A Beautiful Mind

I’m on a roll with the movie titles. So, her 18th month birthday came and went with little fanfare. Poor Lucye. We planned to make a cake—even bought the fixings, but that never happened. She did get a few gifts however. She always does in these kinds of movies.

That was a Sunday. On Thursday, she had her doctor’s visit for the shots. She has a record of “difficult” visits, and in fact, I think they have marked her file (hee hee).
This time, she did pretty good. No vomiting on the doctor, no screaming (until the shots), and she was quite, well…"energetic" if you will. When the doctor attempted to exam her (Lucye had other ideas), the doc stated “Well, she certainly has a mind of her own.”

Robert decided that visit was much like a Seinfeld episode. What, exactly, did she mean by that comment? She probably examines 20 babies a day. It was reminiscent of the doctor calling both the ugly baby and Elaine “breathtaking.” Was her comment good or bad? Above is a picture of her. You be the judge…

The Crying Game

Ever see this movie from the 80’s about the Irish Republican Army? If so, you are probably asking yourself what on earth this has to do with a picture of Lucye…Nothing…I just liked the title because it was also the title of our life for about a week or so. We finally “did it”…the modified cry out. This picture was taken just a few days before her 18 month doctor visit at the Christian church Pumpkin Patch on Spalding (our annual trip to the Berry Patch Farms didn’t happen because it rained the night before and we didn’t want to get out there in the mud).

Anyway, the doc convinced me that I needed a life after dark (enter your own vampire comment here), and my entire nights shouldn’t be spent rocking the baby to sleep and being her crutch and "soother" all night long either. So we did it. And, amazingly enough…it worked! My family will be thrilled. Cruel as it may sound, it only took a few really tough nights of her crying herself to sleep in the beginning. Now, she goes down in an instant, and I’m free! Why didn’t I do this before? Well, I have no regrets…I loved holding her every night (ok, maybe my back wasn’t so thrilled) and rocking her in the glider until she was fast asleep, and I just wasn’t ready to let go of my precious baby I guess. What do I do with my newly acquired hours you might ask? Sleep, of course!

KissTrips Trip

10-4-08 Somewhere off West Sandtown Road, Parts Unknown

Matthew double-clicks the Internet Explorer button while setting down his sippy cup. He finds the Favorites menu and selects Lucye.net. “It must be here…we must have made the blog,” he mutters under his stinky formula breath. Addie laughs at him in the background. Kate yells “HA! After the way you treated Lucye this weekend, I bet she never writes about you.” Matthew throws a Cheerio at her and says “Ahhh, what do you know about women, Kate? They love it when you ignore them.”
And so it goes….If you haven’t already guessed, we visited the Kisselburgs at their home this past weekend. After driving for more than 30 minutes on the interstate, Lucye decided to take a nap as we got off at their exit, of course. So we toured their subdivision so she could have a 30-minute nap before the fun started. Us late?
We were so excited to see their new Southern mansion and we weren’t disappointed. Quite the stately manor! And a yard our Anna-dog would envy, so it was a good thing she didn’t make the trip with us.
The KissTrips were awake and ready to play. We toured the house and let the tots play—that means Lucye attempted to kiss all the “babies” (they are 14 months) and got only a little push back on occasion. She also fell in love with a penguin figurine. Go figure. And the shoes came off, as usual. The KissTrips found them for her though, and I heard one say “Keds are my favorite flavor” between bites.
Then we strolled the neighborhood. A neighbor attacked Scott (they always do in these kinds of movies) and solicited help moving a dresser in their house. Since the wife was 9 months preggers, we understood. And clearly, Scott has nothing but free time these days with only a full-time job and three little ones. Seriously, he was happy to help. But I didn’t hear Robert offering…hmmmm. Think he was too busy trying to stop Isabel (the neighbor’s little girl) from touching Lucye. Izzy told us she had an eye infection or some such. These things freak us out, as you might imagine. We couldn’t think clearly.
Back at the house, we had to say good-bye after Lucye decided to step on the cat’s tail. This was after she hugged it. She hugs everything soft. Hear that Matthew? Your day will come. That is if you aren’t running in the opposite direction!