Thank you, Mom!

Now that I have finally recovered several weeks worth of photos, I wanted to post a delayed thank you to my mother, who came down for two weeks in June to help me with Arthur and Beatrice now that Dev is back to work from paternity leave.

We packed a ton of activities into her visit, including the baby gym, one of Descanso's Thursday evening concerts in the park, a session of Toddler Treks with Acorn Bear, Alejandro Wasserman's first birthday party, Kidspace, Paintbox Kids, a swimming lesson, and a trip to the zoo!

Swimming at the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center

Planting a pumpkin seed at Toddler Treks

For the third year in a row, the Descanso Gardens Thursday night concerts are my favorite part of summer. Check out Arthur at his first concert compared with Beatrice at hers at the same age.

Beatrice painted "doggies" at Paintbox Kids and we took our usual Sunday morning trip to the farmer's market.

Beatrice and Dev at the farmer's market

Beatrice visits the guinea pigs ("pee-gos") at the farmer's market

And as always Mom also helped a ton with housework, errands, and projects, most notably helping me cut out the pattern for my (foolishly) ambitious Halloween costume. (It may sound ridiculous to start sewing a Halloween costume in June, but not once you see how elaborate this pattern is.)

Beatrice adored both my parents (my dad joined us for the last few days of my mom's trip) - in fact, she declared, "I love Grandpa, I love Arthur" - her first time ever using the word "love."

Of course, she was heartbroken to see them go - she kept asking, "Grandma potty? Grandpa outside? Grandma Starbucks?" guessing where they might be. In fact, my parents' departure triggered renewed sadness for Nani and Nana and she started asking where they were, too. Now she talks about all four grandparents all the time.