Jonah's Birth Story

Let’s start this story a bit earlier in the day. The later times are the few bullet points Craig was able to jot down during the crazy process that was Jonah’s birth.

11am – Midwife appointment. I’m 5 days “late” but baby and I are both doing well so we talk about a few natural induction methods but decide to wait until next Monday to do anything. As we leave, midwife mentions that walking is an easy one without any real side effects so I might try taking a little walk this afternoon since the weather was so nice anyway.

4:00 – After we all take a nice long nap, we go on another 0.8 mile hike. I have a few contractions during the walk but not anything different from the previous 3 weeks.

9:00 – Lucy took a longer nap than usual so bedtime is late but she finally falls asleep.

9:20 - Craig makes some cookies from my freezer dough stash and I get my pajamas on so we can watch Covert Affairs together.

~10:05 – Mid episode, I have my first serious contraction without any warning so I grab his arm. It ends and I go to the bathroom and come back and say “I think that was the real thing” to which he replies “What?” Apparently, he didn’t recognize my arm grabbing as a sign of pain but just thought I wanted him to stop blocking the computer screen. I try to lay down but have another contraction and say I want the show off. He counters with “there’s only 5 minutes left” but the tone in my voice repeating my “suggestion “ to turn it off lets him know I mean it. I’m already freaking out and head to the bathroom again where he finds me sprawled over the sink. I don’t know why I think that is a good place to relax so he gets me back to our room, takes off the top layer of our bed to get down to the labor layer just in time for another contraction. He is trying to time them but I’m not being helpful with letting him know when they stop and start since I’m already overwhelmed and shaking. Then I say “I don’t think I can do this Craig” and he jokes that I it’s only been 10 minutes, I can’t be in transition yet. Oh, if we only knew!

10:25 – He finally gets two contractions recorded, they are ~40 seconds long and about 3 minutes apart.

10:30 - Craig calls our midwife with the update and she says she’s heading right out and then he texts “Neighbor J” to tell her to be on standby and start praying. (She is our Lucy-care but since Lucy is asleep, she’s just going to wait unless we tell her we need her help)

10:40 – I start feeling a lot of pressure. I never felt the urge to push last time so this was new to me, but I knew it meant something.  All those ladies out there who have labored will understand how time doesn’t quite seem to make sense while you’re in labor but I was pretty sure this was fast so I asked Craig when he called the midwife and he said “about 10 minutes ago” and I know that I’m not going to be able to hold off pushing until she gets here. The next contraction, I’m pushing. It’s not a “Oh, I think I feel like push and so now I will” but a “my body is pushing whether I want to or not” kinda thing.

10:45 – Craig sees water bag start to crown. Then the head is out. I’m not having a contraction but there is still a lot of pressure and I’m in pain. The bag hasn’t broken and we aren’t really sure what we’re supposed to do so he calls the midwife to inquire as to her whereabouts and she tells him to break the bag. After this, I feel a lot better and the next contraction, baby comes out with Craig’s assistance. Craig grabs the baby and helps me hold it in a towel but baby only lets out a tiny little meow of a cry and is looking a bit blue. Craig is relaying information to me from the midwife while searching for the snot bulb. I’m rubbing baby’s feet and praying aloud.

Finally, with a little help from Craig and the blue bulb, baby starts to really cry and pink up. And as much as I know that this happens and it isn’t totally unusual for a baby to take a minute to respond, and it really probably was only a minute, there is a huge difference between waiting a minute with a skilled midwife and her expertise, tools and container of oxygen right there and waiting that minute all alone with your husband and baby and I will tell you that it was the longest minute of my life.

But eventually he did cry – and cry – and cry. In fact, he cried for the next 30 minutes. But a pink crying baby is so much better than a blue quiet baby so I didn’t even care.  We finally take a minute to find out baby is a boy!  Midwife (still on the phone) gives Craig a few more instructions then says she’ll see us in a few minutes.

11:00 - Craig helps me get settled and we hang tight then eventually realize we should look at the time and both guess that is has been at least 10 minutes since baby Jonah was born. In case you’ve lost track of time, that’s about 45 minutes between “I think I’m in labor” and “Oh, here’s a baby!” 45 minutes!

While that might sound good on paper, let me assure you that it is not. The only way to describe a 45-minute labor is brutal. Actually, it’s not the only way, but it’s the only way I can do so while avoiding the type of language I do not use.  I do not recommend a 45-minute labor, for a variety of reasons.

