What a difference a week makes!

From the cold and gusting winds last weekend at the zoo when we had to wrap up in layer after layer to larking about in the outdoor pool blowing bubbles and having fun. What a difference a week makes - we're now well and truly into summer in San Francisco although that wind is never too far away.

We took Leah for her first swimming lesson today at our local pool. Leah and I joined Natalie and Ruby in the water, Paul and Erika took on the role of photographers for Leah & Ruby's latest adventure.

I had anticipated needing to be brave in case Leah either decided she didn't want any of it or some chlorine-inhalation accident occurred but nothing could've prepared me for joining 8 other adults in the pool at 9.30 on a Saturday morning and having to loudly (and of course enthusiastically) sing 'Ring a Ring a Roses', 'Itsy Bitsy Spider', 'Oh the hokey cokey' and 'One little speckled frog' with gusto.

Here are the Leah & Ruby speckled frogs just before they jumped off the log:
Dear lord I was mortified. The only thing that saved me was the realisation that there were far more dads in the pool than mums, a fact I wasted no time at all in articulating to Paul who was hovering on the side lines. It is definitely his turn next week!

Leah remained slightly cautious (or confused) throughout but bless her she coped with everything I threw at her, she watched me blow bubbles in the water and tried to copy - mainly just sticking her tongue out and licking the water:
she kicked her legs and splashed with her hands and then the instructor cheerily announced the immortal line that stopped my heart: 'And now it's time to try their faces all the way in the water'. She saw the absolute disbelief in my face but after checking that she came equipped with CPR accreditation and not just a 35m badge sewn onto her trunks we gave it a whirl. Well actually I handed Leah over to her and let her give it a whirl (having been bitten by the 'you hold your baby while something terrifying happens' once too often). The instructor said 1.....2.......3 and blew firmly in Leah's face causing her to suck in her breath and purse her lips then immediately she pulled Leah face first through the water popping her out after a second to lots of applause and huge, albeit fake, smiles from me. Leah handled it like a champ and after a split second of uncertainty smiled back bravely. I plucked up the courage to give it a go myself and we did fine, although after the third attempt I could tell the novelty was wearing thin for Leah as she spluttered and rubbed her eyes. So we called it quits and went back to general swimming and jumping off the edge of the pool.

In amongst all this frivolity Natale and Ruby weren't faring quite so well, Ruby started by looking a little confused, then shocked then put on her bravest 'I will persevere with this' face for most of the class before totally capitulating at having to get her face wet.
It was definitely not her idea of a fun Saturday morning and she told her mums exactly what she thought of them by peeing all over Erika at the first opportunity. A substantial bottle and some warm clothing later and all was forgiven. Who knows whether we'll all be back for more of the same next weekend?

We went to the zoo, zoo, zoo - how about you?

Ever since father Xmas brought me My Big Animal Book my mum and dad have been forcing me to look at pictures of animals whilst making the most ridiculous noises at me. They've even tried to force their friends to make noises at me in the hope that I'll magically copy them (I'm still working on Mama and Dada - what more do they want????). By the way this is probably a good time to mention that JB is still winning the best animal noise award.

Anyway, after 3 months of this stupid game they decided to take a different approach and take me to San Francisco Zoo so that I could hear the noises first hand rather than their abismal impressions. So on the windiest, coldest day of the year so far they decided to take me out to a huge outdoor place right next to the sea (I'm starting to wonder if I can ask for another placement). I know Mum was a bit worried about going because she tends to feel very sorry for the animals but she put on a brave face and off we went.

We started out in Africa and I saw ostriches and giraffes. I listened very very carefully for the ostrich sound and the giraffe sound that they'd been making for me but I heard absolutely nothing:
Just in case the giraffe was just too far away I decided to get a little closer:
Not a sausage. So we moved on..

Next up were the pretty flamingoes. We got pretty close to them and I flapped my arms and shouted 'Uuggghh' but got nothing back. They just tucked in their heads away from the wind and totally ignored me. I told Mum that I didn't think much of the trip so far and that she needed to buck her ideas up PDQ. She reckoned she had the answer so we went over to where the big guys were. Now after 6 months of reading 'that's not my lion' I was certain that this would be where the action was and of course I know the lion noise so I was very excited to see this guy:
But even this guy was totally silent. I was beginning to get deeply suspicious, had they been making all this up the whole time? Surely my parents wouldn't lie to me? I decided to show them exactly what I thought of this whole experience by falling asleep, give them time to figure out what to do next:
When I woke up I was in a much more interesting part of the zoo. There were these really cool little guys who weren't in my book so I didn't expect any noises from them but they kept popping up all over the place:
Dad said they were called Prairie Dogs and they were so cool we decided to sit down in the sun away from the wind and have my lunch there so that I could check them out. After this they took me to the best place of all, the Children's Zoo. We had to go through a couple of gates and over a little pond that was filled with lots and lots of ducks - finally an animal noise and one I could (kind of) recognise!! When we got through the gates look what I found:
He was lovely, just sat there quietly and let me come up all the way and say hello. He didn't say too much but luckily all his mates who were running around outside butting people had a few things to say, here's one of them:
I had a great time chatting away to them all and doing my best arm flaps so that they could see how excited I was to see them. Unfortunately because of the all the wind there was a lot of dust flying around there and Mum was getting very worried that I'd get sore eyes so after chatting with the goats, pigs, horses and the weirdest scariest looking sheep they decided that it was probably time to go home. They've promised me that I can go back very soon though and this time I'm going to take my pal Ruby with me so that she can meet the guys.

