Who needs a thing?

Lucy has been thinking about her birthday. A whole lot. It is on her mind at all times. If the subject of school starting comes up then she adds, "and my BIRTHDAY is before school starts!" same with the subject of her baby brother (who we now warn may come before the big birthday), Taylor visiting, the pool closing, and on and on. Presents are also on her mind. But they are not what typical 4 year olds dream of. Her vision of gifts does not revolve around the toy section of any store. Instead her most wanted things are:

1. A camp out with Dad and Ronin in the backyard, in tents, with hotdogs and smores
2. A fish (like Lauren's fish, Charlie)
3. Birthday hats and horns

The list is short and sweet. Anything else that comes up she adds, "my grandparents will probably get that for me". And she is probably right. Plus some.

The Candyland birthday party is set for the 12th. Moonbounce is ordered. Pinatas will be stuffed, as will about 20 kids' little bellies with lots and lots of sugar. There will be gifts, for sure, but how nice is it that our to-be-4-year-old will not be loving her birthday for the toys and trinkets, but rather the experience of a birthday? And a very happy one it will be.

Blonde Bombshell

Add a mole and a white halter dress and we have our own Marilyn in the house. Harper has discovered a new love for the register in the kitchen. Whenever the air comes on she stands over it, dress billowing out and blonde hair blowing in the breeze. She smiles, giggles and tosses her hair around in the air flow. If she starts talking breathy and singing "Happy Birthday" in a suggestive way then I will alert the media, or the studios- she'll be ready for her motion picture debut. Ian caught sight of this for the first time tonight and said, "this is one for the blog!" He's right, and on this blog, gentlemen definitely prefer blondes.

A month and counting????

Went to the doc today. I have strep group b so that means that as of right now I have to have an iv during delivery. If you know me, that is not good news since I have chosen to not have drugs with Lucy and Harper for the sole reason that I HATE needles. I am investigating alternatives so keep your fingers crossed for me. I am going to fight it, within reason and with total regard for the baby's health.
Second, I am already 3 cm dilated. This raised some eyebrows since I have been insisting for some time now that I thought I was further along than what they say I am and since they began wondering the same thing a couple weeks ago. Still no reason to really think that the baby will come early, but also no reason to think that he will stay put. We'll see. Good news, early baby means I am more comfortable sooner than later. Bad news, we can always use more time right now. I told Lucy that the baby just might come before her birthday (it was one of her requisites that the baby not come before her bday). She had a great attitude and said, "a baby brother is a good birthday present". That was all that was said. We'll see...

Ian's Boiling 33rd

We celebrated Ian's turning 33 on Sunday with a weekend long extravaganza. Well, that might be overstating it a bit, but we sure did have fun! Despite getting inches upon inches of terrential rain, we hosted a huge low-country shrimp boil on Saturday with all the folks that have helped us with the move, the new house, etc as well as those we just wanted to see before the baby arrived. 8 pounds of shrimp, 4 pounds of sausage, 16 ears of corn, 10 pounds of potatoes and a whole lotta boiling later, we had a feast fit for a birthday boy. In addition, everyone brought food so we had a hot grill and Ian standing in the said rain cooking up all sorts of other goodies. (The girls helped out earlier in the day by cleaning up the icing remnants from making birthday cake!)

On Sunday, we hit the pool, Lucy hit the diving board, and Harper hit the watermelon. Then to help us eat up the remainder of the shrimp, we invited a couple of friends over for leftovers and cake. Ian started up his new fire pit in 90 degree weather at 4pm to start burning off the mountain of wood and sticks that are in our yard. Cornhole, cornbread and heaping platters of shrimp boil, not too bad! He claimed it was one of his favorite birthday weekends ever and that he would love for it to be a tradition every year. Happy 33rd!

New things for Harper, too!

Harper has a new interest- the potty. She is very interested in what goes into the potty, who goes to the potty and when she goes to the potty. Whenever I notice that she might be filling her diaper, I ask, "Hey Harper, are you going potty?" This seemed to work well with Lucy at this age in getting her to recognize when she was going so that when it was potty training time, she seemed to know what it was all about.

