A New Friend!!

Today Lucy and I had the pleasure of meeting Christina and Nadia at the park for the morning. I have written before about how much I admire Christina's photography skills, and I have been so excited to meet her and her beautiful daughter in person. It was great to with her talk about the girls and photography stuff. We all really hit it off.

Lucy's morning started off a little rough. I was worried she was going to be a total disaster at our play date, and at first, I was right. She was not playing nicely and was just a grouch. We had eaten our picnic and I had pretty much had it. I told her it was time to go home and she straightened right up. The girls ended up playing and really having a great time together. We stayed at the park for almost 3 hours. The weather was gorgeous and it was so nice to be outside all morning. I was glad that Lucy finally showed a little of her nice side because I was worried they were going to think she was an absolute toot! Nadia was SO sweet with Lucy. She shared all of her toys and was just a joy to be around. Hopefully Lucy was taking notes! She was really such a good girl all morning. Thanks for such a great time girls! We will definitely do it again.

Speaking of Lucy and her attitude, the girl is just in a weird place right now. She gets SO easily frustrated. She freaks out over the smallest things. If one thing is out of place or not just right in her world, it is not pretty. I am trying so hard to stay patient, but it is not easy. Some days are great and she is her normal, fun little self, but the age of 2 has not been good for this girl. I hate to get frustrated with her, but it is exhausting trying to keep her calm all day long. We have had to start putting her in a "quiet place" when she starts getting really worked up. She is not in trouble, but just has a place to sit and chill. It actually works pretty well. She will sit there until she calms down and then comes back in the other room with us. She is also hitting/shoving more than she has ever done before with other kids. I have asked her teachers if she does it at school and they looked at me like I was crazy. They said that she is never aggressive with the other kids. Why does she just do it when I am around??? I am using time out with her when she does it, but it definitely doesn't make it completely stop. Being a parent is hard!!

Despite these difficult situations, she still brings us more happiness than we could have ever imagined. She is still so funny, smart, and ridiculously cute. She is lucky she is so cute because it is impossible to be mad at her, and she knows it. She wants to watch the Shrek movies all day long. I don't let her, but if she could choose, that is what she would want to do. For some reason, she has become obsessed with these movies. She laughs hardly at certain scenes. It cracks us up!

Okay, here are some of the pics from this morning with Christina and Nadia.

Such a cutie!





This is the girl I wish would come back most of the time - happy and smiling!







Once Lucy decided that Nadia was fun, they were all smiles!



These two are from yesterday.