice to talk to a good friend. I woke up the next morning without my Lucy alarm clock and helped out by letting Andrea go for a run. Soon after Jimmy and Lucy showed up. Turns out they missed me. Lucy cried if I left the room, thinking that I would leave her again. And this was day 4 of no nap, since apparently the day before she hadn't napped either. She was crazy. She read every child's book in Andrea's house and jumped all over the furniture. 

Silly blurry camera, this was the best picture we could get!

After showing Andrea the craziness of a 21 month old we all headed back to Ocean City for our last day of vacation. Lucy was now saying "outta here"  or "Lucy drive" or "close the door" every time we put her in the car. We got back into Ocean City just after one and decided to go to the beach. Our hotel was literally right next to it.

Sidenote: getting hotels out of season is a steal. We got a really nice room with a kitchen included and ocean front location for a very low price. Plus there was an indoor pool. It was very, very nice.

So we went to the beach with lots of clothes on and put our feet in the sand. It was cold of enough that we only lasted a few minutes, but it sure was a beautiful view. Once we got back we headed to find me a bathing suit. Again, out of season, in a beach town equals cheap bathing suits. It also means that the bathing suits (for me at least) are all HUGE. Now granted, I am getting along in size (remember I am pregnant), so I wasn't expecting to wear my normal size.  But XXL just wasn't going to cut it. I did find something that kind of worked but I think I will need to give it away now. Jimmy and Lucy however found nice new bathing suits for very reasonable prices. Anyways, I digress.

In case you are wondering this says "D + M" (Daddy + Mommy) = Lucy

So we took our bathing suits and headed to the pool. Lucy adores the pool. She was laughing and smiling the entire time. If she actually knew how to float she would have been all over that pool.. As it was she was practically leaping out of our arms most of the time. It made me think it was time to think about some swimming lesson option for the summer. She is such a little fish.

After swimming we warmed up and went out for dinner. The downside to out of season beach town was none of their good seafood restaurants were open. We settled for mediocre food. Lucy favorite part was the applesauce.

On our way back to the hotel we stopped to pick up a movie since Jimmy and I needed something to do after Lucy went to bed. Turns out we probably could have just gone to bed after she finally fell asleep. 45 minutes of singing didn't cut it. We sang, we held her in her bed, we barricaded pillows up so she couldn't see us. Nothing worked. It wasn't until Jimmy sternly told her to stay in bed that she finally laid down. That was after she jumped up and down in her pack-n-play enough times that she bit her lip. It was an interesting evening.

The next day we got up, went swimming again, packed and headed out for breakfast. Breakfast was significantly better than dinner, but it left me full for the rest of the day. I guess that was good considering we had a 5+ hour drive home.

We drove for about 2.5 hours until we reached some outlet stores. Mistake-- possibly. I was totally in a buying sort of mood. Good think our tax return just came in. Lucy got a new Columbia windbreaker (it was a steal!) and a spring dress, and baby Coopito got a fuzzy suit and hat for this winter as well as a new newborn onesie. To be fair, this was our first real purchase for Coopito. There was no real excuse for Lucy's new clothes. We loved the coat and she can always use new church clothes.

I told Jimmy it was good we did not live nearby. Everything was so low priced that I would not feel really bad getting a bunch of clothes, until I realized that I bought far more than I needed and had spent far more than I had intended.

We got back in the car for the final leg of our journey. And guess what? Lucy took her first nap of the week. A good 2 hour nap, mind you. We made it home just before 5 pm. Our house of barren of food so I ran to the store, got some food and we had dinner before venturing to put Lucy to bed.

Now, if you recall Lucy could get out of her pack-n-play which we feared would allow her to get out of her crib. Her crib however was much higher. So we took a leap of faith and removed the front of her crib. She is now a toddler bed sleeper. And she is really good at it. For now. She slept in it last night, took a nap this afternoon and is asleep once again. In fact Jimmy said that when she woke up from her nap today, she whined until he came to get her. And when he walked in she was still in her bed. She is funny, funny girl.

