Lucky 21

Welcome to the world, Charlotte Currin Richeson!

She arrived today at 4:35pm, all 7lbs/4oz, 20 inches of her and is now the fourth family member born on the 21st of the month. Big brother Liam (2/12), GrandMary (4/21), and great uncle Bill (11/21) are all lucky 21's.

Our good luck continues with Miss Charlotte.

Let's Get This Party Started

Countdown to Baby Charlotte's appearance. No, she's not here yet, but she is fully baked, and her mama would love the opportunity to hold her in her arms at this point. Today? Maybe tomorrow? Definitely Tuesday.

Everything's ready, sugar. You have the cutest little nursery-nook. Big brother Liam has big plans for you, and those can't commence until you come out into the light. And we all want to meet you. Now, come on and give your tired, weighted-down mama a break.

But for everyone else: Do keep mama and soon-to-be daughter in your thoughts and prayers over the next few days and hours. We'll let you know as soon as there's news to tell.

Dirt, Sticks, Crayons, Bubbles

Entertaining a three-year-old isn't really that hard, but you'd better have a lot of tricks up your sleeve. If one trick doesn't work -  or doesn't work for long- then pull out the next one. Just keep things moving.

In the course of one day, we've colored three gigantic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles posters, made a couple of really cool bubble-snake apparatuses, spent an hour and a half at the park swinging, sliding, digging in the dirt, and throwing sticks, baked toll house cookies, read two books, and had a variety of snacks and meals. Sounds like a lot - and it was - but I had more possibilities waiting in the wings if any of those failed. As I said, you have to have a sleeve-full of endless tricks.

Somehow I think if we did the exact same list of things tomorrow, GrandBoy would find it entertaining. When we run out of Ninja Turtle coloring pages, we'll find something else to color. The bubble-snake thing won't run out until the dish soap and food coloring do. And dirt and sticks never run out at the park. See? Not so complicated.

After a day of dirt and sticks and crayons and bubbles, GrandBoy's in bed, plum tuckered out. And GrandMary's tuckered out, too. I will say, however, that my coloring skills are improving with every Ninja Turtle picture. I take direction well from a 3-year-old. Good practice for my dotage, me thinks.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm pooped.

SpiderGran

Daughter, GrandBoy, and I were enjoying a spring evening chowing down al fresco on deliciousness from the Crawfish Shack, when Liam spotted a spider web. As conversations turn with any 3-year-old, the spider web provided several minutes of in-depth discussion focusing on good vs bad, pretty vs scary, and spider web vs Spider-Man web.

Then I chimed in: "I bet we can make a spider web, too. All we need is some string or yarn." Well, you'd thought I'd suggested letting him loose in Toys R Us for an hour. Yes, a good idea, it was decided. We will create our own spider web.

I just let him think that I knew all about making spider webs because, hey, you can find instructions for making anything on Pinterest, right? When we got home I searched Pinterest for how to make a pretend spider web, and sure enough, I found quite a few, believe it or not. I settled on this one because it looked easy to make with handy materials, plus relatively sturdy (it's for a 3-year-old, remember).

By the time we had the time, yarn, and string ready to go, it was raining cats and dogs, so making the spider web outside was not going to happen. We scouted his room - with a stern warning from Daughter to not do anything that would do permanent damage to walls or furniture (yes, Mom) - and decided that the foot of his bed was the perfect place.

Liam watched, handed me string and scissors, and added his two-cents'-worth as I tied and looped and wove a big web at the foot of his bed. Ah, but it wasn't finished until the web had some inhabitants. GrandBoy instructed me repeatedly that the spider had to be a happy spider, not a scary one. Then we decided to make a happy snake, happy butterfly, happy bunny, happy monkey, and happy worm to live in the web with the very happy spider.

Now, the scenario would not be complete without Liam donning his Spider-Man suit. He was now truly the master of his webby domain.

Just call me SpiderGran.