5

Lucia's first swim. August 2010

She was a little tentative at first, as were we, but soon you could see she loved it.

4 months

Lucia was like a butterfly emerging from her cocoon this month.

(This butterfly was determined to get the nectar from these flowers on our front steps. Thanks Juan for getting these awesome pictures.)

Not only was she in the sling much less (although it is still a great place to take an on the go cat nap) she is really starting to have a personality.

She has favorite toys, Buzz Lightyear...

and her kitty.

She giggles.

"tope"

She makes us laugh.

She discovered her feet.

and they taste good.

And she grew.

This month she also had her first plane ride. OK, make that 4 in 2 days. She met her great Oma, her Uncles "Cereal" and Vic and Auntie Megs, and oldest cousin Sam in her first trip to California.

Look what we found in the garden

3 months

Weighing in at 13 pounds and 25 inches long.

There were lots of firsts and changes this past month...

At the beginning of the month she started to hold onto things if you gv them to her, now she's reaching and grabbing things pretty easily.

She met her Auntie Libby and cousin Vayda. What a great visit!!

(She was already crying, by the way.)

And she started day care. Which means, I went back to work. :( It's as everyone said, harder for mom. She is doing really well there.

And, she started drinking out of a bottle. This really was an accomplishment because she resisted it for weeks before we started day care and a little afterwards too (good thing I work next door!).

Other firsts...

finding her hands. Wow, they are fascinating.

sucking on just her thumb instead of the back of her hand, unless she's really hungry at which time she decides to eat her fist.

putting anything she can reach into her mouth.

rolling from her stomach to her back. Though not yet consistently.

Oh, and she "talks" all of the time!

Her cry changed too. When I'm not in the room I can't always tell if she's crying or laughing.

She sure is getting fun.

2

Lucia is two months old now. And, she coos...

You're Invited

For ice cream, a concert and a play.Godspell this weekend, Juan's in the band.

Trova, next Tuesday.

Ice Cream, all summer.

I've decided that this will be the summer of ice cream, homemade ice cream.

Last Fall I bought an ice cream maker after wanting one since I was about 4, if not sooner. So, after making one batch, apple pie ice cream, that sat in the freezer for a couple of months, I was a little worried that I wouldn't use it. I finally pulled it out again a couple months ago and made a different recipe, coconut ice cream from Daisy Martinez's cookbook (you cannot go wrong with the recipes in that book). I made it at least two more times and at one point declared that it was the only type of ice cream I would make because it was THAT good. I changed my mind though when our mint started growing in abundance and I knew I had to make some mint ice cream. After some internet research I decided to buy The Perfect Scoop.

My first batch of ice cream from that book, mint, came out delicious. We're still working on it, so I haven't tried another one yet but I'm determined to make a lot of ice cream this summer. So if you're close by, or want to take a trip, you are invited to our house for ice cream--the flavor will be a surprise!

Expectations Met

A lot of you know that in September 2008 I had a miscarriage. I've had a difficult time talking about it since it happened, but now that we are on the other side of the experience I feel like it is time.

The loss of that pregnancy was the most disappointing experience I've ever had. I describe it as disappointing because until I began to spot and then saw an empty sac on the sonogram we had begun to dream about the baby we would have. We had discussed names, looked for houses that would suit a family, let the news leak here and there, and bought baby clothes. So when I found out I wasn't pregnant any more and didn't have a clear explanation as to why, sadness took over. I'd known other women who had experienced miscarriage before, some early on like me and others later on when they could see the little child who had died. What I couldn't reconcile at the time was what I was actually mourning. I felt that I couldn't mourn a baby because it happened too soon and what I saw in the picture was emptiness. What I was mourning was simply a feeling, an expectation of what we could have had.

I'm sharing this now because after my miscarriage it seemed that every woman I met had a similar story. Some had later gone on to have children and others had not. But I didn't want to hear their stories then, it made it all hurt so much more to know how secretive the experience is in our society. What I heard wasn't their empathy, it was an unintended message that I shouldn't be sad because it happens to everyone and I'd get over it.

As I write this I am questioning my own motivations. I guess my reason for sharing this story is because I don't think that miscarriage is something to hide and also to say that experiencing the loss of an expectation, dream, or hope is something worthy of mourning. Being afraid of trying again for fear of it all happening again is also natural and can take time to get over.

Lucia was born exactly one year after the due date for the first pregnancy. She probably wouldn't be here if it weren't for a conversation I had with a friend who was pregnant last summer. We had both experienced miscarriages the year before and her healthy, round belly made me realize that it was possible to try again. I needed a year to recover from the sadness and to build the courage to face the possibility of loss again.