So things we learned from this vacation. 1.We have amazing friends! Thanks for letting us stay with you. 2. Lucy loves her mommy. I am pretty sure I won't be able to leave for a night for a little while. 3. Lucy can't sleep with us in the same room. She needs her space or she gets totally distracted. 4. We can have incredible vacations even if we are driving and Lucy goes without a nap. 5. Everything is an adventure.

And that is that. Our "last" spring break vacation.

Happy Birthday Daddy Man

Happy birthday to this cool guy!

We have had a good day around here. Jimmy got some cool stuff this morning. An Alton Brown cookbook, which we all should agree is AWESOME. The cooking show "Good Eats" is one of my favorites. Science and food, what could be better?! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Coop.
 And he got a nice painted frame from Lucy and a season of "Falling Skies" from mommy.

Tonight we are eating ribs, his favorite. He also requested Boston cream pie. So that is what we are having after the ribs. Just so you know, from scratch pudding is amazingly delicious. Then add cake and chocolate sauce--it was a very good choice!

And in response to potential questions about the title. "Daddy man" is his title from Lucy. Well, actually she would say "daddy lady" because she doesn't understand that mommy is a lady and daddy is a man. She figures if she can call me "mommy lady" then daddy must be "daddy lady" as well. We are working on it.

Happy birthday Jimmy (daddy lady man!)

The day I actually put makeup on

Maybe some of your know this about me, but I really don't do the make-up thing. I am like a child who has his/her face painted. I want to touch it and rub it, and in the end there really isn't much left.

Well, my friends I decided last year around this time that it would be a good idea for Jimmy and I to go to what is called Barrister's, which is really just a law school prom sort of event. We haven't gone in the past because we didn't have any friends that would be sober at the event. But this year, there are two other couples in our Church that were going so it worked out. And it meant that I would need to put on some make-up and dress up more than I usually do. I mean, I haven't really dressed up like this since our...ahem... wedding. Yes, it has been that long. I am just not a fancy person. So here are some pictures from the event. Our camera decided to be silly and most of the pictures are kind of blurry.

I only put this picture because I want you to see some of other interesting attire at this event. Apparently cow-print is fancy!

We had a good time, even though we didn't stay for the whole thing. We ate, we tried to dance and we attempted to converse although the music was extremely loud so I am not entirely sure any of our conversations were completely understood.

In general I would say that this was people watching at its finest.

A little on Lucy

Can I just talk about Lucy for bit? Sure, why not this is my blog and it is about my family and Lucy is a very entertaining little person. So yes, I am going to talk about her.

This little girl has grown overnight, as they say. Her ability to communicate astounds us daily and she walks around the house like a little adult. Let me expound upon this.

First and foremost she repeats EVERYTHING! That includes prayers, when we are frustrated, the songs we sing, the numbers we count and, as we found out today, even some of the things that she hears on her Mickey CD. Today we heard her say "oh boy!" That is not  something that either of us say normally, so I stood their perplexed until her Mickey music chimed in with a loud "oh boy!" She loves that CD, I tell you. Especially because she is tall enough to reach the volume controls and will turn it up to full volume so everyone in town can hear. Sorry next door neighbor!

She also is becoming a little demanding when it comes to play time. "Mommy, lego too! Mommy run fast! Mommy walk fast! Mommy dance too! Mommy read it! Mommy play too!" Yes, she says all those things and then expects you to follow through promptly. So we do our best to entertain her, singing, dancing and reading, oh yes and running circles in her room. It is exhausting, though pretty darn cute.

And the last little tidbit of hilarity is her new found love of undressing while falling asleep. In the last few weeks there have been several times where we have entered her room after she has fallen asleep to find her un-zipped past her diaper. In fact just recently she will actually ask for help, if she is not too tired to "zip up!". Yesterday was my favorite, we walked in to find her bare-armed and her PJs around her feet. She was asleep mind you, more than half naked in her crib. So we had to pick her up to re-dress her, all this time while she was half sleep, quite confused.

