Tilden Park

Yesterday, I got to go to a terrific park, Tilden Park, which is located in the Berkeley hills. It was a beautiful day yesterday, clear and sunny and around 70 degrees, so we went for a ride to the park together. On the way, I got to see views of the SF bay from out the car window. Once we arrived, I got to go on a steam locomotive at the Redwood Valley Railway. It's not the usual sort of locomotive, since it's kid sized. It reminded my Mommy of the train she and my Daddy used to ride at Angela Park. The train at Tilden went through woods and around the edge of mountains. There was a tunnel too. I was not sure what to think of the tunnel initially, but I sort of warmed to it.

After the train ride, we rode deeper into the park until we came to an old-fashioned Merry-Go-Round. It has all sorts of animals that went up and down, horses, dragon, and lots of other critters. I rode on a horse with Mommy. The best part was the lights and the music. The carousel has lots of fabulous lights, and I took time out to point out every one of them in case Mommy missed any. I then walked around the park while Mommy and Daddy held my hand---sort of my first hike. It was a great day.

Words 2

I am also very good at saying "cat" and "hat." The other day, I called a cat by name when I saw it on TV and, that same day, I also said "hat" when I saw some parents buying their baby a sunhat on a TV show. I also rather consistently say "hat" when my mommy puts one of my hats on her head. In addition, I say something like "sh" when I see a brush.

Today, in the lounge of the Nordstrom's women's bathroom (which also has a "mother's room" for nursing mothers and changing tables so most local moms of babies and toddlers pass through whenever they are downtown-- an excellent marketing strategy on Nordstrom's part, I must say), I enjoyed warmly greeting everyone who came in or out with my bright and sunny, "Hi." I am a very popular fellow when I smile and greet people. I tried to give my friend Sophia a hug while we were sitting together at Nordstrom's, but I was a bit too enthusiastic and we both fell sideways. Oops! She didn't seem to mind. She shared her toy phone with me.

Words

Words are really useful things. While I'm not yet so good at making words that sound exactly like Mommy and Daddy's words, I'm getting better at making words in a language they can understand. Of course, I still have my old favorites like "ights" and "mamamama", but I've added lots of new words as well. Whenever I see a glass or a bottle, I say "ice". My parents aren't sure if I mean literally "ice" since the glasses or bottles are cold or if "ice" is a corruption of "glass". When I see a fan, I make a distinctive swinging motion with my hand and say "ffff". When I see cheese, one of my favorite foods, I say "chchch", and when I'm hungry for milk, I say "mm...mm". Of course, when I want Mommy and Daddy to name something, I say "aht", which means "what's that?". The amazing thing is that Mommy and Daddy can actually understand my language now. This is so much better than communicating by crying and whining.

Steps to Recovery

I'm starting to feel better. Lately, I go through phases where I have a good amount of energy followed by periods of sleepiness. By the evening, I pretty much was back up to my usual energy levels and was playing happily. Before this, I was sleepy. I like to find new and unusual places to sleep and I found a really good spot yesterday. I crawled under the middle of Mommy and Daddy's big bed and fell asleep there. Mommy looked all over for me and it took her awhile to find me. It's such a snuggly spot.

I'm taking a lot more steps on my own now. I like to walk, especially when someone holds my hand, but now I'll walk a little bit even when there's no one to hold my hand. I don't walk for far or very confidently, but still I'm liking the freedom of getting around on my own.

My appetite is starting to come back as well. Yesterday, I ate an entire cereal bar. These cereal bars are great, they're my favorite food. Mommy and Daddy have taken to calling them "crack for babies" becuase of their addictive quality.

Daddy thinks my baseball career may be looking up. While I was in Florida, I played lots of games of catch with Daddy using a real baseball. I like how real baseballs make a satisfying "thunk" when you throw them. Best of all from Daddy's perspective, more often than not I throw the ball with my left hand. Daddy always gives me lots of hugs and kisses when I do that. He still dreams of my being a left-handed middle reliever like his hero Jesse Orosco.

Back from Florida

We flew back to California yesterday. I slept for most of the time, so I didn't even notice as we flew from state to state. Right now, I'm not feeling well again. I started to get sick during the middle of visiting my cousins and have not felt better since. One day we were supposed to go to Sea World to visit the fishies, but I had a fever and Mommy and Daddy decided that the fishies would have to wait. I hope I fell better soon.