11:10 – Midwife arrives (after being pulled over by a cop on the way (she only got a warning)) and Jonah is nice and pink (and still crying :-) and I’m ready to “finish things up” with some cord cutting and third stage stuff right. Then I get prepped for stitches again right as the midwife’s assistant arrives. I was hoping to avoid tearing this time but they weren’t as bad as last time so I only needed three stitches and if you’re gonna have a baby that fast, there is bound to be some collateral damage.  During my stitches, Lucy wakes up and needs to potty but once she sees people, she’s up. She’s not at all interested in the baby but is quite content to sit in the living room and watch her Pooh video despite the commotion in our bedroom.

11:30-1 - Craig makes me French toast and Lucy moves in to eat and watch Pooh on our bed with me and Jonah while everyone else cleans up and fetches me anything I think I could need. Then Jonah gets weighed and measured, the midwives go over some details with us then head out.

1-2:30 – Craig and Jonah are exhausted but Lucy and I are wired up. Finally, I get her to lie down with me in her bed and she falls asleep. I come back to daddy and baby and decide to join them.

While I don’t think this is a birth experience I would like to repeat anytime soon, I also feel like God was definitely watching out for us. I had two big worries about the birth. The first was that Craig was working nights this month and the idea of going into labor without him was very scary. Since nighttime is the more common labor time, it seemed likely this might happen. I tried to tell myself that he could be home in 30 minutes and that should be plenty of time, but it wouldn’t have been. The 20^th was the last of his nights off and the next four nights he would have been away and I can’t even imagine this happening without him. He was pretty much the most awesome labor coach ever. I was completely freaking out but at least my body was doing what it needed to on its own. He had to actually think and act rationally and he did. He seemed really calm to me both while comforting me and talking to our midwife.  And this from the guy who doesn’t even like to be the one to cut the cord!  

My second worry was Lucy and what would be going on with her.  As I mentioned, we had plans with Neighbor J but I still was worried. But when you give birth in under an hour, even a poor sleeper has a good chance of sleeping through it!

And I think it makes a pretty good story, don’t ya think?

It's a ...

BOY!

Jonah Maxwell 

Born Sept 20th @ 10:50pm

8lbs

20in

Yep, still here

But unlike last week, I'm feeling pretty good so I can post without bringing everyone down with my moppiness. I have  more energy this week but mostly, I've started to have fun. I figure if I'm "overdue*" I can let things go and use the energy I do have to do fun stuff, the bathroom can wait - a couple months :-)

We did have a bit of a mini-"emergency" when I woke up from a nap on Saturday with pink eye. I'm one of those people who gets pink eye if anyone in the room even mentions it. It was really bad when I was a substitute teacher in elementary schools, I got it about once a month. But luckily, it was pretty clear this time that it was viral and I know what to do so I managed to keep it contained to that one eye and now it's gone (although I'm staying away from contacts for anther day or two just to make sure). Can you imagine Lucy having pink eye and wanting to be around my newborn? Or a newborn with pink eye? Ack!

But other than that, we just had fun this weekend. We went on a family hike. It wasn't long, just 0.8 mile but the path is really neat and Lucy had a blast finding acorns, berries, a mushroom and more pods and I actually enjoyed it, probably because the weather was nice and I wasn't sweating glowing the whole time. We did get lapped twice, by a couple walking their dog which sadly, was a dachshund. Really? Those things have legs the size of my fingers, how fast can they walk! But Craig did stop to show things to Lucy and she walked almost the whole way herself so let's blame them and not me and my waddling, okay.

Me, one day before I was "due" making pretzels and yes, I'm actually smiling!

Speaking of dachshund, one of Lucy's new favorite book is "Pretzel"** but I wasn't sure she even knew why he was called that since her only experience with pretzels is the little sticks from the grocery store - so we made pretzels. That recipe makes a lot but Craig had a potluck at work that night so it worked out just right and he said they were quite popular there too. I might try making them again but forming the letters of the alphabet since I'm pretty sure that would make Lucy's day. (Also, you don't have to have a thermometer, I didn't, just make sure the milk/butter is warm but not hot enough to hurt you if you stick your finger in it for a few minutes. Too hot and you'll kill your yeast)

Lucy's enjoying her pretzel.

