Darcy In Spring

On the last weekday of spring break, Darcy and I drove past the beach. It was a beautiful day and there were lots of people there. Darcy asked, "Why are so many people at the beach today?" I guessed out loud that it was because it was so nice and the last weekday of spring break. She said, "Last day of spring break?!! You mean, on Monday I have to go to school?" Yes, I said. "But I thought spring break lasted ALL spring!" 


A minute of silence. Then, "Does summer break only last for a week, too??" Only when you're an adult, my small child.


Here are some highlights of Darcy's spring so far:

We visited Grandmother and Aunt Jo (Darcy's great-grandmother and great-auntie) at their new digs  and Darcy explored the trees in their backyard.

 Darcy and Hank shared a blue bath on April Fool's Day. They had a great time and probably got at least a little clean, too. Our spring break trip to Simi Valley gave Darcy and Hank a whole lot of cousin-time. They had a sleep-over, a trip to the Aquarium of the Pacific, and a bunch of play dates. And, obviously, a bath.

 Easter brought a good egg hunt for Darcy. She had already followed her rhyming clues to the basket that E. Bunny brought. This egg hunt involved sock-filled eggs and a leap-frog game in an egg. Very, very fancy. Just like Darcy in her new halter-top dress!

Darcy has also started t-ball! She's on the Storm -- named for a minor league team somewhere in San Bernadino County, maybe? Somewhere in that direction, anyway. You can just barely see that Darcy's hair is now long enough for pig-tails. More or less, anyway, and she wants them for every game. There have just been two so far (the one we were going to when this picture was taken was cancelled), but we'll have games every Friday and Saturday from now until June! All very weather-dependent, of course.

Play! Play! Play! Sleep.

Darcy gets a lot of opportunities to play when we're in Simi and this trip is no exception. She almost continually asks to go "somewhere with lots of kids". Here she is at the Topanga Mall, home of the famous rabbit carousel. She rode the rabbit twice, played in the play area with gusto, and made me take her up and down the escalator four or five times in a row. She had fun.

Darcy has had some sleep issues since we got here, especially at nap time. I needed a day off from the struggle, so I took her to the LA zoo (we've never been) in the morning with the hope that she would get worn out and fall asleep on the ride home. I had my book with me, so I figured I'd just park in the shade and read for a while. Other than petting the rabbit, Darcy's favorite part of the zoo was this play area. She played here for a long time before agreeing that we could continue our quest to find the "monkeys" that were, of course, straight up the hill just about as far from the entrance as they could be.

We saw gibbons. We saw chimps. We saw an orangutan. She pet the rabbit. She ate a lot. She did not fall asleep on the way home. Not one bit. We got home, washed, rested, talked to Michael who was sweating in the un-air-conditioned Depot, and then: "I want to go some place with lots of kids." As if none of my attempt at wearing her out had ever happened.


On the theory that she would fall asleep on the way to the Oaks Mall, off we went. She did not fall asleep. She was wide awake and playing instantly. Lots of climbing, lots of running around, lots of hugging of random strangers. We took a break to ride the elevator and visit the puppies. We had a snack. She played in the hanging carpets and drapery at Pottery Barn (she said, so truthfully, that she was "snug as a bug in a rug"). We went back to the play area. She played for another fifteen, twenty minutes.

Surely, I thought, she'd sleep on the way home. No. She whined about a bottle that she dropped and I couldn't reach. She screamed when I told her to stop whining. And then, silence. Five minutes from home, she fell asleep. She stayed asleep while I carried her into the house. She slept on the couch with a baseball game on the tv and five adults carrying on a conversation in the room. She stayed asleep while I carried her upstairs and changed her into a pull-up and put her in her bed. She is still asleep almost two hours later.

I can count on one hand the number of times she has ever stayed asleep when taken out of her carseat and carried into the house. I think I wore her out.

The Prodigal Camera

Our camera loves to go walkabout. It once spent two weeks hanging on a coat rack underneath one of Michael's coworker's jacket. In between our two summer trips to Simi, it was hiding in Dan and Betty's garage. But once again, it has returned and so here are some pictures of Darcy's last haircut.

