Weekend Outings

It was a busy weekend for me as I got to make my first two extended outings of my life. My father has been lobbying for the last week or so to put me in an infant carrier and take me out on some walks. Really, they’re only walks for him, for me they’re rides. Well, he finally prevailed upon my Mommy to take me out on a bright and sunny Saturday afternoon for a test walk. Everyone wondered how I would behave in the great outdoors. Well, I was on my most perfect behavior, mainly because all of the light breezes and sunshine, the gentle rocking of each of my Daddy’s strides, the cheeping of the birds is all quite soporific. I managed to stay awake for about the first five minutes of the journey – long enough to see some trees and birds – and then fell asleep for the rest of the trip.

Heartened by the success of this outing, my Daddy had bigger and better things planned for Sunday. It was predicted to be 70 degrees and gorgeous and it was indeed. Since we were going on a longer outing, I ate a hearty breakfast of 130ccs of milk, got a fresh diaper, and was eager to be on my way. For this journey, we climbed to the top of the foothills overlooking the Stanford campus, an elevation gain of about 1000 feet. At the top of the hill was a big satellite dish used for all sorts of scientific endeavors at Stanford. It was huge!

I got to see lots of things for the first time on this trip. We saw some groundhogs watching us as we strode by. I got to pet my first cow, a sweet brown animal that was grazing in a field near the satellite dish. I also got to see many pretty mountains and gaze out at the bay. It was really pretty. Well, actually I did less gazing and more sleeping. I managed to stay awake for about the first fifteen minutes of a two hour hike, but then slept for the rest of the journey. When I came home, my Daddy and I sat out on the porch in the sun and had a lovely open air lunch together. I had my favorite food – milk.

I thought I’d give my parents a break over the weekend by actually sleeping at night. Instead, I like to be awake from the late afternoon into the early evening. They seem to like this arrangement much better and, since it gets dark early, I still get to satisfy my craving for the night life by being awake then.

For my 4am feedings, my Daddy and I like to watch movies. The trick is to choose a movie that is visually interesting and that you’ve seen many times, so continuity is not important. Our first movie together, Traffic, is supposed to teach me to just say no to drugs (or to teach me Spanish, I’m not sure which.) I really like Steven Soderburgh’s use of color filters. I’m a big primary color guy myself. Now we’re watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I’m quite taken by the haunting score and I’m working on my Mandarin phonemes.