I also did a bit of fall preparation. I kinda bribed myself by saying if I made it to my due date sans baby, I would do some fall decorating. Fall is my favorite season but the last few years have been crazy so I haven't really been able to decorate like I would have wanted to and I figured this year would be the same but no, I made stuff happen this year! This wreath is a combination of these two pinterest finds. The felt flowers are on clips so I can take them off and put other season items on the burlap wreath.

Lucy and I also made a craft pumpkin - same concept as this but a pumpkin. It was fun to do it again because this time, she was able to cut all but the brown paper herself before she got tired. 

And I decorated a side table

although yes, there should be a candle in there. I need to go to Hobby Lobby and buy one of those fake e-candle. I like the look of candles but never really burn them so why not go fake - especially with kids around. In all, the decorations only took two nights to do which was good since Craig is working nights now and I like having little projects around for the evenings. They cost about $10 in all (well, except for the pottery barn pumpkins but those where a gift from a few years ago. I absolutely love them but Craig would have had a heart attack if I bought them for myself).

I'm hoping Lucy and I will have time to do another fun fall project to add more "preschool fall flare" look to the house but even now, I feel much more festive.

 In fact, getting that done inspired me to do what I'd been putting off - the big seasonal clothes switch! I was dreading this because she doesn't like change and sure enough, she resisted the whole idea at first and hated every single outfit I showed her but once she had them on, I would send her off to look in the mirror and she would come back saying how pretty she was and how we should keep this one. Then I waited till she was in the other room to pack up the old stuff and haul it down to the basement so we avoided disaster. And I think we are finally to the point where she can wear pants and still make it to the potty on time. For some reason, her summer shorts were all harder for her to take off but her fall stuff is mostly dresses and looser waisted pants. Yah! 

*Yes, I'm past my due date but I'm not really overdue until 42 weeks. And while Lucy came on her due date, that was the more accurate due date I had from charting and was actually 4-5 days after the plug and chug due date the "magical" wheel gave me. This time, I didn't have the more accurate info but I would not be surprised if it was really 4-5 days after the 15th so I don't even feel like I'm "more pregnant" than I was with Lucy. I mean, I really ready to meet my baby but I'm not stressing. 

** Confession - I don't really like books by the Rays (Curious George and Katy No-pocket are some others). I almost wish they were twaddle because there is something that always strikes me as odd - "I don't care for long dogs? I will (marry you) but not for your length? Weird. 

Why we have a 1st Amendment

I am rather perturbed by the event depicted in this Quickmeme:



Here is a news report of what happened, but Glenn Reynolds has a better description:

By sending — literally — brownshirted enforcers to engage in — literally — a midnight knock at the door of a man for the non-crime of embarrassing the President of the United States and his administration, President Obama violated that oath. You can try to pretty this up (It’s just about possible probation violations! Sure.), or make excuses or draw distinctions, but that’s what’s happened. It is a betrayal of his duties as President, and a disgrace.

I wouldn't go so far as to say this (the hauling into the police station of the man who supposedly made the "Innocence of Muslims" film) happened in response to embarrassment of the President, but it was indeed "deputies assisting the federal probation department" who carried this out. In other words, it was the feds.

The probation violation excuse is indeed a fig leaf to explain what is an act of intimidation and warning to other provocateurs. It dilutes the impact of statements like that of SecState Clinton, who said, "...we do not stop individual citizens from expressing their views no matter how distasteful they may be." How does it look when this happens two days after Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi  "asked Obama to 'to put an end to such behavior?'" We are told that the protesters don't understand that, in America, government doesn't control speech, and thus that when they see this video, they assume the US government authorized it. Well, what does it tell those people when they see this photo? Eugene Volokh makes a point to this effect.

It is easy to say, in this case, "Oh, this video is stupid, he shouldn't have made it." But it takes a lot less than this to set off riots. Recall the reaction to the Danish Muhammed cartoons a few years back. Or this: "Since Mubarak's fall, several churches have been attacked by mobs, stoked in part by hard-line Islamic clerics warning that Christians were trying to convert Muslim women or trying to take over the country." Attempting to find a line that we can stay behind, speech-wise, to prevent such outrage in the Middle East would amount to slowly painting ourselves into a corner of silence.