If there's a phrase dictionary out there, they might consider this picture as the illustration for "grin and bear it" in the next edition.

And here's the finished product, complete with bow. Or ribbon, anyway. All the important things are there -- Baby Orv (the doll) and a lollypop. What more could a girl need?

Darcy Goes To Town

Careful, Simi Valley. Darcy's in the house and she is ready to have some fun. On the second night in town, Darcy, Mimi, and I went out to dinner at the ever-kid-friendly Souplantation. Darcy ate her usual hearty meal there, with chickpeas, black olives, peas, radishes, and mac-n-cheese forming the bulk of her meal. After dinner, we walked over to the mall's koi pond where Darcy crawled around the wall to check out the fish from every possible angle. She also lay down on her stomach with her chin propped in her hands to stare at and covet another girl's chocolate ice cream. As if she hadn't just ended her meal with a small bowl of ice cream.

On our way back to the car, we passed a restaurant with a live band playing in its outdoor seating area. Darcy was fascinated and the band noticed her and invited her through the bar to come dance. And dance, she did, to the delight of just about everyone enjoying the beautiful evening on the patio.

The next morning (Monday/yesterday/whatever) brought the first day of nostalgia. Or swimming lessons. I will try to scan one of the pictures Betty found of Michael taking his very first swimming lessons in this exact same pool 29 summers ago. The photos are very similar. Darcy got in pretty easily with her instructor, Chantal. Happiness did not completely last through the whole lesson.

This picture makes it look like Darcy was more or less ok with the kickboard, but that is just an illusion. The kickboard was not the highlight of the lesson. Quite a few "Please may I get outs" reached my ears from the sidelines.

The picking out of a good floatie toy to "swim" after was better. She also enjoyed jumping off the edge of the pool both from sitting and standing positions. And, given her love of ice cream, she loved learning to "make ice cream scoops" in the early stages of learning to doggie paddle. The last five minutes of the lesson was spent in a wading pool, which Darcy liked a lot until she went underground (somehow, this is what she calls going underwater). Then there was some spluttering and tears, but she recovered quickly and her narrative of the lesson for the rest of the day consisted mostly of enthusiastic claims that "I went underground!!" Unfortunately for Chantal, this morning, Darcy has announced that she doesn't want to go underground today.

After her nap, Darcy wanted to go to the pet store. I'm not sure why, but she's been talking about going to the pet store for a few days. I'm sure that few people think of a pet warehouse as a tourist destination, but we were there for almost an hour looking at the animals and playing with the pet toys. Darcy's favorite was the cat towers.

Twenty-four hours of fun, fun, fun!

This week's blog theme, by the way, is "Daddy/Michael/Orville is missing all the fun and has to be kept up to date via the blog". So you can probably expect more frequent posts and lots of pictures. I hope.

Carly And Ryan Are Married!

Well, we just downloaded 379 pictures from our camera. Not all of them are from Ryan and Carly's wedding, but a lot of them are and I promise not to post all of them over the next few days. I won't even post all pictures of their very cute flower girl. But I'll post some.

We have to start, of course, with the wedding couple themselves, seen here slicing into their dramatic (and delicious) wedding cake.

Here are Darcy and her cousin, Alfred, all dressed up for their roles as flower girl and ring bearer. They both did a great job and will probably get asked to do other weddings. Random strangers will want to have them in their weddings. If you're among that group, please give us at least six to eight weeks notice. Thanks.

Later on, at the reception, they danced up a storm. Darcy was pretty much a perpetual motion machine for two and a half hours. She did dance with a few BOYS (a boy! a boy!), but also insisted on having her various bugs join her on the dance floor.


And, finally, I can't post about a wedding without giving the bride her due. Carly was, as you can see, a beautiful bride. The pictures of her before the wedding with Darcy didn't do her justice, so here's the bride and her ring bearer shortly before the ceremony started. Fun was had by all. Next time you have a glass of something fizzy in your hand, raise a toast to the newlyweds, please!

Thomas! The! Tank! Engine!

