Month-by-month, May - November

MAY

--Mother’s Day: Daddy took the early shift, and she made a card, which she brought in to me in bed; she told me she was going to “giff you a kiss” and then we were going out for a “special meal.” SO CUTE!!! Special meal = brunch at Nona’s.

--Another trip to the zoo: The older she gets, the more fun the zoo is. Back in the day, she couldn’t really see many of the animals, and didn’t have the stamina to cover that much ground -- but this time, she really enjoyed herself, and we all got to ride the little steamer train and talk about polar bears and whatnot. Fun Memorial Day outing!

--Babyschool picnic: They invited all the parents for an end-of-school picnic and a slideshow of the year. Of course we didn’t talk to the other parents, just sat with our own kid, but she was SO psyched to have us both there, and it was a good time.

JUNE

--Father’s Day: This time, I took the early shift, and was the card helper. Our gifts included filling up the Prius’s gas tank, and picking up lunch from Westlake Joe’s.

--Housesitting for M&H in Scotts Valley: The A. family went on a two-plus-week trip, so we volunteered to spend as much time as we could at their place, swimming in their pool, grilling on their deck, taking walks on their acreage -- it was a real sacrifice, but we were up for it. Heh. This is where we hatched a plan to start eating dinner with Annika, instead of feeding her her own dinner and then eating ours after she was in bed ... it was a great plan when we were off work and had time to organize like that, but sadly, it lasted only a couple of days back in the real world. We’ll try again someday -- and meanwhile, these weekends were like resort vacations in the sun (away from our fog-bound chill at home). Awesome.

JULY

--The Fourth: Annika was happy to go with us to buy safe ‘n lame fireworks from the stands near our house, but wanted no part of the lighting of fuses and the getting away, so we saved that part for after she was in bed. Maybe next year!

--Crazy Hair Day: Babyschool had all sorts of awesome fun stuff all summer long (bouncy house, water play, crafty things, etc.), but one of the best was Crazy Hair Day, in which all the kids got their hair done and painted bright colors -- Annika’s was a flower (her hair in a bun, with the bun painted fluorescent pink and the rest bright green). It was HILARIOUS -- and there are many pictures & some video.

AUGUST

--Fridays off: My workplace declared, as a cost-saving measure, Fridays off in August -- which was awesome for us! We puttered around together, we did crafts, we just generally enjoyed ourselves. One of the Fridays, we went to Crown & Crumpet, this tea room in Ghirardelli Square in the city. She was so cute -- another customer, seated a couple of tables over with some girlfriends, told her table “That little girl should be in ads for this place.” Which about summed it up! (We went a few weeks later with Mamalah -- and she was awesome again!) Another of the free Fridays, we joined a babyschool field trip to Happy Hollow, an amusement park for little kids in San Jose. They have tamed-down rides, most of which she was juuuuust barely tall enough to ride; we did the carousel, the police/fire engine thing (a sort of merry-go-round thing where they get their own car -- I got a few seconds of that on iPhone video), and several other rides. We had lunch as a group, then all the other kids went back to babyschool and I took Annika home -- we were both wiped out, but it was a really fun day.

--Mamalah visits: Making sure to get a trip in before the beginning of school, Mamalah came out for a week or so in August. We did some stuff like going to the city (bookstore, Crown & Crumpet) and to a dinner at Barolo, but most of the time was just grandmother/grandbaby time -- really the best kind of time.

--A.& K. visit: We saw our friends A. and K. during that week; they were on their way to Kauai (at our instigation, mostly) on a “babymoon” (expecting their first baby in December), so we fetched them from the airport during their seven-hour layover from the east coast and took them to lunch in Half Moon Bay. We had a great time, and Annika was a model kid, soothing their fears about what Life With Kid would be like, which was really cool. :-)

--Clowntime in Clearlake: For H.’s 40th birthday, the Sauce crew and H.’s set of high-school girlfriends all went to a big old house in Clearlake for the weekend (the drive there was ... exciting, as it was directly through a wildfire in the mountains and involved helicopters flying overhead, dumping fire retardant pink stuff on the fire). The plan was for us all to dress as clowns on Saturday night for the party, and whoa -- that was hilarious! She was the only kid there, this tiny little thing in a clown costume, having the time of her life with all these nutty grownups barreling around the place in full clown effect -- naturally she still talks about it, and assumes there will be another clown party soon. The other marquee item was a boat ride, arranged by one of H.’s friends, in which a local couple loaded us all onto their rig and piloted around the lake for a couple hours -- Annika was SUPER-thrilled, kept singing about “going on a boat ride” and “finding new lands and new friends too!” (a Yo Gabba Gabba! thing, naturally), and when it was over, she had her only meltdown of the weekend -- she didn’t want it to end. Nothing a nap wouldn’t fix, though!

