Cutting away at babyhood

Dear Little Trip,

Mama is slacking a little on the blog again, although it's mostly because between you, the house and work, sometimes getting my fingers over to the keyboard is just a little too challenging.

November brought the Memphis grandparents for a visit, and you had a blast bringing them to the edge of exhaustion every day they were here. You were happy to run circles around them at the playground, on walks with The Little Red Plastic Car, at The Discovery Museum, and various eating establishments in the Bay Area. You know that saying, "I need a vacation after my vacation?" Ummm, yeah.


Proving you are your mother's child, you show a little Sharon crank when you get hungry and the din din is taking too long.


And now I am happy. So you can also be happy. In that order.


Showing Bebe the ropes in the train room. Hustling lessons on how to swipe trains from unsuspecting toddlers included for additional fee.


These grandparents train up just as easily as the others! Sweet!


And they know my favorite game! Sorry about that slipped disc thing you might have.


Poppy was trying really, really hard to get a great picture of the three of you. Really, really.


This is my, "Hurry up and get me an organic hot dog" face.


And this is my, "Thanks for trying to keep me quiet in the restaurant with a giant bowl of butterscotch pudding" face.


After a long and unsatisfactory debate between your Mama and Dada (with a majority of your grandparents weighing in unprompted), a haircut appointment was made for our sweet baby boy at The Children's Hair Club. Seriously, it really is called that. Mama talked it up for days as a super exciting event, in the way that parents do for experiences they are hoping their kids will tolerate, but fear they may instead spend the entire time screaming, or at least scowling and ruin their once in a lifetime photo opportunities. Other than the vacuum, I don't think you have ever met an item or experience that actually scared you, but still I find I must gush in an over animated tone at some of this stuff. I think it's in the parent rulebook.

Don't tell Dada, but the entire time we were driving there, I almost turned around and headed home, because cutting that soft, wispy, baby hair and thinking of those blond baby curls hitting the floor really made me want to weep. I love the stage you are at right now, but I miss all the stages that have passed too. Every day you are more of a little boy and less of a baby, and I love it and hate it simultaneously.


Kid has an unholy obsession with sitting in any other seat than the car seat.

Anyway, you of course showed no fear during your little trim, and Eddie The Barber humored me by leaving you a little shaggy, wispy and with some curls. It's not quite the baby mullet it was before, but it's still precious and requires blow drying when the weather is cold...and Oh, how I love aiming the blow dryer at your little wet head while you race back and forth past the air current screeching with joy and proclaiming, "Wind! Wind!"


Who cares about the sharp blades whirring by my head. I have many Matchbox cars to inspect.


Dada said it's a travesty to get your long hair cut while sporting a Lincecum jersey. Touche, Dada. Touche.


I get a sucker, a balloon, and I can still technically be called a no-good-long-haired-hippie? Well thank you very much!

Oh Deer!

Dear Little Trip,

You + Halloween = Love

I mean, how could combining so many of your favorite things not be a rousing success? You've got your all consuming obsession with dee-yar (deer), your heart-felt passion for ringing ding-dongs (doorbells), your long time love of running down sidewalks like a bat out of hell, and your new found love of candy (Lord help me).

When we arrived at the grandparents' house for trick-or-treating, Oma opened the door in full witch costume, complete with giant feather rimmed hat. You spent a good 10 seconds giving her the side eye, but decided she was still your favorite spoil-you-rotten-crazy-Dutchie. Then, it was on to the good stuff.





She just promised me unlimited M&Ms if I learn Dutch.


The fawn is not interested in photo ops with the doe and buck.


Not answering the door fast enough? I'll just let myself in.


Go Giants! Kicking some Ranger ass while we collect candy!


Mama, can we have Halloween every night?


Oh boy...this is going to get ugly.

Punkin at the Patch

Dear Little Trip,

As Mama attempts to make our new house look a little more like a home, we've been spending some time at our casa. I decorate. You decorate. One of us uses paint. One of us uses sticky fingers. One of us uses a hammer. One of us uses toy trucks. When we're not working on the house, we like to tear it up on the block with the pink stroller. The pink stroller is no Little Red Plastic Car, but it does allow you to be the pusher of the vehicle, and does allow for the all important transport of little diggers and the occasional stuffed bunny. Also, you look like a total bad ass pushing that thing around with no shirt on.


Real men wear pink!

Back inside the house, you have a knack for finding all sorts of interesting items to check out. Apparently the bathroom counter is no longer outside your reach, as evidenced by your discovery of Oma's shower cap and Opa's toothbrush.


I will just rub my grimy, germy fingers all over this stuff. Ingesting my germs just builds your immunity.


And what is so funny, people?

We had an impromptu family night out last week at Sol Food, a yummy little Puerto Rican joint that's close by. You weren't too impressed with dinner, eschewing all but six black beans, but Mama's Lime Aid was a big hit. You call it beer. We don't argue.



"Mooore, Peeease."

Everyone who knows Mama knows that Halloween is not exactly a day in our house. It's not even a month. Halloween is a season. And during this reverent time, we must partake in the procurement of pumpkins. Last year we enjoyed an almost quaint pumpkin patch / parking lot in the city. We bundled you up in your fuzzy, orange pumpkin suit and you ate leaves and posed for endless pictures at our mercy, as you were (much to our advantage) unable to walk yet.