The morning of the last full day of our visit to Simi Valley was spent riding a life-size Thomas the Tank Engine in Fillmore, CA. They had been advertising the event on PBS and I happened to notice it and actually put two and two together that it was happening during our planned trip to Simi. Luck was with us and Darcy's cousin Alfred was able to go with us -- a good time was had by all! Several different styles of (oh...I have to interupt myself -- there's a coyote loping through the yard! Yay!) historic cars were lined up for the ride. Darcy plopped herself down in this one, which I think reminded her most of Annie and Clarabelle, Thomas's passenger cars. A couple of others were from the 1920s, but this one was a more recent vintage.

Darcy was all giggles through much of the ride. That's not really all that much giggling because the ride, catering as it does to quite-small children, was only 25 minutes long. Michael's Grandmother lives in Fillmore and the train went past her house, but not much further before going back to the depot. We did get to cross a road and see the stopped traffic and go through a tunnel, so it was all good.

Through a fluke conversation, Mimi (Betty) found that a good friend of a good friend is one of the engineers for the historic trains in Fillmore, including the Thomas event, so we got just a little special treatment after our ride was over. Charlie took us up into the engine compartment of the 1960s diesel engine that was doing all the actual work of pulling the train. Alfred sat in the engineer's seat and blew the horn; Darcy was a bit shy of taking a turn. (We'll get all the pics of Alfred to you somehow, D & J!)

Our ride was at 9:50 on a Friday, which we chose in part because it seemed likely to be less crowded than a weekend day. Our train was much less than half full and even with that, there was a bit of chaos afterwards, as the next train was fuller, so many more kids were milling around. Charlie told us that all of Saturday's rides were completely booked and that the previous three-day weekend, they had 17,000 passengers!! That's a whole lot of toddlers in one place at one time! Glad we missed the worst of it.

Among other things, bigger crowds would have made it impossible for Darcy to have played at the train tables they had set up in multiple tents. She had a lot of fun with the different types of tracks -- who knew there were so many options for Thomas trains -- even Duplo/Lego has a set! It explains why they are the corporate sponsor of the Thomas shows on PBS, though.

And, finally, Darcy consented to a picture of Thomas instead of more play. Charlie, our personal connection, is holding her in front of the almost completely decorative Thomas. Darcy returned home with some new Thomas gear, including a kite. This morning, we held the first Cima House Kite Flying Event, with great success. Photos will follow soon.

Who Loves Her Veggies?

Darcy and I hit the farmers' market on Friday before leaving Simi the next day. We bought lovely asparagus (which Darcy gobbled by the spear last night for dinner), the World's Largest Artichoke, some beets, and berries. Oh, and extremely fragrant lemons, too. Darcy had a moment of theft that the vendor wouldn't let me pay for. While admiring the artichokes, she noticed the baskets of brussels sprouts next to them. She said, "I want to try," and reached out and took one, and proceeded to start nibbling. I told her that I could cook it for her supper but she looked at it so longingly that I told her she could eat it just like it was. So she did. One great big bite:

Happy Birthday to Darcy!

Ok, so I'm a few days late, but Darcy had her Happy Birthday last Thursday and is now two years old. She's a little unclear on the age concept, but she definitely knows all about birthday parties now. Her requirements were HB hats, HB balloons, HB cake, HB candles, HB song. Presents weren't part of her birthday vocabulary, but, of course, they are now.

One of the highlights, in Darcy's words, was "all those cousins". Although Michael was unfortunately absent from the party because he was still in Portland, Darcy's Western cousins (from left to right) Henry (aka Hank), Alfred, Celaya, and Harry were all there. Granny Mimi (Betty) hosted, with a menu of pizza and birthday cake. Darcy was very impressed when everyone sang Happy Birthday to her and again when Grandma and Grandad (Kathy and Dave) called and sang it again over speaker phone.

Alfred helped open all the presents because Darcy was busy playing with a helicopter. She has since been enjoying the gifts. Cima House is suddenly a little more hazardous for walking.

Thanks to all who attended and sent birthday greetings from afar! Her first birthday was the day the movers came to pack up our house in King Salmon, so this was her first and only real birthday celebration and she really enjoyed the process.