In addition to my not feeling well, we had another problem. I got into my second car accident. As Daddy was waiting for people to pull out of a parking space on a rest stop on the way to Miami, a woman currently in a parking space decided to back out right into us. She put a big dent in the bumper but happily no one was hurt. Daddy was pretty annoyed that the car was hurt though.

In better news, I got to meet my cousin Emma for the first time. She's a lot smaller than I am but still very cute. One thing I noticed is that she seems to cry a lot. I told her that in just a few months she'll be big like me and will be able to crawl around where she pleases and even to pick up and eat food herself. Speaking of food, this cold has totally killed my appetite. I've been eating very lightly the past couple of days.

Grammy Slipped On the Ice

I heard some bad news yesterday. My Grammy (Mommy's Mommy) slipped on the ice and broke her lower leg/ankle very badly. Mommy and Daddy say that it sounds like a compound fracture. The doctors are not sure whether they are going to have to operate to set it heal properly, but either way Grammy will have a long recovery. She had been looking into visiting me here around April, but now that will probably have to be delayed. That makes me sad.

Cousins

This could be my last weblog entry for a little while. Tomorrow I'm flying to Florida to see a bunch of my cousins. First, we're flying to Orlando to meet my newest cousin Emma Clare. I can't wait to play with her and show her all the neat things there are to do. Later in the week, we're driving down to Miami (don't like the sound of that since it means a long car ride) to see my three other cousins, Meryl, Libby, and Matthew. They're all much older than I am so I'm looking for them (especially Libby) to teach me life's wisdom.

In the meantime, I'm discovering new and splendid gustatory delights. Yesterday, for the first time ever, I actually enjoyed eating stuff from a spoon. In fact, I finished a whole jar of Stage 1 sweet potatos and finished most of a bigger jar of Stage 2 squash as well. Mommy says that I had never before actually finished a jar of baby food, much less eaten almost 2 jars in one day! I was not in the mood for anything from a spoon today, however. Nothing compares to the deliriously good cereal bars Mommy gives me. If I could live on only them, I'd be quite happy.

Yet more pictures

Mommy has finally finished editing the pictures from my birthday and New Year's. First is January playtime a collection of pictures taken in Cali in January. Next comes New Year's 2003, Christmas week, and, best of all, my birthday. Enjoy!

Picture Time

I've put up some new pictures of me here. Three of them are pictures Daddy took of me this evening. One of them, the picture of Mommy, I took myself! I think I'm a great photographer. The last picture is a favorite. Whenver Daddy takes pictures, I like to crawl right up to the camera to investigate. This is a shot when I'm right on top of the camera. Enjoy!

Food, Glorious Food

Some of you know that throughout my life, food was not high on my list of desires or priorities. Sure I would happily play with food in order to humor Mommy, but eating it was an ntirely different matter. Mommy told me a story about a baby she read about online who was similar to me. One day, this baby's parents decided to do a little experiment. They placed on his highchair many items of food and one bottlecap and observed what the baby did. Answer: He played with the bright, shiny bottlecap and ignored the food of course.

Anyway, I think I finally understand the point of this food stuff. It actually is pretty good to eat. Especially if the food in question is bananas. I love these. I can now eat up to a half a banana at a sitting. I also like these crumbly baby nutri-grain ish bars. I love American cheese too. What I don't like is eating things on spoons. Mommy insists on trying to feed me this way, and I want no part of it. I'm my own man, and I want to put stuff in my own mouth on my terms...not hers. Anyway, food is cool.

Hobbits

My Mommy and (especially) my Daddy are addicted to the Lord of the Rings films. Daddy got the special extended edition for Christmas and now is in the process of watching virtually all of the extended footage. He's got a fever (which he thinks I gave him), so he's got a lot of time on his hands. Anyway, the weird thing is that Mommy and Daddy have decided that I resemble a hobbit. Hobbits are little folk with curly tousled hair and big wide eyes. I can't see how there's any resemblance to me at all. They've even taken to calling me a little Hobbit instead of the usual Mr. Baby (they rarely call me my actual name). Here's a bit of trivia I learned: Every actor except one wore a wig for the Lord of the Rings films. The one who didn't is the young son of the director Peter Jackson. He had perfect hobbit hair all on his own so no wig was needed.

