lucy’s first breakfast was granola. henry had some granola, too.

lucy loves going next door to take care of their chickens. she can’t stop talking about every single thing we do.

second breakfast was weetabix crusted cinnamon french toast. everyone ate well. lucy didn’t even ask for syrup, though it was on the table. on her last piece, she kept taking a bite, then holding it up and asking what it looked like.

more yard work. lucy used her plastic shovel to fill her little plastic wheelbarrow with mulch alongside me doing the same with the full sized version. she was very helpful to harley doing other garden chores. then she fell into a muddy ‘pond’ in the yard that she’d been warned again and again to avoid. once she was hosed off and got dressed again, she went back out and got dirty again.

yesterday, prompted by something or other, I asked her what I should do if she and henry both wanted the last strawberry. she wouldn’t allow the question and said I should just get more strawberries. I tried again and again to stipulate that there were no more strawberries to be had, but she just said, “there’s a gillion strawberries!”

lunch was at a salad place. she ate veggies, beans, and pho soup. henry had mostly peas, corn, and bread. lucy had chocolate soft serve for dessert.

she put up a loud but brief fuss at naptime and was asleep almost immediately after harley left the room. 

henry crawled around the house.

I forgot to mention that for lunch on thursday, both kids ate heaps of tofu and some snap peas. lucy wanted her peas cut in the shapes of worms because she was being nemo and fish like worms. she also called the peas “dandelion stems” because fish also like the eat plants and apparently dandelion stems are better plant fish food than snap peas. both kids mostly liked the tofu, but lucy ate twenty peas to henry’s one.

the kids played with isabella, oliver, and lily in the front yard.

dinner was mexican. lucy had a bean and cheese burrito and some rice. henry had beans and cheese and rice, also.

bedtime story was ‘spread your wings and try’.

breakfast was breakfast burritos. lucy seems to like scrambled eggs these days. henry ate pretty well, too.

we went back out to yard work. henry either naps, or hangs out inside with one of us during the yard work. let loose outside, he likes to eat mulch.

lunch was at the farmers’ market. cheese, bread, and cherries. lucy ate pretty well. henry ate some of everything, but mostly bread.

after we ate, lucy played in the sandbox. emmett and his family were there. she’s been missing emmett and ran up to give him a hug, but he was not in the mood for hugs. she went in the bounce house, but some other kid pushed her and she complained that her knee hurt. didn’t want to put weight on it right after, but soon she was hopping up and down complaining about having to go home.

she wanted some peaches. ate most of one on the drive home.

nap was unwelcome, but it happened anyway. she woke up after about and hour and was upset. I asked if she wanted some water and she said she wanted to nurse. I took her down and harley offered to let her nurse, but she’d changed her mind by then.

watched a little tv.

afternoon snack was frozen yogurt chocolate milkshake. lucy ate about half of the small serving she was given, but loved it.

dinner was liver and onions and pearl couscous. henry loved the liver and still loves couscous. lucy tried everything, but really just ate couscous.

bedtime story was ‘the bee tree’.

lucy had waffles for breakfast.

we went to the neighbors’ to get info on how to look after their chickens while they’re out of town. lucy picked strawberries. harley was holding henry and he saw their dog and said “daw” which is the first time he’s said a word like that without being prompted first.

second breakfast was out. lucy had pancakes and a little fruit. henry had a little honeydew, toast, and some eggs.

lucy drew a bunch of bananas each of a different color and a monkey to eat them.

back at home we were out working in the yard for most of the day. lucy orbited around and played in the sandbox.

I was digging and offered her a little worm I’d found to take back to feed to the chickens. she wouldn’t pick it up. she did let me drop it in her hand, but dumped it right onto the ground. she came back with a little paper cup thing to carry it. a little later I offered her a slug and it was so slimy that she couldn’t even hold a cup with the slug in it. that slug and the next two worms we fed to the chickens next door.

we played a sort of new game based on ‘dinosaur train’. we more or less take turns playing ‘mr conductor’ and his mom, ‘mrs conductor’. his only real line is ‘mother’ said in a slightly southern accent. her’s is ‘sonny boy’. mostly she puts him to bed with a stuffed animal.

dinner was tortilla espanol. henry liked the eggs and lucy liked the potatoes. she also ate lots of green beans. henry ate one.

bedtime story was ‘spread your wings and try’.

we did a little cleaning around the house.

went to walnut park. henry slept some and crawled around some. he went down a short slide and couldn’t quite climb back up. lucy did lots of climbing and played in the sand.

lucy had a nap in the afternoon.

dinner was pizza and salad. henry still hates sitting in high chairs. he is happy enough to stand in them, but there are very few straps that can hold him through a whole meal.

the chickens’ favorite treat is still the pink flowers that lucy decided to feed them the first time they went outside. we have lots of them, so lucy feeds them some every day. lately she’s been wrapping the flowers in a leaf from the same plant and calling it a “pollito burrito.” ‘pollito’ is the spanish word for a baby chick.

