Around the house

Lucienne has been developing in leaps and bounds. She also seems to have an organizational streak which becomes obvious when she sits at her table and uses her pens. It's very cute how she makes sure the cap is back on before she picks up a new pen to draw. Even when it's time to put the pens away and get ready for lunch or bedtime, she'll put the pens neatly back in the box, all with the caps point up!



Her skills of matching and identifying are very strong. We brought her a book in which pictures have corresponding sticker and she is able to match them every time...even orientated the right way. She is very good at her puzzles, in fact we need to get her some more complicated ones.



She's talking all the time now and can ask questions, "Where dada?" and is endlessly trying to make conversation with her limited vocabulary. I can see her expanding the meaning of words when she recognizes when something is empty by saying "gone". Blue's Clues has become a favorite, in fact it's the only show she watches. When Lucienne asks to watch it she opens and closes her hands saying "Clue, Clue" or sometimes "Joe".

Lu is forever imitating us and she understands basically everything I ask her to do. In this picture I had removed the batteries from her toy to recharge them and after watching me she was determined to used the screwdriver to remove the screws herself. Luckily she wasn't successful. She loves to look at her books and will study them for quite a while. Her favorites right now are the Dr. Seuss books, specifically "Go Dog Go" which she can say...well short of and "I'll Teach My Dog A lot of Words". It's not surprising that both have dog characters since that seems to be her favorite animal. Kevin and I are daily waiting for something new our little Lulu will come up with!

All Saints and Pink Eye

With Kevin in Morocco on a mountain biking trip for the school, Lucienne and I had grand plans for the mid-term break. Unfortunately this was not to materialize. Monday it became apparent that Lu had conjuctivitis and from that point on we were battling that and colds. The only hightlight was a trip to London, Wednesday on the Eurostar. It looked like we were on the mend so I decided to go ahead, but throughout the day Lucienne's pink eye didn't get better, it got worse.
The borough of Kensington and Chelsea is a fantastic place to walk and window shop. Very stylish cafés and shops with maticulously kept rows of apartments painted perfect white. I was on the lookout for Cath Kidston's shop where I hoped to find some modern print fabric for some sewing projects.

In the afternoon we had a nice stroll through Kensington Gardens. The fall color was vibrant and the day was clear, though cold. I had planned on having lunch at The Orangery, but there was quite a wait. We then walked the length of the park, then the length of Hyde Park looking for a place to duck into for lunch. Finally at Oxford Street we came across a Starbucks where we shared a cheddar and pickle sandwich. At that point Lu had had it so I hailed a taxi to take us back to St. Pancras Station.

The Eurostar couldn't have been more convientent with Lucienne. I arranged to sit in the family section of the train where the doors didn't open automatically and the handles were out of toddler reach. The other passengers sitting around us were also families so this kept the annoyance factor to a minimum.