The Lucy Files: July 29, 2007

It’s high time to get caught up with some of Lucy’s most recent accomplishments and antics.

* The biggest news is that Lucy is a full-fledged toddler now! She is walking all over the place, as well as attempting to climb various objects. The first day she was truly walking (not just taking random steps) was Friday, July 27. It was dramatic how the lightbulb really went on for her. When she really gets going, she’ll walk several steps, then bend over for her downward-facing-dog style crawl, then stand up again for more steps. Too cute!
* Lucy has been experimenting with scowling since early July. She’ll look at you and lower her brows fit to scorch your eyelashes — although most of the time she doesn’t seem to really mean it.
* Recently (since early July) she’s started to actually hug her stuffed animals and give them big grins. One of her favorite inanimate hug-recipient is the Lucy-sized lamb we call Jumbo, along with Piggy Lou. Lucy has also been giving us arms-around-the-neck hugs, as opposed to her usual arms-down “tuck and snuggle”:/news/2007/happy-mothers-day-mama/ hug. She is just a huggable little girl!
* Mama has just begun to accept the fact that, about two-thirds of the way through any grocery trip, Lucy will figure out a way to turn around, kneel on the shopping cart seat, and greet fellow customers. How she does this while being snugly strapped in with seatbelts we will never know. She looks like she is standing on the quarterdeck of a ship, surveying the world about her. Aye-aye, matey!
* One of Lucy’s new favorite toys is a clear glass jar with a silver teakettle whistle in it. She loves to screw the lid on the jar, then unscrew it, then get the whistle out, then put it back in, then screw the lid on the jar, etc. Who knew Lucy would love this so much? I think it was invented when one of her parents was on the phone.
* Speaking of the phone, this is another one of Lucy’s favorite toys. She just can’t get enough of the “cordless phone”:/news/2007/cordless/. After weeks of allowing her brief moments with it (while trying to make sure she didn’t dial 911), Mama gave Lucy one of the handsets after the battery had run out. It is just as much fun, if not more. Lucy loves to put it up to her ear, and then she hands it to us to talk. Do you think she has a future in telecommunications? We are grateful that our neighbors, Jack and Mary, just gave us an old, non-working cordless handset for Lucy’s permanent use — so we can have our working phone back!
* Lucy’s naps have been a little crazy, most likely due to her focus on walking. For three days last week, she refused to take her morning nap (very unlike her). So, we have been experimenting with just one nap. But it’s not going so well. She seems to be able to stay up happily all through the morning, but then when naptime arrives, she is a bit overtired and doesn’t sleep for very long. Today she napped in the afternoon for only 30 minutes! “Too short”:/news/2007/sleep-bank/ for baby *and* her parents. We are going to give the morning nap another go tomorrow and see what happens.
* Lucy has been saying, “Uh-oh,” with a lovely extended glottal stop. She says it whenever she drops something, and sometimes even before she drops it, as if in warning. She has also been working on “hi,” which had previously been coming out as “ha” for a few weeks. Today, she seems to have mastered that diphthong, and we got a lot of very cute “hi” greetings this afternoon while our friend Lydia was visiting. We think she says half of the word “duck” (the first half), and she is quite proficient at making buzzing bee and ruff-ruffing dog sounds.

As our friend “Jane”:http://www.ramonamae.com/ recently said, Lucy is forty pounds of cute in a twenty pound bag.