Day of whine and roses

I've always hear Valentine's day is supposed to be a day of wine and roses. Since I couldn't come up with the roses, I thought I'd bring the whine. While my fever is down, I'm still feeling pretty out of sorts and not terribly happy. My favorite passtime was to go to sleep on Mommy's lap. Then, when she tried to move me, I would wail inconsolably. Not a good day.

Maybe Getting Better

I still had a "smidge of temperature" as they say in "It's a Wonderful Life" so Mommy took me to the doctor this morning. By the time I got there, my temperature was normal. They checked me for fun things like ear infections, but said I was fine apart from the fever. They also weighed me. I weigh 22lbs, 12oz. so I'm not packing on the pounds like I once was. I'm feeling a bit better, but still moving at only about half my normal speed.

I'm Sick

I took my Mommy on a playdate, but we had to cut it short because I got sick. Both Mommy and her friend noticed that I felt very hot. They took my temperature and it was 101.5. Happily, they gave me children's tylenol, and it seemed to work its magic---I'm down to 100.5. I hope I feel better. Mommy says it's my first fever.

...Uh oh. Back up to 101.9 at 6:10 pm.

Tickling

My Daddy is a big fan of tickling me whenever we wrestle around on the ground. For the longest time, I couldn't figure out how he did it, then it dawned on me how it's done. So Sunday night I decided to give him a taste of his own medicine. I crawled up to "hug" him in my usual way as we were watching the hype for the NBA All-Star Game (Daddy says the hype is far superior to the game, and I'd have to agree). When I got within hugging range, I put my arms around him...and then quickly moved my hands back and forth just under his ribcage. It worked! It worked! Daddy started laughing! This was great!

The Staff of Life

We went to Il Fornaio last night for dinner. A lot of people around us were complaining that it was bitterly cold outside. Mommy and Daddy snickered at this notion of cold---it was 45 degrees. They said these Californians don't know what real cold is all about. At any rate, it felt really cold to me. Mommy bundled me up in a heavy jacket and I got to wear my extreme sports snowboarder hat. Since several people commented on how cool my hat was, I decided to leave it on rather than tear it off at first opportunity.

At the restaurant, which means "the bakery" in Italian, I got to have bread. Lots and lots of delicious bread. My favorite was the Umbrian focaccia, which is focaccia topper with rosemary and sweet onions. Delicious! I also got to taste Mommy's mashed potatoes. At first I wasn't sure whether I liked these, but after a little trial I decided that I did like them. I had a great time.

Stacking Rings

Stacking rings are fun for a lot of reasons: they roll nicely on the floor, they're spinnable, they're fun to chew on, they are brightly colored and so on. Lately, I've found a new reason why they're fun---you can stack them on their base and makes a kind of ring pyramid. Stacking them on the base is actually a tough task because the base kind of tips back and forth as you try to put stuff on it. I have to concentrate closely to make sure the rings get on. But I can do it. Sometimes when I've just put a ring on the base, I like to immediately take it off again. Still, there are times when it's fun to complete the pyramid of stacking rings. I get lot of hugs and praise from Mommy and Daddy when I do that.

Duck, duck, goose

It was a very outdoorsy weekend for me. I went to two different parks a total of three times over the weekend. The highlight was a park with a big pond where ducks and geese live. While the ducks tend to be a little shy, the geese aren't. I was standing face to face with a goose, who was about as tall as I was. I found all these creatures to be fascinating.

Space Shuttle

Something called the space shuttle blew up today. Mommy and Daddy have been watching coverage of this event all day. Everyone is very sad. I think this is my first national tragedy.

Veggie Wheels

While I didn't originally like Veggie Wheels, I've come to appreciate their merits. After mommy ran out of delicious Fruit Wheels, she started giving me the veggie kind. I now really like to put things in my mouth though swallowing objects more than a few atoms in thickness is still difficult. The best thing about veggie wheels is that they rapidly break down into a kind of slurry when in contact with spit. Mommy now esitmates that my ratio of veggie wheel ingested to veggie wheel spit out on bib is up to 2 to 1. On the other hand, rice cereal, which is easy to eat but yucky, remains NOT a favorite.