bedtime story was ‘spread your wings and try’.

playgroup was at margaux’s.

lucy found some fallen magnolia leaves on the way in and wanted to bring them.

she had a banana for a snack. she and margaux played pretty well together. there was less of lucy shouting orders at margaux than there has been lately. there was some coloring.

lunch was pasta with broccoli. henry didn’t eat too much, but lucy ate ok.

lucy had lots of crying at nap time. said, “I want to leave here and never come here again!” once she went to bed, she slept well of course.

after nap, she did a craft. she drew a body, two legs, and a “drawers” for a person. they were not lined up in the shape of a person, but were intended to be cut out and glued in the correct shape on a separate sheet. in fact, she first wanted to glue four sheet of construction paper together to make a tall background.

henry and I did some dancing. he thinks it is incredibly fun.

snack was pretzels.

dinner was quesadillas.

lucy played with play-doh. she used some cookie cutters on her own. she rolled out some ‘spaghetti’ and rolled up some ‘peas’. I closed the playroom door so she could play without having to deal with henry. he played happily in the living room.

snack was cashews and raisins.

we went to the library. lucy used the computer. henry crawled around and spent some time pulling board books out of their shelf.

we went to trader joe’s. lucy helped me pick stuff out. she forgot to ask for stickers before we were done checking out. I was prepared to go back and let her ask for some, but she flipped out right away and yelled and stamped, so I swept her out instead. she complained all the way home and then complained some more once we were home.

lunch was pb&j. lucy had two sandwiches, though she only ate the crusts off the first one. she ever pointed out that she’d eaten the crusts when she was asking for the second sandwich. henry ate about a third of a sandwich.

both kids napped at the same time.

we watched a couple episodes of dinosaur train.

dinner was polenta with pesto. henry was a fan, lucy ate just a little. she had a couple glasses of milk after dinner since it is the only thing I’ll give her if she gives up on dinner.

bedtime story was ‘the cheese’, an adaptation of ‘the farmer in the dell’.

margaux, melisende, and amy came over playgroup. we all played inside the whole time. the girls got along pretty well. lucy tried to get margaux to play what she wanted how she wanted. sometimes margaux ran away instead and lucy chased her. this sometimes seemed like an intentional game of chase instigated by margaux and other times she seemed to be fleeing.

we walked down to an indian place for lunch. lucy had rice, naan, saag paneer, and galub jamun. henry mostly slept through lunch.

we stopped at a couple thrift stores after lunch. lucy picked out a little thing that was some leftovers from a small scrapbooking kit. it was wildly overpriced at one dollar, but she wanted it more than any of the books and I couldn’t pressure her. the lady saw that it was junk and gave it to her. at the next shop, she stayed in the stroller.

once we got home and it was clearly nap time, lucy tried stall by picking a fight about not getting a book she’d wanted. she did end up napping after a while.

henry seems to think that the purpose of sweeping a floor is to gather all the tasty stuff into one convenient pile for him to graze on.

harley explained a little bit of addition to lucy a few days ago. specifically she explained that two adults and two kids are four people and that two welsummers and two wyandottes is four chickens. lucy has mentioned two and two being four several times since then. this morning, I offered her a few different variations and she worked out all the sums totalling five or less correctly.

dinner was mac and cheese with spinach and everyone loved it.

breakfast was coffee cake that lucy and harley made.

we did some yard work. lucy played in the sandbox. henry hung around. lucy played with oliver a little. isabella played with henry. lily also hung out with henry.

lucy and I made sand cakes. sung happy birthday. she warned me again about the dangerous spiders under the bench by the sandbox. isabella says she saw one, so nothing I can say will convince lucy otherwise.

lunch was burritos. henry mostly had chips and quesadilla.

nap time story was another from the ghost story book. this one was actually scary, but lucy didn’t say anything about being scared. she went to sleep and slept well.

when lucy woke up, she found us along with about twenty other people standing around looking at and talking about the eclipse. she didn’t care at all. she and oliver played in the sandbox. later she and a few kids played with oliver and isabella in their yard. a boy a little older than lucy pretended to swing a bat at isabella and lucy got pretty upset. after some investigation it became unclear if the upset was because of the mock threat or the fact that lucy wanted the bat.

by some standards, henry said he first word today. harley was changing his diaper and he pointed at the wall and said “dat!” which he’s been doing a while. harley determined that he wanted to know the word for the wall and so she said ‘wall’. henry said “wall” then they said it back and forth and he was very pleased with himself. later he had a similar thing happen with a chopstick. we both clearly heard him repeat “stick” after we’d told him what it was called.

dinner was smoothies.

the kids had a bath together.

bedtime stuff was with harley. story was a scary one. afterward, lucy asked harley to tell her nice things that happen at night. they talked about plants and nocturnal animals. harley explained that it is always day somewhere and about the rotation of the earth using a stuffed totoro. lucy pointed out that it is also always nighttime somewhere, but went to bed without seeming too scared.