Feeling Crabby

Lucy wasn't feeling too crabby - she actually did really well on our flight. She was a pretty seasoned air traveler; trips to and from  Boston, Japan, Phoenix, California, Buffalo, California, Mexico, and Boston again have comprised her first two years of life. But she hasn't flown the past year and she is much more aware now so it was really cute to build up to this trip and have her be so excited about flying. And she was great on the plane. We didn't have a layover but it wasn't a direct flight either. We had a stopover in Baltimore and had to stay on the plane while new passengers boarded so it was a pretty long trip for a toddler. I almost feel like it is easier when they are infants and you can just nurse them and they don't move around much anyway. But Lucy colored and ate snacks and we talked. Lucy did fall asleep in my lap on the leg from Baltimore to Manchester and was so sweaty that she left a huge wet mark on my jeans when she woke up. It looks like she (or I) had wet my pants or spilled something on them. Fortunately, it dried fasts.

The cutest part of the trip so far has been when we were waiting on the curb outside the airport, and we saw Uncle Chris and Baba walking towards us, and I pointed out my mom to Lucy. Lucy just started running to her and threw her arms around her neck - like this was the whole reason she had come to visit. We had been talking about seeing Baba for weeks but I was a little surprised how affectionate and loving Lucy was toward her Baba considering how long it has been since she saw her last. Thank goodness for Skype now!

We arrived in Manchester, NH at 7:00 pm on Wednesday, but once we picked up our baggage and made the trip to my childhood home in Methuen, it was well past 8 pm. And of course, we ate and chatted and unpacked and showered and bathed so we didn't even get in bed until well past midnight and Lucy and I didn't fall asleep until close to 1 am! We slept in quite late the next day and then spent the entire first day shopping because my brother Chris (who lives and takes care of my parent's home while they are living in Japan taking care of my mom's dad) has NO food in his house! Just Diet Coke, cold cuts, and junk and expired food. Such the bachelor. So we headed out to Whole Foods to pick up some vegetables and fruit and real food. And then my mom really wanted to go to the Asian food store way out in Somerville so we headed south even though we knew we would hit Boston rush hour traffic on the way home.

Since my mom has been living in Japan for the past several years, she has been driving on the left side of the road so she doesn't feel completely comfortable driving here in the states. She also left her driver's license in Japan so I will end up doing all the driving. Even though I have been to the Asian market in Somerville several times before, it's been well over a year and driving in cities in Massachusetts is not quite as easy as driving in Utah because it is so densely populated, there are so many more cars, the streets are narrower and not as well marked and winding all over the place, and I was driving my brother's truck which I'm not use to. But we made it there okay despite some audible gasps from my mom.

Lucy fell asleep on the way since it was a longer drive but woke up once we arrived at the store. When we went inside, she was intrigued by the lobster tank but then my mom noticed a huge bucket of live crabs. Without the glass to protect her, Lucy was absolutely petrified of the crabs and clung to me with dear life. If I got too close, she would literally scream out in absolute terror. Then it didn't help when my mom decided she wanted to buy a couple to eat for dinner that night.

So here we are, with our crabby friends and Lucy observing apprehensively in the background:

Chris was trying to get Lucy to not be so afraid but I'm afraid he made it worse. He put the crabs down on the kitchen floor and antagonized them with a pair of tongs, trying to get them to fight. (If any of you know my brother, this is so Chris - terrorizing some poor, helpless creature).

The crabs were pretty vicious (although who could blame them for feeling so threatened - we were going to boil them to death and eat them in a few minutes). My mom got cut pretty bad by their pincers in a moment of carelessness. This was even before Chris got them all worked up.

Chris was mostly trying to get the crabs fight each other but then he added a Twizzler to the mix to test their pincer power. 

Ahhh - the things we do for entertainment in the Sturgis household. It was all in the name of exposing Lucy to new things though, right? Those pincers were really sharp though! Lucy was justified in being really scared because they cut up that Twizzler with no trouble at all. But even after they crabs were all boiled and dead, she still wouldn't touch them until long after my mom started tearing them apart. She did try some of the crab meat and she really liked it. Poor Brandon - he loves crab and yet, his wife who is not so interested in crustaceans had them for dinner (along with yummy salad, roasted vegetables, grilled salmon and rice - I LOVE my mom's cooking!).

I'm sure that this will just be for first of many new adventures for Lucy. She'll never look at little Sebastian from the Little Mermaid the same again.

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