Oh yes and on the way out Mum and Dad spotted a 'Leah photo opportunity':
As you can see, I wasn't too impressed! For more photos of the day please check out our photo gallery.

Here's to the next big adventure!
xxx

Move over Scorsese Leah and Ruby are here

This is what happens when you leave two 8 month olds in charge of a very small video recorder.

Wowee Coyote!

I wanted to tell you all about this cool place Mum and Dad took me to last weekend. It's called Coyote Point Park, it's only about 20 minutes away from my house but for some reason it took us over 40 minutes to get there. For some reason Mum and Dad kept driving up and down the same bit of road shouting at each other and the woman in the car computer kept telling them to turn around - I don't know what all that was about so after a while I joined in with the shouting which made them get their act together and we finally arrived and I was able to get out of the car.

Mum and Dad took me into this little museum looking place that was quite dark with lots of glass panels in the walls. Every time we looked through one of the glass panels there was a funny little fellow on the other side. At first most of them were either hiding or sleeping like this guy:
but because we went round and round and round about 15 times we managed to catch a few of the guys awake and shuffling around. This is me checking out a badger, he came right up to the window to say hello to me he was all shuffly and sniffy so I gave him one of my very special hellos which involves flapping my arms up and down while kicking my legs at the same time and shrieking 'CCcckkkkkkkxxxxxx' - it's much easier to do when I'm being carried in the Bjorn than in my stroller so I really let this guy have it!
I saw a Coyote, 2 eagles, a very cute little fox and a porcupine as well as a few snakes and toads and the very tips of a bobcat's ears. I didn't think it could get much better and then we went outside and I saw this little guy.
He's called a Shriek owl, he was very little and his friend said he had bad eyes which is why he had to stay in the museum place. He was smashing, he sat there quietly blinking and turning his head really far around. Because he was called a Shriek owl I figured he was just being shy so I did my best flapping/kicking squeal to see if I could encourage him but he kept completely quiet and just blinked and blinked. Mum whispered in my ear that I might like to try and copy him sometimes but she's joking of course!

Once we finished at the coyote place we passed a little park on the way out, I gave Mum one of my best stares and she made Dad pull over so that I could go and try out the swings. Mum says that there are way too many photos of me in swings and as it wasn't often that Dad was with us at a park that he and I should try out some of the many slides that were there. So here's me and my dad on a bumpy slide:
It was great fun, I went on a couple of slides with my dad and some with Mum. I also got to crawl around lots on the funny rubber floor that they always have at playgrounds here. It was a lovely day, I'm very much looking forward to our next family day - apparently we're going to try and do something like this every Sunday :).

Later dudes!

She finally did it!

After more than a month of scooting backwards on her bum and some time since her pal Ruby first took off Leah waited until I was at Safeway to show off to her dad what she can do:
It was definitely worth the wait. A hastily planned trip to BabiesRUs for baby-proofing materials is now on the cards for this weekend.

Well done Leah!!!
Your very proud & soppy parents
xxx

Squirrels, Ducks and a big green Turtle

Finally my mum and Ruby's mum got their act together to take us out on a proper adventure today, we've had too many Fridays of hanging around apartments because of the wet weather or just going somewhere local. Today the sun was shining so we all went out in my car to Golden Gate Park.

Our mums took us to the lovely childrens playground first to check out all the different things we could do. As I'd been a good girl and taken my first nap without any problems I was allowed to go and play in the sand which was very different to the sand at the beach but just in case I decided to taste it anyway - not quite as salty. My pal Ruby is still practicing her army interrogation skills and even though it was gone 11 o'clock by the time we got to the playground she still hadn't napped and was holding out despite her mum's best efforts to make her sleepy (the hat blindfold, the dummy / pacifier gag, the blanket restraint everything!). She's going to be excellent soldier when she grows up. Anyway Ruby wasn't allowed to play so our mums packed us up and took us for a walk through the park. It was a beautiful day today, lots of sunshine which makes me sleepy (but not my pal Ruby!). I dozed off somewhere in the Botanical Gardens and woke up to find our mums finishing off their little picnic - not fair!!! Ruby was still going strong so they gave us some food and put us down on our blanket to explore the park. Ruby wasted no time in finding a daisy to eat:

