Lucy: The Inflatable Playground, B-sides

I don't always get a chance to post ALL of the approximately 10-billion pictures I take of Lucy every time we take her somewhere...so, for the sake of the grandparents, here are some more pics of Lucy having a GREAT time at the inflatable playground. They will get to experience it firsthand this weekend.

Lucy will show you what the fishies do.

First of all, let me just admit I've been woefully slow with the blogging lately. Personally, I blame Brian. He's been out of the country on business and I (literally) am either frantically trying to keep Lucy from killing herself or someone else, cleaning house (how did a raisin get in the fireplace? We may never know.), or trying unsuccessfully to sleep since our neighbors insist on letting their car alarm wail away all night, every night. In this picture, Lucy is demonstrating for Brian her version of fish-lips. She's pretty good at it. I promise to get back on the blogging bandwagon soon(ish). Grandma and Grandpa Dietz will be here this weekend, and I'm sure tons of great pics will come from that.

Lucy will feed you and kiss you!

We joke about the fact that Lucy is pretty much fearless and has basically no ability to understand things like "danger" and "NOOOO!!!" But, in truth, she's very compassionate...so long as you are an animal and not Mommy, Daddy, another child, etc. Lucy loves all animals, but *especially* dogs. Mommy and Daddy (the people who she regularly hits, bites, and calls "Yuck!"), bought her this little puppy at Ikea, and she LOVES him. She often feeds him from her bottle and then gives him a kiss right on the mouth. Very cute, and we hope one day she'll love human beings JUST as much as stuffed dogs. Sigh.

Lucy loves Diet Coke...just like Mommy!

If there's one thing in this world I love, it's Diet Coke. That's why I was SO PROUD this morning when Lucy started saying Diet Coke, AND I was able to get it on tape. Next step: Harvard!

Lucy is a very smurfy girl.

I went to pick up Lucy at Julie's house last week, and when Julie opened the door, she said..."Um...I just want to warn you...." And then, Lucy barreled out of the back of the house, and she was BLUE. Not totally blue, but partially, and permanently, blue. Apparently she piled some things up in her crib, used the pile as a ladder to climb up onto Julie's desk, opened a drawer, took out a permanent blue marker, and went to town. More evidence that Lucy is DEFINITELY a Purcell - always pushing the boundaries in the name of adventure!

Lucy's neck, chin and several other minor spots on her body, stayed blue for about 5 days.

Lucy is under the weather.

Lucy has had a temperature today of anywhere from 100-104 degrees. She's definitely not feeling too good. Here you can see Lucy as she tells me all about it- complete with red cheeks and rheumy eyes. We're hoping that after a good night of sleep and some Tylenol therapy, she'll be good as new by tomorrow. In the meantime, at least she doesn't have quite as much destructive energy...I don't know if I could handle a full-strength sick toddler. YIKES!

It's a very good thing Lucy doesn't live in a glass house...

Because, as it turns out, she loves to throw stones. Brian and I took Lucy to Alki Beach in West Seattle this past weekend when we had about four straight hours of kinda-sorta sun. Brian took some time out of his busy schedule to give Lucy a lesson on the ins and outs of rock throwing. She caught right on...as I'm sure you all could have guessed. In between throwing rocks, we explored a couple of parks along the beach and Lucy got to pet LOTS of ruff-ruffs, known to you and I as "dogs."

As usual, I am behind the camera, but rest assured I had a lot of fun too!

Lucy is very bouncy.

Today Brian and I took Lucy to this crazy place...basically a warehouse filled with inflatable play equipment. Lucy was pretty much in heaven. The temperature and sound level was more like parental hell. But, Lucy had a FANTASTIC time, and, honestly, so did we. Unlike the gymnastics place, this place actually lets the parents on the equipment, and Brian and I had just as much fun as Lucy.

I'm going to let these pictures speak for themselves, but do notice Pictures 4-6, that is a GIANT inflatable slide, probably about 2 stories tall. If you look on the bottom left on Picture #4, you can see the exit door, dwarfed by the super tall slide. Needless to say, Lucy "Danger Baby" Purcell was not the least bit intimidated.

Most of these pictures were taken in a long obstacle course, sort of like Baby Wipeout - you have to go over each inflatable obstacle to get to the next section, and some are separated by slides and whatnot.

Lucy wants you to know that safety is tasty.

Lucy is learning all about gravity.

What goes up...must come down. To my credit, I *tried* not to laugh. Good thing for us Lucy is made entirely of Danger, so stunts come to her naturally, and she is (thankfully) indestructible.