On a related note, we are told that the causation of the current conflagrations is: video posted to Youtube --> video translated to Arabic --> riots. That assumes that this video just organically went viral, like a Rebecca Black song or something, but that is unlikely. It is certain that this video was promoted widely by those who are eager to incite riots. We know it appeared on an Egyptian TV station, which would have exposed many people to it for the first time.

Here is the video that is said to have set everything off (note: I haven't watched it). I applaud Google for refusing the White House's request (ahem) to consider taking it down from Youtube in this country (they have restricted access to it in some countries)

The things she says

I think I'm just going to have to keep a running post like this and post them whenever they get long enough because this kid is a hoot.

August 2012

About a month ago, she started calling us "my dear." The first time was when I asked her to call her dad to dinner and she ran up to him and said "Time to eat, my dear!" As far as I know, neither Craig or I call each other that but she must have heard it somewhere.

Turkey roll-ups are one of her favorite snacks, it's just a slice of turkey with cream cheese, rolled up. Recently she noticed that the when she pulls the drain on the bath water, it also makes a spiral shape so now when she is ready to get out of the bath (or I tell her it's time) she says "Turkey roll up!'" and stands there waiting for the spiral to appear. I've tried to explain that yes, it's a SPIRAL just like a turkey roll up but she couldn't care less about using another term when turkey roll up works just fine. This all happened when Craig was on night shift and I was the only one doing baths but last week he gave her one and I didn't think to mention it to him but later I asked him about it and he started laughing because he hadn't been able to understand why she kept going on about them when he had already told her we were out of turkey!

We had been working on Craig doing more of the not-as-much fun stuff with Lucy to get her used to when mommy is busy with the baby (help with potty, getting drinks, bathtime, etc) and she was fine until Craig was gone at night and I had to take it back. She got "spoiled" and started protesting daddy's help again. After a long battle (that I wouldn't have picked had I known how long it would be but once we were in, we were in) I think we've broken through that but she still brings it up so I wasn't surprised when she started telling me "tumtimes mommy gives me a bath but 'tumtimes daddy does and dat's okay'" but I was caught off guard when she added "...but I prefer mommy."I actually had her repeat it a few times before I realized she was saying "prefer"...where does she get these words?

We've added bible memory time to our lunch routine and she really loves it. A few days ago we were reading her current verse, Phillippians 2:14-15 (Do everything without complaining or arguing...). She said it back to me then I asked her what it meant (we've already been over it the day before). She said it meant no whining then told me we needed to tell that verse to Eeyore. True!

She asked me to tell her a poem so I picked up one of her poem books and was going to read one but she said "No, talk about it with your mouth!" After a minute I realized she wanted me to just tell her one. Now she uses that expression, or it's shortened version "Talk about it" when she wants us to tell her a story or "read" a book by talking about the pictures, not by reading the exact text.

We were outside playing and as usual, it was quite hot, when all of a sudden, a cloud gave us some welcome relief from the sun's rays. Lucy's didn't skip a beat, turned to me and said in a very serious tone, "Oh, mommy, I just love this weather."

September 2012

Another time we were outside, she started yelling so I looked up to see her standing with a flower in each hand, arms out as far forward as they could go, while she screamed "Bees, come get the nectarine to make me honey!"

Lucy was playing on the floor when Craig walked into the room singing "If I only had a brain.." and when she looked up at him and smiled, he sang the same line but said "If Lucy only had a brain." She immediately replied in a matter-of-fact tone  "Daddy, I do have a brain, it's in my head!"

Lucy and I were walking on a nearby hiking trail when we found this neat pod thing, but when she asked me what it was, I told her I didn't know. She is at the oh-so-fleeting stage of life where she thinks her daddy knows everything she told me we would ask him when we got home. Just then another group walked by and one lady said hi to Lucy and asked her what she had in her hand. Lucy doesn't normally talk very much to strangers but she looked right up at her and said, in a somewhat annoyed tone, "Well, I don't know, I'm going to have to ask my daddy." I don't think she really meant to be rude but it certainly came out that way much to my chagrin. Oh boy, the joy of a talking toddler with a high vocabulary and a low filter :-)

Sidenote: Craig didn't know what the pod was either but a quick google image search led us to sycamore pod, not to be confused (although it often is) with a sweet gum pod which we found on our next hike. Fun times with nature!