and when Erika and my mum were busy taking photos of Ruby I ate a dried leaf:
- not very tasty but I'm getting very fast now at picking things up and hiding them in my mouth before mum notices. My mum gave me a stick of cheese to nibble on to keep me off the leaves but what she didn't know is that I'm pretty good with my two new teeth and where I used to just suck on things I can now bite pretty well and I can bite big old chunks of cheese off and hide it in my mouth very well. I think this annoyed my mum a little bit because she shoved her finger in my mouth to take the cheese out and then took my cheese off me. Well this was really really unfair so I showed her one of my other new developmental milestones and threw my head back and screamed the place down - that's what I'm going to do now whenever anyone takes something off me that I don't want them to have so they'd better watch out!!! I think she was a bit embarrassed about my shouting because she picked me up and tried one of her distraction techniques - this was a really good one though, she showed me this little fella that was scampering across the ground with a big bushy tail. He came right the way over to us so I stopped shouting because I didn't want to scare him, he sniffed mum's knee then scampered away - very cute.

After the picnic Ruby had decided that she'd practiced her awake skills enough and decided to take a nap. It was a shame really because we were going to go to the best bit which was to feed the ducks. My mum has been making duck noises at me for a couple of months now but I'm still not ready to say it back to her - I'm sticking with my favourite UUgghh noise for the time being. We walked up to Stow Lake and I saw some moor hens and a couple of ducks - they were brilliant! Mum threw them some bread and then it seemed like every seagull and pigeon in San Francisco came to visit. Now I don't know if you know this but I love birds, I mean really really love birds so I thought this was just the best. Mum held me while I flapped my arms like a bird, shouted 'Ugghh' at them a lot and did my best spit gargle sound for them. It was brilliant! Here are some photos Erika took of me having the best time:
Poor old Ruby missed all the excitement but I think she was just saving herself for the playground. We went back down there just as Ruby woke up, we decided to start off with our favourite park activity - swinging. As we're both pretty big now our mums pushed us really high and we both giggled away. Once we were done with swinging we went over to play with this guy:

He didn't move much but my mum told me that they can be very slow. Ruby moves much much faster and crawled all over the place. I did my best but I still haven't quite got the hang of it, I'm not sure if I'm doing it right:


for some reason I still keep going backwards but I'm getting pretty quick so I don't mind too much. My mum followed me the whole way trying to feed me at the same time which was very funny. We finished the day checking out this really cool sculpture:
you can't really tell from this but it's a big wave that the big kids were running through. Mum reckons it won't be too long before I can join them. Anyway after all of this I was pretty pooped so Mum decided it was time to go home. I had a really fun, smashing day, I hope this is the start of more adventure Fridays to come.

My Asian Food Adventure

I'm sorry I haven't had the chance to write in a while, I've been very busy during the week when I go to my friend Jessica's house to play with her and our lovely new nanny Izabela so I can't get to my computer as often. This weekend was a long weekend so I got to see my mum and Dad for 4 whole days which meant plenty of time to try out some of my new tricks that I've learned like shouting every time either one of them sits me down on the floor on my own, climbing (I'm getting very good at this) and I'm still trying to work out that crawling thing - I've been watching Ruby and I do all the right movements but for some reason things seem to get further away from me and not closer together. It's very frustrating!

Now that I'm very good at sitting in a high-chair Mum and Dad are taking me to lots of different places to eat, it's great because I've mastered a way of telling them that I want to try their food without having to resort to grabbing it off their plates. I just stare and stare and stare and once eye contact is established I raise my eyebrows and they get it!

Here's me in between Mum and Dad at Yank Sing which is a lovely Dim Sum restaurant where you can sit outside but you're still inside (a little bit confusing at first). Look at all that food they ordered!




Here's me and my Dad with my friend Ellie and her mum Ranee. I think Ellie looked very cool in her tracksuit. I taught Ellie the same food mind-trick and we both got to try tofu for the first time, I thought it was just OK but Ellie loved it.




Today I met up with my BFF Ruby and her mums and we went to a Thai restaurant that's very close to where I live. They only had one high-chair unfortunately and as I walked down to the restaurant with my Dad and Ruby had her stroller I got to sit in the high-chair which usually I don't mind but today I wasn't that keen.

They tried to keep me quiet with some food, I tried cucumber which looks a lot like gherkin which I love but it didn't taste anywhere near as good. The eyebrow trick didn't work too well today so I tried to grab some of Mum's yellow curry, it was mainly liquid and I wasn't quick enough to grab one of the big chunks of potato or tofu before she pulled my hand away.


I think Mum thought she was going to teach me a lesson by giving me the chunk of lemon from her drink but I thought it tasted great and ate it all up:

There's my lovely friend Ruby and her mums, Ruby was allowed to try some rice but she told me that it was much more fun to play with than it was to eat. I was a bit worried about Erika and Natalie, I thought maybe they'd got something wrong with them but Ruby told me they'd spent the weekend in LA and apparently everyone smiles like this in LA.


Got to go now, I have to pretend to go to bed so that Ruby can call me on her new phone.