--Grandma & Grandpa visit: Celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary (which was actually July 30), the grandparents decided that what they wanted was to have some time with their kids & grandkids, so that’s what they did! Shuttling back and forth between the two houses, getting ordered around by our kid (“Grandpa, you sit there! Grandma, you sit over here! And I will show you this book!”), that kind of thing. And at the end of it, we lessened Annika’s sadness over their departure by ... going to Hawaii the same day they left to go back to Ohio!

--Hawaii: So yeah ... in the car on the way back from taking A&K back to SFO, we were like, “I wanna go to Hawaii ...” and we hadn’t been since the trip to Molokai in 2007 (our own babymoon). Just for kicks, I looked up flights ... and there were some really really cheap ones to Maui, Kauai and the Big Island. So I checked out vacation house rentals ... and there were some gorgeous, luxe ones, right where we wanted to be on the Big Island, for less than a room at the Holiday Inn. We both asked for the PTO from work, and got it ... and boom, booked on Sunday, FOR the next Sunday! It was AWESOME. The “cation house,” as Annika called it, was a unit in a high-end luxury development, a 2BR/2.5BA with a beautiful kitchen, a lanai with a Viking grill, a great pool, private beach club access, the whole deal. Our days started at the CRACK OF DAWN thanks to our little human alarm clock, so whichever one of us was on dawn patrol would go downstairs and get breakfast to take out onto the lanai, where we’d eat in the shade, fanned by a warm tropical breeze, and then Annika would dart around on the lawn, picking up stuff, smelling flowers, barefoot in the grass. Then we’d all get greased up with SPF 70, put on swimsuits, pack a cooler, and go to one of the two beaches where we spent most of our time -- the private beach club (which had cabanas we could stay in, plus a restaurant where we’d eat before heading home), or the “enhanced” one next to another resort down the road a piece, which we’d stumbled onto during our trip there in 2005 (this one had shady areas under trees where we’d set up camp). Both were extremely well-protected little coves, with calm, gentle, warm water and mostly families around -- perfect for us! Annika spent a lot of time playing with sand toys, and LOVED going into that warm clear water. It was funny how tightly we hung onto her in the water, when right next to us, Hawaiian families had kids smaller than Annika just bobbing in the waves, sitting in floaties, perched on boogie boards, what have you. Heh. But so anyway, then we’d shower at the outdoor showers, eat lunch (sandwiches or from the restaurant, depending on where we were), then go home to the ‘cation house for a nap. After that, it was either the complex’s pool, followed by a grilled dinner at the house, or a trip down the road to a little shopping area with restaurants. Annika was again the model child, whether we were at the beach restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton or the Roy’s -- it is really, really nice to have her at this stage, where she doesn’t need special food or a sippy cup, and she has the social stamina to sit at the table with us for as long as the meal takes, and can amuse herself with crayons & paper or whatnot once she’s done. And really the whole trip was like that -- we never even turned the TV on (though we did watch Yo Gabba Gabba! on the computer once as a special treat before Annika’s bedtime). All in all, a perfect vacation, and all the better because it was such a surprise that we got to do it. We’re all ready to go again!

SEPTEMBER

--Baby's First Trip to the ER! It was just croup, and only ER because it was after hours, but ... oi. We held the phone up so the nurse could hear her breathing, and she was like, "ER now pls kthxbai." You could tell she thought diphtheria or something people are insanely not vaccinating for now -- but we got her her DIP-TET. heh). Whew! Meds and Yo Gabba Gabba = better times.

--FogFest: In what is usually the most beautiful weekend of the year, Pacifica has its annual FogFest, a big street fair with booths, crafts, fried foods, beer, a horrifying(ly delicious) signature drink called a Fogcutter, and several stages where bands play. This one was a great one; beautiful sunny day, friends Tom & Danny came up from San Jose, and we all rambled around for several hours. The highlight, though, was Annika discovering this one bluegrass band -- once she heard them, she insisted on staying to the end of their set, dancing like a little maniac, yelling for more. We ended up buying their CD, since she loved the music so much. Good times!