Harper is taking it another step. Today she gave a little grunt and then patted her diaper and said, "I going potty". Then I asked if she wanted to go on the potty. She said, "Yeah!" and ran off to the bathroom. She sat for a couple minutes, concentrating very hard (I'm not sure she was concentrating on going potty, or just the act of sitting on the potty, but it was a stern concentration). Nothing happened but she was very proud.

We are not ready to potty train and have no interest in getting her there anytime soon, but the little glimmers of her interest promise that maybe we won't have two in diapers for forever!

Diving In!

We have told Lucy all summer that if she kept practicing swimming then she could go off the diving board. Well, we didn't actually think she would be brave enough. Then the diving board was broken and we thought for sure we were off the hook. But, we returned from the beach with the new diving board in place, a couple of her friends taking the plunge and it was all she could do to wait until Ian could catch her (I thought it best not to try to catch her in 8 feet of water at 36 weeks pregnant!) Here is the evidence that she indeed has mastered swimming, diving and her fear of anything water related. We were so proud! Not only did she jump, but she actually jumps so that she goes under water, surfaces, checks in with Ian and then swims to the ladder by herself, taking breaths along the way when she needs them.

We read "Oh! the places you will go" last night by Dr. Seuss. When the book was finished Lucy asked, "where was he going?" I told her the book was all about trying new things and the new adventures that always await you. Then we pointed out that swimming in the ocean, getting a new house, a new brother, being a great big sister, starting a new class at school, and diving off of the diving board were all new things to try and be great at. She agreed and added that turning 4 was going to be a new thing, too. Oh! indeed she is going places!

More beach photos

North Topsail, NC 2009 with Jefferies

After a pretty uneventful car ride we arrived in North Topsail ready to relax. And relax we did. We spent a week at the beach. That's pretty much it and it was wonderful. Lucy spent as much of the week as she could in the waves or building wet sand castles. She wore Ian out so much that he was falling asleep just minutes after the girls nearly every night. They even spent hours out in the ocean on rainy days in 75 degree weather. They turned blue, but they were in the ocean and Lucy was loving it. Lu loved collecting shells and rocks, rolling around in the smaller waves and "feeding the fish" sand that she tossed out into the ocean.

Harper ran around, chased seagulls and stayed away from the waves. She did not like the look of the waves- at all. She eventually decided that she liked the wet sand in the evenings and the puddles that were left behind at low tide. She ate sand, destroyed sand castles and collected shells. She also loved deconstructing seaweed.

While not at the beach they both enjoyed reading with Gramzie and Pop Pop, playing in the curtains in the rooms, taking long showers, and watching the waves and seagulls from the balcony. Lucy loved going to the turtle hospital with Gramzie and Pop Pop and Harper just plained loved Pop Pop. In fact, Harper would say over and over again at every meal "sit down Pop Pop, sit down". He also got extra hugs and kisses and she treated him like a jungle gym. Lucy and Gramzie had their own lovefest playing with a dollhouse and doing crafts. Lucy entertained us all one night with her version of "Don't stop believin'". In fact, Harper liked it so much that she danced and clapped and thought she was part of the show.
Lucy also enjoyed a treasure hunt and loved spying "pirate ships" each and every day out in the ocean. And one of her "summer list" items was fulfilled- to get ice cream from the ice cream truck. She chose a gigantic popsicle from "Pop Pop's ice cream" (the real name of the truck!) and Harper got a Tweedy bird ice cream- as big as her head. Both girls liked to see the helicopters that breezed along the shoreline every day.

All in all it was a great vacation. Ian caught up on sleep in the evenings and I did so in the mornings. We got to spend time together in the afternoons while the girls napped and I didn't go into labor, so that was definitely a great thing- although little man did like to keep me up in the middle of the night!

We made it home in decent time on Saturday with a pretty uneventful ride home. Lucy was ready to call friends an hour after we got home and Harper was ready for a good nap. Being away from home served us all well- now we have more energy to pull the house together, get ready for the birthdays, baby and school that are looming and dream of our next beach trip!

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