Life with Lotus Maria and Lucian Stone

My dear friend Elizabeth stopped by last week with her doggie Lula Poki Pineapple or Lula the Pineapple according to Lotus. Elizabethe or Auntie Boo as she would like Lotus to refer to her as is my "Into the Wild" friend. I rarely see her because she off living off the land and having grand adventures. I picture her life a bit like Chris McCandless, except she's a field botanist who works for the Federal Park System, so she has a job, as far as I know has never burned all her cash and knows what she is doing. But she is never at one park for long, all her belongings fit in her Chevy Tahoe and camps a lot, so that seems very counter-culture, checking out of society to me.

It was great to see her and have her meet Lotus. I'll be damned if I am going to go off to some nature reserve with my toddler, so I had to wait until she could make it to the city to introduce her to my kid. She blew through town on her way to Colorado for her summer gig.

I don't know if Auntie Boo will take hold in Lotus' vocab, but Lula the Pineapple now trips off her tongue. We added this photo to Lotus' bedside collection of dogs she loves. It helps bolster our argument to her father that she needs a dog.

My iPhone is now creator and home to all my favorite pictures of Lotus. Love the camera on this thing. I snapped this one this morning. Lotus is fairly potty trained, so she decided that all her guys needed diapers. She did it all herself and is quite pleased with herself.

I was pretty worried that the neighbors were going to call CPS. Every time we had to brush or wash or touch Lotus' hair she would scream and cry. One of us would have to pin her down to the ground and them she would try and crawl on her belly Israeli arm style to escape the evil detangler and comb. Sometimes yelling at the top of her lungs, "Stop that mommy, stop hitting me". Which can't sound good. I decided this was a battle I did not need.

Lotus has this chic French friend, Margeaux (and yes at 2 if you are French you can be chic) with adorable short hair. After one of these hair tussles I looked at Lotus and said "Do you want short hair like Margeaux?" "yes, mommy, yes" was Lotus' enthusiastic response. So we trucked on down to Snippity Crickets and said chop it off.

Here are some before, during and after photos.

Before

During

And very happy afterwards

Needless to say she loves it short and though it still has to be brushed it's no longer the traumatic event for all.