OCTOBER

--Annika’s Third Birthday!!! We weren’t planning on doing a big do, but a couple weeks before, she said she wanted “a party and balloons” for her birthday, so we rounded up the usual gang (M&H fam, Lendlers, Tommy, Bamanda, P&A & the cousins), made a few dozen cupcakes, decorated with Yo Gabba Gabba wall decals & tableware, and it was on! We had a gorgeous sunny Saturday (a real surprise, considering the foggy chilly crap summer we’d had), so everyone could be outside. She loves balloons, so R. picked up a disposable tank of helium and great fun was had by all, filling up and flying balloons, or just sucking the helium and talking through it. The birthday girl got a lot of great gifts, but the marquee item from us was a real skateboard! R. got it at a skate shop -- she loved having her own, “Just like Muno and Plex!” She’s not riding it solo yet, but undoubtedly she will be soon enough. :-)

--Her 3-year checkup: All went well, she was 36.5 inches tall and 31 pounds, and the doctor was really impressed with her independence, articulateness and ability to do the eyesight chart (plus the proto-reading). She had to get a flu shot and a vaccine of some sort or another, so I took her to Celia’s for lunch afterward for being such a brave girl.

--Babyschool promotion: Right around her birthday, the teachers told us she was ready to move to Primary 2, so they phased it in over a couple of weeks. Her new teachers are Ms. Priti, Ms. Rosie and Ms. Josie. It was a little tough because she loved her old teachers so much (especially Ms. May), but she still gets to see them, and she really was needing the more interesting and complicated stuff the older class does. They learn letters, and numbers, and other stuff like dinosaurs, continents (aka “contaments), etc., and they make cooler crafts -- it’s been a really good situation for her.

--Halloween: For months, she’d been clear about what she wanted to be for Halloween: DJ Lance Rock, from Yo Gabba Gabba! Fortunately for us, they have a great DJ Lance Rock costume online for toddlers, so I ordered it, and OMG, it was hysterically funny! She loved it, wanted to wear it all the time, we took a million pics. For trick-or-treating, we went down to Sunnyvale so she could join cousin A. and her gang of little maniacs going door-to-door in their apartment complex. It was a blast -- and this year, she really had the hang of it. One house had a motion-activated ghost that shook and lit up (red eyes! ooooooh!), and she DID NOT like that at all, and occasionally still brings it up now, two months later, but other than that, it was awesome. We weren’t sure how we were going to cut her off, in fact, before it got really late, but at one point she just announced, “I am done.” and that was that!

NOVEMBER

--Grrr. My bosses made me come in on Tuesdays for November and December, which is really too much for her at babyschool (the days are so long! it’s kind of overwhelming), plus it disrupts our whole routine, puts extra stress on R., and doesn’t add one tiny bit to my productivity -- but whatever. The silver lining is, she’s gotten to go to Little Movers, which is this 45-minute pre-gymnastics thing on Tuesdays -- she LOVES it, and always gets psyched to go on Movers days.

--Sauce-o-ween: We didn’t quite make it on Halloween this year, but this was a standout Sauce party. M. and E., M&H’s sons, are really enjoying Annika these days -- she’s a great audience for their goofing around, she thinks they’re hilarious and fun and they think the same about her. M. in particular seems to get the most charge out of it -- after she’d gone to bed Friday night, he asked when she’d be getting up, and when I said “Reeeeeally early tomorrow morning,” he said, “Good! Because no Annika equals no fun!” He read books to her, showed her how to play with their toys -- it was awesome to see the three kids having so much fun together. It was also great because we for once got it together to do something on Saturday: First, we all went hiking out in the redwoods (half a mile or so along a railroad track under the trees, then down into a spot called the Garden of Eden, along a cold creek -- GORGEOUS!!), and it was a nice enough day for shorts. Then, a stop in at Starving Musician, a music store in Santa Cruz, which all the kids enjoyed (even the ones who are minor children, heh). Annika sat down in front of a drum kit, put on the headphones she’d seen some guy using, and started playing -- it was hysterical, and one of the photos I took ended up going on our holiday card.

--Thanksgiving trip to Texas: On the every-other-year schedule we’ve sort of gotten into, we elbowed aside the holiday crowds and went to Mamalah’s house for the week. From the Sandford Family Thanksgiving party on the Sunday after we arrived (where Annika got to know her young cousins Jack and Alden, among others), to the old-time weenie roast out on the farm (more Jack and Alden!), to the big day o’turkey itself, we all had a great time, filled with family visits (Great-Granddad Kelly, Uncle Jake & Aunt Jill, Cousin Ronda & fam), grandmother/grandkid fun and of course several meals at Casa Torres.