At this age, Daddy not only knows everything but he can fix everything too. Have you ever tried convincing a child that it is okay to eat her broken cookie and that is really won't work to save her broken cookie until daddy comes home and can fix it with tape. It's not as easy as you would think.

Shed Up

As part of our ongoing hail-recovery efforts, we replaced our garden shed. Before the hail, this is what we had:

It was already pretty beat-up before the late April storm, so I was pleasantly surprised that the insurance adjuster added it to his list of damages. I guess it had a few hail dents in it, on top of the previous wear-and-tear.

So to prepare for the purchase of a new shed, I tore this one down, which didn't take too much effort.

 

After shopping around at the local shed yards, we went with Tuff Shed, a brand displayed at Home Depot. Specifically, we went with this model. The amount of money the insurance company gave us for the old shed was enough for us to upgrade from a metal to a wooden shed. This shed was less expensive than the shed yard models, and is delivered in pieces and put together on-site, which in the case of our yard is easier than delivering a complete shed.

Here is our new shed. When ordering the shed, a number of options were offered for additional cost. I declined the painting option (they paint it for you for $200) and took care of that myself.

I also declined the pegboard option, and hung up a pegboard I had lying around.

I also made a garden tool holder. I forget where I saw this idea, but I cut slices off of a PVC pipe to make individual tool slots (I pounded in nails to hold a couple of the tools).

One option I opted for is two vents. If you look above the door in the shed photo above, you can see one of them. There is another one on the other side. I thought about increasing ventilation by adding a ridge vent, or cutting down solar radiation by adding barrier panels to the ceiling inside the shed. But the salespeople advised me that the vents were sufficient. I kind of wish I had done the ridge vent, though, as the vents don't seem to do much to cool it down.

 

Still here

I'm still here, still pregnant. You know, just in case you were thinking that maybe we secretly had a baby three days ago but didn't want anyone to know.

I just haven't posted because, in what is a very uncommon experience for me, I don't have anything to say. At least not anything that isn't super cranky. And I feel bad enough for subjecting Craig to my crankiness, I don't need to feel bad for you guys too.

But if you really really want to pray for me, you can. It's not that I'm two days away from my due date but still pregnant, I know that is statistically very common and both baby and I are doing fine so no worries there. It's more that -

1) I've been having serious contractions for two full weeks at this point. Last tuesday I was at 10-15 minute spread for 8 hours, went to bed but still woke up 3-4 times during the night with hard contactions then at 6am, they stopped. Physically, it's not the worse but mentally, it's rough.

2) I have insomnia. I can sleep for the first 3-4 hours of every night but I wake up around 2 and can't sleep anymore but too tired to move. I don't function well on 4 hours of sleep at a normal time of my life so I'll just let you imagine what this is doing to me. And it takes me about an hour at naptime to fall asleep so that means I get about 20 minutes before Lucy wakes up.

3) I'm having a weird nesting thing where I basically don't want to be around anyone. I want it to be very quiet and I don't want anyone touching me. This is probably exacerbated by the above two circumstances but no matter what the reason, considering my profession as a SAHM to a toddler, it's a bit of a joke. It's taking 200% of the patience that I don't currently have to deal with Lucy which is frustrating because she's being a real sweet heart lately - but as sweet as it is for her to want to snuggle on my non-existence lap and pet my face, I don't want her touching me!

So there is me, trying not to share my crankiness with you. Hopefully the next post you see will have some cute smooshy baby face pictures and not more whining, for both your sake and mine.

Our current rhythm

For a while I struggled to maintain any sort of daily routine, mostly because our days were so different when we were home and when we were at my parents and we were always transitioning. But sadly, we haven't had that "problem" for a while now and once I got over the whole morning sickness thing this spring, we did easily find our rhythm.

I wrote it down a few days ago so that Craig could have some idea of what Lucy is used to when he plays "Mr. Mom" post-baby. Some of this he knows because I try to keep meals and nap at the same time on his days off but we're pretty flexible so even that isn't consistent - hmm, perhaps that's why we always struggle with a cranky toddler on Sundays? But I thought it would be a neat thing to record for posterity's sake.

A day in our life

 (*Craig's night shift schedule edits)

~6:30 (Can vary from 6-7:30, Lucy will wake up when I do so I have absolutely no incentive to wake up before her and even though her bedtime is consistent, her mornings aren't).

