Guess Those Parenting Books Are Right Sometimes

I was waiting for that miraculous time when Darcy would suddenly indicate in some way her readiness for giving up diapers. I wasn't convinced that there was some magic moment that would make the transition a piece of cake, but apparently, we've reached it! Darcy has spent the last two days in panties. One nice, stay-dry pair for each of those two days. She isn't asking to go potty, but she is peeing pretty much automatically every time I have her sit on the potty, which has been every hour and a half to two hours.

This morning, Michael got her up and she wanted a diaper, which is fine because we're going to the Depot in a little while anyway and I'm not sure if we're ready for pantied outings yet. Although, if she asks for panties, I'll give her panties.

Potty Training Seems To Have ARRIVED

Let the record show that amid great fan-fare and praise, Darcy wore a single pair of panties all day long (with a diaper for her nap) and peed in her potty seven times. Dry panties for twelve hours and almost instant peeing once seated on the potty. Oh, the joys of parenting!

And Her Parents Party, Too!

'Cause our girl wore panties for over four hours this morning and peed in her potty three times during that time. Enough said.

Darcy Parties!

Darcy has been a very social girl recently. She went to a birthday party in Kelso for her friend Sean. Party games happened, which made her very happy because she's seen them on Sesame Street. Here are Michael and Darcy playing musical chairs.

She also tasted her first marshmallows, in the form of these frog eyes. She loves a book called Stella and Roy Go Camping and they roast marshmallows, so she's been dying to try them. It was a thrill.

Last night, Darcy hit another party in Kelso, this one a BBQ with campfire at the home of two volunteers. Darcy loved the fire, the three dogs running around, and -- yes, again -- marshmallows. She and Michael roasted two over the fire. One slid off their fork and was sacrificed to the fire. The other was enjoyed very much by Darcy.

Teutonia Peak

Rocks. To climb.

Rocks. To sit under and snack.

Yes, if there are rocks, Darcy and Michael will climb them. Always. We took a morning hike on the Teutonia Peak trail a couple weeks ago. Part of the motivation was a recent mountain lion sighting about half-way up the peak. It's a rocky, wonderful habitat for mountain lions and it's exciting that one has been seen up there. Not by us, of course. We saw some wildflowers and some cacti thinking about producing some flowers. We had a good time scrambling around rocks and hiking.

And when we got home, we were back with our own carpet of teeny tiny flowers. They really are visible in the picture. Or, they were before I uploaded it to Blogger. You can get a bigger picture by clicking on it and then you're looking for itty bitty purple blooms. They're everywhere, but not actually native. They were introduced a few hundred years ago by those dang traveling Europeans.

And, just in case you missed the wonderful news today -- the EPA has suspended almost all mountain-top mining permits while they study the damage the practice does to the surroudning environment and watersheds!! Our new president might not be doing everything absolutely right, but he's doing some good, good things. Also suspended today? The Bush rules allowing concealed guns in national parks.

The Flower Search Continues

Flower season, while not as spectacular as last year's so far, is upon us in force now. A couple weeks ago, we had reason to be in Baker and took advantage of the proximity to Rasor Road for some flower hunting. We didn't find many exciting displays, but the lupine out there were just about to pop into bloom.

Michael and Darcy climbed rocks, of course, as they do when rocks are there to be climbed. They didn't find any flowers up there, but Michael spied some flowers on rocks on the other side of the road and I scrambled up to take a closer look because they didn't look like something we'd seen before. Michael is in uniform because he had just given a talk about Mojave National Preserve in Baker earlier in the morning.

As, indeed, they were not. These are beautiful Mojave asters, which we did not see at all last year except in our flower guides. They are a really beautiful flower and this bunch was situated in a little rock crevice at full bloom.


I get to go do our taxes now, so y'all will have to wait for the next flower installation. It is Flower Hunt: Teutonia Peak. Your sneak preview: we really, really wanted to find the recently-spotted resident mountain lion, but didn't.

Day Five of The Adam Obsession

So it's happened. Our little girl has her first full-blown crush. It's on Laurie Berkner's bass player, Adam (he's in the second photo). Adam wears a green shirt in one of the photos in the liner notes for their newest CD. Darcy has worn green shirts the last two days. Today, she carried around the liner notes almost all day. She held conversations with Adam. As in: "Let's play in the tent, Adam." "That sounds fun. I'll try it." She turned the pages in the liner notes and pointed to each picture: "This is the picture of Adam where he wears his green shirt like Darcy's." "This is the picture where Adam says whoa."

She runs on grass whenever she's near it because Adam says something about running on the green grass on the CD. When we were at Kelso Depot the other day with our friends Amy, Matthew, and Miles, she kept asking the "boys" to run on the grass with her -- like Adam.

Today, I convinced her to do several things by invoking Adam. She wore jeans because that's what Adam wears in his pictures. She put shoes on to go outside because Adam wears shoes. She walked to meet Michael on the dirt road because Adam runs on the sandy beach and our road is made of sand, too.

Our poor bookmobile driver/assistant had his every move monitored and narrated because he's a "boy" and everything that boys do these days is fascinating.