And for another time, here is a picture to whet your appetite. Lucy is getting ready for the baby. She has always loved swaddling her stuffed animals, but recently she took her baby caring skills to a new level. I also think this is because Jimmy wants to get out of changing diapers. He did this by the way, but that was after Lucy attempted to do it herself.

From the mouth of our babe

It is 9:15 ish and I am literally dragging. Mondays are a crazy day around here, but let's be frank everyday has been crazy as of late. But back to Mondays. It is crazy because normally none of us are terribly excited about the coming week and we kind of take it all out on Mondays. Sorry Monday, you will just have to deal.

Today was not any different than the last. We got up, I went running/walking, we showered, packed our things and all went to our fulfill our duties. I went to teach at VMI, Jimmy went to Staunton, and Lucy went to her babysitters. When we all met up around 2pm we all looked a little worn-torn. Jimmy said our car has been grinding and I was just extremely tired. When we got home I saw the state of our house and went into stress-mode (i.e. try to clean everything all at once). It is not very productive because I continually find new things to clean and usually I can't finish what I started initially. And then I am even more tired and maybe just a wee bit emotional to boot. Lucy was fine. She was such a trooper. Jimmy and I are such basket cases about figuring our the next few months and Lucy just brings so much happiness to the situation. I called someone about borrowing a car until we could get our car in and out of the mechanics and then we all had some snacks. Sounds bad right? I know it was mostly our attitudes, but times seem perilous when you are cranky.

And that was how 3:00 pm looked, Jimmy and I dragging, Lucy running around like a banshee, happy and giddy. When Jimmy left to go back to school I decided, well I should do the dishes. And so I did the dishes and started the laundry, and, and, etc... To this I heard miss Lucy cry, "Mommy play!" I think she knows, like Jimmy, when I need to slow down and relax. So I went into her room and we played with her Duplos. By golly it made me feel better. Not to mention she actually played out a little scene for me when she took the cougar, which she calls "roar!", and fed it a carrot and then said "tasty!" Yes, her cougar likes carrots.

Later as I was making dinner she was rolling around on the floor with the quilt I made her, pretending to be sleeping, sporadically questioning "dinner-time?" It wasn't nagging which was a pleasant surprise.

When Lucy and I finally sat down for dinner, pancakes with peanut butter and cinnamon apples she enthusiastically announced her love for peanut butter and happily ate. In fact she didn't spill any on the floor or really on herself. It was just the miracle I needed today. Dead serious. After dinner, we cleaned up, got our wiggles out, cleaned up our toys and right before the bath read some of Lucy's books. Simple, not stressful and again, just what I needed on this Monday.

Mondays are terrible(I am being very dramatic), but thankfully Lucy doesn't care about that. She really did turn my whole mood around. Let's give a hip-hip- hooray for Lucy! She has saved us all from another hard Monday. 

Mr. Coopito

For completeness sake, I thought I would write a little something about our most recent news. Yesterday we had the 20 week sonogram to look at Coopito. You know the exam where they look at the head, the heart, the stomach, the brain and oh yeah, if you are having a chica or chico? And it was pretty darn obvious when the technician pointed it out to us. We are having a boy! Awesome huh?

Let's be real for a second. A girl would have been equally as awesome. We already have a TON of girl clothes. We like girls. Lucy is pretty awesome, and we can only assume if Coopito had been a girl it would have been just as awesome. I only write this so you don't think I was counting on a boy, and would have been disappointed if it was a girl. That is definitely not the case. Hooray for girls and hooray for boys!

So, just so you know this is the first Cooprider (Jimmy's parents) grandson. That is pretty cool. And that is that. I can definitely see why people choose not to find out the gender until the end. Besides being able to plan for clothes and nursery colors, it really doesn't matter. As long as they are healthy, right?

Here are a few pictures of the little man.