Lucy Turns Two.. and We Party for a Week!

So yesterday was Lucy's second birthday. She is damn cute.

She's mine, so I am supposed to think that, but really she is.

Ways we celebrated:

LAST WEEK:
Descartes, Jake, Lucy and I drove to Carmel on Friday to meet my parents. Gloria and PJ were so very generous and got us a place at the Carmel Highlands Resort for Friday night. Poor Descartes, he had to work all day, so he worked via laptop with a beautiful view and takeout lunch while Grandma and Grandpa and I took the two kiddos to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I drove my parents in my Not-so-mini-Van, and was, once again reminded that it is not as clean a car as some might like. Thank goodness for baby wipes which we keep by the bushel full in the car.. saved my mom from riding in a PILE of petrified chicken and fries which had tried to liberate themselves by crawling under my son's car seat.
The aquarium was great. The weather was beautiful. My passes are still valid. My kids looked clean (enough). It was really very nice. Apparently my daughter and her grandmother share an affection for sea otters. Jake was in awe of the anchovies swimming round and round in the ceiling at the entrance to the Outer Bay display.
There were lots of "Jake's friends" at the aquarium. My parents are better at spotting "them" now, just as I can rather easily identify the 8 year old that still needs to hold hands, or the soft smile on even a tiny infant with Down Syndrome, and the stroller that is really a mobility device. It's a skill that, while I appreciate my parents learning, I wish they had never started looking. I wish I had never started looking. I think it makes them feel like there is no safe place, and no family goes untouched. Sort of how I am amazed when ANY kid comes out of a womb without a major difference. My mom spotted the little boy wearing noise canceling headphones following his dad while holding a very short string as we were leaving. She asked, "Is he...?" and then I am the expert in a subject that has no course outline. Thinking to myself all of the reasons a kid would possibly be wearing headphones, which are not connected to anything, I conclude that, along with the hand flapping and lip chewing, the child might be "a friend of Jake's". I explain that one of the reasons we "all" come here is because it is a safe, enclosed place which feels open, near water without being dangerously near water, educational, and FILLEd with places that allow our children to 'stim' and have it be "normal". I have never seen a kid who did not look up at that anchovy exhibit without awe and a desire to stare for several minutes longer than mom and dad like.

I just read this back and realized that every other sentence has something in fake air quotes.
sorry to be so annoying.

I haven' t posted in a million years, so I will have this small segment be the end of part one Lucy's birthday. More to follow.