Hotel California, part one

Whew. March has been a busy month, with LOTS of visitors. I guess word got out that Lucie's looking less like an odd little alien from Planet Newborn and starting to do cute baby things, like smiling and cooing and kicking her little legs when she's excited.
First up was "Grambo" Lorna - she's coming again in April, to help so I can go out of town - but she just couldn't wait any longer to meet her new grandchild. Lucie enjoyed non-stop cuddling, Brennan had a much more enthusiastic partner for playing trains, and Mommy and Daddy got to eat a quiet meal in a restaurant. Here's Lucie with Grambo, enjoying a warm day at the playground.
Brennan discovered a new game that same day - Make Daddy Bury My Legs in the Sand. In fact, it was such a good game some other little boy demanded to join in. No, I can not tell you who he is or why he is wearing lederhosen, but I can tell you his mom seemed relieved that he was bugging somebody else for a bit.
Next was Uncle Gavin and his lady friend, Amy. It was Amy's first trip to San Francisco, so I had a chance to play tourist, too. We had coffee at Cafe Trieste in North Beach, climbed up Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower, wandered Chinatown, and enjoyed some classic SF weather - chilly, cloudy, AND rainy.
Brennan made his uncle play trains, fix his dump truck, read stories, and get up earlier than he probably wanted to.

This doesn't really qualify as a book review, but look how cool - it's Harry by the Sea in Chinese. I popped into the children's library at the Sunset branch of the SFPL and briefly made an ass of myself by asking the young Chinese guy at the desk for little kid's books in Cantonese. After he explained to me that Cantonese was a spoken dialect, not written, he kindly steered me toward the correct shelves, where I picked out a handful of books based on the pictures. (They also have Madeline, but I wasn't sure if Bren would like it.) He recognizes these books are different from his others, and only for Mei to read.

He's pretty adept at studying baby behavior, too. When I initially put Lucie down for tummy time, I explained to him she was practicing holding her head up - now when I put a blanket down on the floor, he says he wants to "practice too". He lays down next to her and proceeds to bob his head up and down, open mouthed, and lick the blanket, just like his little sister. It's tough to photograph, however.

Speaking of tough to photograph, a friend requested a photo of me and my tiny circus, and more or less dared me to get everyone looking at the camera. I got pretty close, but the dog let me down -
coming up, more visitors....!

Two Months

Well hello there, my darling admirers! Don't I look marvelous in pink?

Good thing she does, because about 70% of her wardrobe is pink in some way or another. It's getting easier to get happy baby pictures, now that Lucie is settling into life on this planet. In fact, it's ridiculously easy to get her to smile, as long as she knows she is getting my full attention. Probably because she gets it so infrequently. Kidding. Sort of.
Here she is at 2 months, a little bigger and a little less floppy. I think Brennan was at school - or maybe napping - because otherwise he would have insisted on joining in.

I've also been asked how my "third child" is doing, to which I respond that Michael is doing fine and has gotten much better at picking up his socks, and then realize that they are asking about the dog. Roux doesn't seem to have taken the loss of her spot on the couch too personally, but she would like to get out more. We had a special Roux & Mommy afternoon 2 weeks ago, when I realized the nanny was coming and I didn't have a doctor's appointment/pediatrician's appointment/ grocery list/pile of maternity clothes to get rid of/tax prep to do/etc/etc. And I wondered, what did I used to do, back when I had a young dog and no kids?
So we went hiking in Marin, because the other adult in the house reacts to word "hike" with the psychological equivalent of hives. Roux and I had a great time, AND I didn't lose her over a cliff.

But don't worry, there's still plenty of rainy weather to trap us inside and read books - here's more Mommy and Daddy Book Reviews:

This joined the library as part of the half-hearted "let's start potty-training" effort - it features a bunch of baby animals reassuring their parents they have already pooped, and a bunch of lift-flaps to allow the reader to play "where's the poop?",

thus the title. ("Where's the poop?" is also a game Roux likes to play in our little backyard, but we don't much care for it.) The penguin's poop is a mildly disturbing shade of coral, in case you were wondering.
This is Brennan's slowly disintegrating copy of "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go", AKA "Goldbug" (per Bren), AKA "The Bane of the Bedtime Routine" and "Thanks a LOT, Auntie Kris" (per Mommy and Daddy). This has been a big favorite even before he could talk, and he will pick out every night for weeks on end, making us resort to hiding it just to get a break from the meandering pig family. There was a blissful period where he was only interested in finding Goldbug on every page - but it didn't last. Weirdly, he likes to tear the pages on occasion, despite it being his favorite.

This is one is Mommy's fault. It appears to be a charming picture book about a dog and a frog, but it turns out to be the saddest little kids' book I've ever read. City Dog meets Country Frog in the spring, and follows their friendship through the seasons, until winter comes, at which point any student of biology knows: uh-oh. Bren points to City Dog, sitting alone in the snow on Country Frog's rock, and says, "Doggie's sad" while Mommy or (especially) Daddy fight back tears. Of course, he wants to read this one all the time, too.

The Thomas Report: Grambo (Grandma Lorna) sent a pack of Thomas stickers, finding a clever way around my "please no more trains" request. That Grambo, she's a wily one. Brennan enjoyed sticking an entire sheet to himself, which slowly shedded around the house and I spent the rest of the week finding fragments of Thomas & Friends on my socks, the dog, etc.
Someone had a breakthrough at the YMCA "Jungle Gym" last week, discovering the bouncy house is great fun for, you know, bouncing, instead of sitting down and crying, which is how he used to react. So we went again this week - it was packed this time, with several full-grown Mommies bouncing, and a tackle-crazy slightly older boy. I thought it looked like Ultimate Fighting in there, but Brennan loved it.

Almost as much as he loves visiting the fire department-