This year we took a drive over to Nicasio to the super-crunchy-organic pumpkin patch. Nicasio is located...well, I don't know where the heck it is. It's in the boonies. Far, far in the boonies. And the roads are twisty and so they lulled you right to sleep. But no matter. Once we got to this wonderland of pumpkins I knew you would perk right up. Only it was extremely hot. Too hot to wear the uber-hip black skull shirt and too hot for your parents to have forgotten the SPF 300. But we wandered around in this sauna of overpriced pumpkins and sent you unhappily into the pint sized hay maze. That lasted about 16 seconds. Knowing we were out of our league in this furnace they call Marin County, we headed for the small shady area, where you proceeded to rearrange all the mini pumpkins and unstack all of the shopping baskets. We left with a few little pumpkins and then Mama made Dada stop at the grocery store so that we could stock up on pumpkins that were no doubt grown with dangerous chemicals but did not cost 30$ a piece.


Will probably need years of therapy to get past being stuck in this thing.


How bout this one, Mama? No? OK. I drop it now.


I'm not destroying the display. I'm deconstructing it.


If there is a stack. I must unstack it.


Halloween is exhausting.

On a yummier note, Oma brought some highly processed and super delicious Little Debbies over a few days ago. We thought we'd let you in on the fun.


Swiss Cake Roll? As in roll the whole thing into my mouth at once? Don't mind if I do!


Happiest. Baby. On the planet.


Wait a minute....Is that a Nutty Bar?


Shout out to my home girl, Little Debbie!

Sunny September

Dear Little Trip,

We are deep into the summertime heat in our little neck of the woods. It is taking some adjusting getting used to this thing they call the sun, and we are looking forward to having some air conditioning next year. In the meantime, we are grateful that Oma and Opa have a nice cool house, and that we have an open invitation to come and bug them when it gets too hot. They have a great park just behind their house that is frequently visited by deer. "Dee-arr" is about your favorite word and topic right now. You look for them everywhere we go and whenever you see some woods or hills you make a "dee-arr" pronouncement. I have no idea how you acquired a Boston accent, but you go with it, buddy!


Chillaxing with some "wine" and cheese on the deck at sunset. "Wine" is another favorite word. As is "beer." Mama has no comment.


Hiding out with my truck.


Hiding out without my truck.


The most Caucasian child in the Bay Area is not used to the heat.


I can do it by myself now!


But it's fun to take Oma too!

We came up today so we could take your one-and-a-half-old pictures at our preferred portrait studio. We actually tried to take these portraits last month a little closer to home. Mama made special arrangements to have the manager shoot your pictures at the local place, since you have a small problem sitting still for as long as it takes a camera to click, but when we arrived there was a brand new photographer looking naively hopeful and confident that she could handle the task.

You spent the next 30 minutes exploring the props in the supply closet, scooping up the backdrop fabric and trying to run out the door with her squeaky toys. At one point the photographer was on the set and you were behind the very expensive camera with the camera button in hand taking pictures of her. The camera snapped away, the umbrella lights flashed, and Mama tried not to laugh too hard as you took professional quality photos of the sweating photographer's backside.

Today we did a little better!


Definitely not going to sit in this chair.


About to make a run for it.


I'll just adjust this prop for you guys.


Cracking myself up.


Bye Bye!


Working on my swagger.

Dada takes you to the local farmer's market just about every Sunday. Usually it's just a boys' trip since Mama is at work, but I got to tag along a couple times this month. You attract a lot of attention in your fancy wagon. Dada pulls you from booth to booth and you feast on whatever samples are offered up while giving a running commentary on your surroundings: "Wheeyul" (wheel), "Gray" (grapes), "Dada" (any man over the age of 18), and the ever popular "Bye-Bye" (shouted at anyone who happens to be walking by). If you get a little bored you amuse yourself by throwing things out of the wagon. Sometimes it's your hat, sometimes your sippy cup, sometimes part of Dada's haul.


Me + rotisserie chicken guy = love.


This is the life. I ride around. You feed me grapes and peaches. Let's keep this arrangement going, shall we?


Ever the water baby, we know we can always keep you happy in either the bath tub or the kiddie pool. We are so glad we can bathe you in a real tub now that we have moved, and you love, love, love your baths. You lay down on your back and wiggle around like a seal. And you have to stay in the tub the whole time the water drains. You tell the drain, "bye bye, bye bye" over and over again desperately, as you wave your little raisin-y fingers to the draining water. Then we have the obligatory naked running through the house until someone catches you and wrangles you into your jammies.



You will just have to imagine the view of toddler's naked tushie running with abandon towards his beloved dump truck about three seconds after this photo was taken.


Oh yes, that is refreshing Mama!


This is just a little bit fun.


Have I mentioned how much I like to open and close the shampoo lid?


Let me think about what to do next....Oh...I know...


I will splash and splash and splash some more.


I'm so cute you don't mind if I soak the whole bathroom, right?


Bye-bye wah-wah, bye-bye.




You still really love buses and fire trucks, and the obsession over diggers is going strong. The shopping center by our house has been undergoing major renovations, and grocery shopping has never been so much fun. We do love our "dig digs!"


A moment of silence in honor of the dig dig.


Keeping cool with a milkshake at the local ice cream shop (with full view of dig digs, of course).

We bought you a little potty, just in case you decided you wanted to try it out.


It's going great so far.


Really, really great.

Oma and Opa took you on an adventure to the city last week. You guys enjoyed a few of your old SF favorites, including a bus ride with a bus driver that remembered you and gave you a free ride. You also stopped at Starbucks for a cookie and pretend coffee, and then went to the rich kids playground where you played in the sand and looked for deer. Now that you have deer at your local playground, you are quite sure they have them at all the playgrounds. We don't want to burst your bubble. You also spied a little park vehicle that was unmanned and looked just like a lawnmower to you. You moaned until Oma and Opa put you in the driver's seat. Then the driver returned. He thought it was cute. Kind of.


The wheels on the bus go round and round...


You have no idea how cool this is.


But you definitely know how cool this is.


Oma, this doesn't taste like a double soy half caf latte.