I'll get some pictures of our trip to Vancouver, WA/Portland uploaded soon. We had a great trip in a beautiful part of the world, but we're very, very happy to be home now.

Darcy Loves Animals

I know that you will all be astounded to learn that Darcy has a fondness for the critters. I mean, given how little I care about our furred, feathered, scaled, and finned friends. She talks about them. She pretends to be them. She knows what they say. And she likes to be with them.


We recently played host to Tule for a couple days, much to Darcy's delight. When I first told her that our friend would be bringing her dog, she lit up and said, "Dog LICK Darcy!" And, yes, Tule made good on that prediction and licked Darcy, bringing on many squeals of delight.


Darcy also likes to ride animals. During our recent trip to Simi, we went to the farmers' market and found pony rides. Darcy showed interest, so we waited for two other sets of little girls to ride the ponies and then Darcy got strapped into the very secure saddle. After a few rounds, the 20ish guy leading her pony came over to the fences and said, with a big grin, "She keeps saying, "Say neigh! Say neigh!" She got a little extra riding for that, I think. Unfortunately, we didn't have the camera with us because we didn't expect the ponies, so instead, here's a picture of her riding an elephant at a nearby mall's play area.


And riding is even fun if there's no animal underneath you; here's Darcy with (Mimi) Betty and (Aunt) Jo on the saddle at Kelso Depot a few weeks ago.

Hope This Isn't A Jinx!

With any luck, the house pictured here will soon be our new house! We're waiting for the bidding to close and the official word, but we believe that we will be moving here in the near future. Why, you ask, do we want to move seven months after getting here? Moving isn't fun, it's true, but neither is life in Baker. It looks like a town, it really does, but it doesn't feel much like one. We're not losing much by being away from town and we're gaining a lot: peace and quiet; beautiful views, pleasant places to walk; 3000 feet in elevation (and therefore, much, much lower temperatures); affordable rent; neighbors with cows as pets; greater proximity to all parts of the park; shorter commute for Michael; and the list goes on!

We'll let you all know as soon as we hear definitive word and set a moving date!

In other news, Darcy Jo is trying to learn everything all at once. Her vocabulary grows at leaps and bounds, and she now points to letters she recognizes on all sorts of things (like her cup at lunch yesterday; it took me a while to figure out why she kept saying "emm" because I couldn't see the writing). She can pick out maybe a third of the alphabet and grins like a maniac when we confirm that it really is the letter she said it was. Likewise, she is extremely proud that she has (how? I have no idea!) learned the concept of "two". It started with her saying "two" if she was holding two of the same object, but now extends to just having two things, alike or different, and fingers! If you hold up two fingers and ask how many there are, she'll tell you -- and she did it the very first time we tried it.

Her other new trick is crawling! Finally! We took her to a mall when we were visiting in Simi Valley last week and it was crawling (forgive the pun) with kids. There were a lot of tunnels, which Darcy loves, but they weren't tall enough for her to stand in, so she couldn't take advantage of them. It's a little heartbreaking to watch her in those situations because it's clear that if she had had a crawling phase, she would now have a much better grasp of climbing on, under, and over things. She has to just watch the other kids a lot. She loves that, but I want her to be able to DO, not just watch.

She's been doing what she calls crawling every once in a while for a month or two. It's sort of like swimming on the carpet, as her belly is still flat on the floor. But after spending quite a lot of time watching so many other kids crawling around and seeing that she was missing out, this week, she crawls! True, hands-and-knees, belly-off-the-floor crawling! She mostly just uses this to crawl to something that will help her stand up if she's plopped down on her tush, but we also set up the couch cushions as an obstacle course and she's almost able to crawl up and over a stack of two. It will only take another visit or two to a play area for her to get up to speed.

The Photos Will Now Flow

A week or so ago, our camera decided to stop talking to our computer. So the photos have been building up with no way to do anything with them. But the trouble is now over, thanks to our new card reader! I'm just starting to wade through them; here's a picture of Darcy and her cousin Alfred from our last trip to Simi Valley.