oh, summer

Arg!  The end of summer! It snuck up on us.  My plans to blog every few days obviously didn't pan out, so I'll have to remember bulleted style.

Lovely:

• Lucy hugging her baby, and patting the back of the baby's head with her hand (today).
• Lucy dancing for Nana and I.  Dancing free and happily, assured that we fully appreciated it, and feeling GOOD.  It just made me so happy.  Especially a move she invented which looked a lot like twirling high-speed bicept-curls. :)
• The La-la-las of Jesus loves me.
• How she smiles at herself in the mirror when she's all dressed up or sporting a new hair accessory or sunglasses.  She likes what she sees!  And so do I!
• Lucy's perch on John's foot.  So sweet.
• Flower-fly.  (what she calls flowers).  She points them out everywhere, reminding her (usually late, rushing) mama to appreciate the beauty God has surrounded us with.
• I've been asking Lucy to help mama by taking something to another room or putting something in the trash.  She's started volunteering, eagerly, "I hep!"  She saw my phone and rushed to put it in my purse--I hep.  She wanted to help me and was pleased to find a way to do so--so sweet!
• She prays.  I melt.
• Those little hands holding mine.  I can't get over it.
• She says, "I-ru-you" (I love you).
• She talks so sweetly to babies. The mere approach of a pumpkin seat elicits a high-pitched, "OOooooh! Baby! HI BABY!"  And usually some chuckling mention of the baby's toes. 
• She hides her eyes behind her hands and then lifts them up and says daintly, "Pize!"

Funny:

• I say "Hi, baby!" or "Okay, baby." and she says it back to me.
• Every time a monkey is mentioned, she says, "oo-ooo-oo" and does a wiggly-tickly monkey move.
• She gets on a "No way!" kick.  The answer to any question is No way!, regardless of her true feelings. No way, Mom!  Like, "You're crazy!"
• I hep!  Another way she tried to help me--I was using the "potty" and she rushed in, head down, hand outstretched with some toilet paper, saying, "I hep!"  If I hadn't stopped her, I think she would have actually gone in for the wipe!
• She thinks she's funny stuff when she leans forward at the table and then has to kind of peer up at you.  It's such a little thing, but those eyes twinkle!  She thinks she's being pret-ty cool.
• Usually, when playing any kind of chase game, she slows almost to a stop and cuts those eyes back, like, "Where are you?  Catch me already!"  Sometimes she actually puts it in reverse!  (She must know the ability level of her main chasers.)
• She loves to watch Uncle John train Macy (their dog).  He says, sternly, "Sit!" and then gives her a treat.  Lucy really got into the "Sit!" talk.  But hers came out sounding a little.... french!
• She got within an inch of sticking Pap's toothbrush in Macy's mouth.
• Okay, a little side-note about boobs.  Weeeell, I taught her the word boobs.  We're an all girl household.  It just came up in conversation.  Anyway, this may have been a mistake.  She called out this new word repeatedly at the pool when a woman got in who didn't have a lot covering hers.  Several mornings, when changing from pajama top to shirt, she'd locate hers.  "Boob.  Boob."  And then as I pulled her shirt over her head and down, she'd say cheerily, "Bye, boobs!"

Words:

• Lucy sings parts of songs.  If I leave off a word here or there of our favorites, she chimes right in with the right word (or a close approximation).  She does this with ABCs, Snugglepuppy, I'm Adopted, Deep and Wide, Jesus loves me, ALL the Dora songs, and itsy-bitsy spider.
• Hep!  Hep, Mom-mom!  Hep, pees.  I hear this a lot :)
• Longest sentence (I think):  Mom-mom, Iwa mo chicken, pees!  6 words--and polite!
• Counting... although we're not yet totally sequential, she counts things.  One.  Twooo.  Six.  Nine.  Five...
• She calls out for missing items as she searches for them, and if she can't find it, we get a "hmm".  For example:  "Milk?  Mii-illk?  Hmm."
• She is starting to be able to tell me what is happening when I'm not there.  She leaves church nursery earnestly telling me Snack!  Swimmy-swimmy-chomp. Ball!.  She told me on the way home from Nana's:  Tomato! You at a tomato? Yeah, mom!  Pap!  You ate a tomato with pap?  Lap! Lap!  Pap!  You at a tomato in pap's lap?  Yah! Yah!  And she woke up yesterday telling me about what Uncle John had taught her.  She said, "I say Happy to Nana"  You said Happy Birthday to Nana?  Yah!  Unca John, Unca John!  Uncle John taught you that? Yah mom!  This makes a mama happy!

Hair:

• Progress!  I finally realized (was told, thanks Angel!) that Lucy's tears were anger, not pain.   She doesn't want to have to sit still while I brush out her hair.  And so I pushed through the tears and detangled a bit every morning (or at least every other) and her hair has been looking so nice and healthy!  She hands me the comb if I forget, so I don't think she's too traumatized!  This was a major breakthrough, and I'm thankful for the peace of mind that her hair is healthy and it's not painful to keep it that way!

    In short, we didn't get a lot accomplished this summer.  My house did not get the deep spring cleaning I dreamed about.  The carpets were not shampooed.  I did not read the pile of books about Jesus and parenting that I want to read.  I did not practice Spanish, nor did I devote a day a week to school like I'd intended.  Somehow I'm still a bit more couch than 5K.

    So what did we do with this precious gift of time?  We read books and drew pictures and shopped and went to the zoo and story time and parks and ikea and looked at sweet babies and played with friends and got loved on by our sweet family.  We (ahem, both) took naps every day, and it was freakin' awesome.  We danced.  We sidled up.  We chatted.  We snuggled.  We swam and splashed and swang (swinged?).  We BE-ed together.                                  It was grand.