Breakfast and kitchen clean-up/Daddy to bed

Story time on the couch (~20 minutes or however long it takes to read every single library book we've checked out)

Mommy showers, gets dressed, makes my bed

Lucy gets dressed and makes her bed

Start load laundry

Outside play (In the heat of the summer, we moved this to immediately after breakfast as it was too hot to be outside after 8:30 or so. Once it starts to get cooler, I'll try to move it to a later "free play" time)

~9:00/9:30 Snack (If she is staaaarrrving at a non-snack time, she is allowed fruit)

Activity of the day (M = cleaning day, T = library and story time, W/R = "school time")

Craig is about to start working weekends so this will be all messed up. I thought we would keep the same days just shift (the first day daddy works we clean, the second we go to the library, etc) but now she knows the days of the week so that won't work and like a typical toddler she tends to get really upset when little things like this are "wrong"- wish me luck!

Free play

11:00 Lunch

Bible - We got over our bible memory verses together

Work book - If she requests it...but she always does :-)

Free play

1:00 Naptime 2 books/chapters, goodnight

2:30-3:30 Wake up/Daddy included

Snack

Free play/Family play

Daily tidy up/Make dinner

5:30-6:00 - Daddy's home!/Daddy's already home probably playing with Lucy outside while I cook

6:00 Dinner

Family time/Daddy get's ready for work

7:00 Start bedtime routine: Bath, Jammies, Teeth, 2 books/chapters, goodnight/Daddy leaves for work

8:00-8:30 - Asleep

I was really worried about how Craig's being on night shift would affect us but that ended up being a really easy transition, for Lucy and I at least, so I'm guessing weekend work will be less messy than I'm expecting too. And obviously this whole routine will change when baby arrives but I hope to keep the timed events (nap, meals, etc) consistent. We'll see what little dewey thinks about that :-)

Also, all the "free times" make me laugh because it sounds like Lucy's just playing while I can do things  on my own but that is rarely the case. Free time often means "Mommy, let's read a book," "Mommy, help me do a puzzle" and "Mommy, play a game with me." But that's just life with a not-so-independent 2 year old, right?

Toddler Tuesday: Mat Work

I've said before that I'm not a stickler for educational rules and theories. I like Montessori a lot but have no problems completely throwing out ideas that I don't think will work for us. But there are other ideas that I want to incorporate, but it just takes me a while to get to them. Work mats was one of those areas.

The idea of the Montessori mat is to give children a defined space to work. It helps them maintain order and gives them a way to save projects if they have to stop for some reason.

Mommy and Me time (reusing an older picture from the rowing Good night moon post - I'm even bigger now, haha!)

I just gave Lucy a work mat about two months ago and regret not having started earlier. She loves her mat and takes such good care of it - rolling it up and putting it away when she isn't using it and always saying "on my mat mommy" if we start to play something. I thought she would only use it for more "school' type but it is just as likely to have a tea set on it as a pouring set or counting work. I guess that makes sense because in her mind they are all "games." 

Color Tablet Fun - She figured out her pom-poms matched by herself and just had to include them so they are now a permanent part of the color tablet tray

I love it too. I really do see a difference in her play/work when she is using it. For more school-type activities, she can focused longer and keep things lined up nice and tidy. And it helps control the chaos that occurs during playtime. We've always had a "one toy at a time" rule and when it is just her and me at home she follows it  pretty well (when Craig is home it doesn't seem to work as well, probably because I am not as consistent with her - bad mommy). The mat helps reinforce that idea. If her mat is full, she has to pick up before she can get something else out. This is especially useful now that the rule is evolving into a "one game" at a time rule as she is engaging in more imaginative play and often plays with toys together - uses her blocks to make tables, chairs and beds for her duplo people or using her pattern pieces as pretend food. As long as it is still relatively contained by the mat, she is fine.

She's showing me her duplo town...a great example of what I consider "relatively contained"

Currently her mat is a small ikea rug that used to be in our kitchen. I believe it cost $3. It isn't quite ideal according to Montessori standards because it has a slight pattern but its red on red and I don't think it really detracts from her games/work. It was an ideal size to start with because it is fairly easy for her to manage on her own but she will also need a larger one though as several of her new tot school activities won't fit on the red one. But I've got plans so stay tuned!

This picture is basically here to prove that Lucy doesn't always run around in her undies - just most of the time :-)