Holy Cow!

It’s been a long time since I last blogged! Three whole weeks! The truth is that I have been swamped at work! Lots of little things have happened, but nothing major.

My dad and I took Fiona to the beach one afternoon and we saw all sorts of cool stuff.

A great big dead sea lion and a dead Angel Shark:

The sea lion smelled awful, but the shark did not. There was a group of people sitting very close to the sea lion for some reason. It was weird and kind of gross.

Lots of anemones, barnacles, turret shells, limpits, and chitons:

 

Here is Fiona pointing at a chiton:

 

Fiona really enjoyed poking the anemones and making them squirt water. We saw one with a crab leg sticking out of its mouth:

We did not poke that one.

There were a lot of carcasses on the beach that day. Many intact crab shells, lobster tails, and a sea urchin:

 

We had a great time, especially because Fiona basically did not take a nap on that day.

 

 

Later in the week we bought a tide pool flip book guide and Fiona loves to look at it. She can identify the different types of animals by their pictures and knows their names. It’s really cute to hear her say “chiton” or “limpit” or “barnacle” but I like it especially when she asks to go poke the anemones.

I went to wedding:

  

There was a very beautiful sunset:

I went with my parents:

It was the wedding of my mom’s friend Jeannine. I’ve known Jeannine most of life now. I used to baby sit her three sons. I’m really happy for her that she found love and her wedding was a lot of fun and everything a wedding should be: intimate, fun, full of food and laughter. I was the designated driver, so I didn’t have too much fun ;)

We took Fiona to the Channel Islands National Park Visitor’s Center at the Ventura Harbor:

 

It was beautiful day and we met some cute dogs. We learned a little more about the different animals we see in tide pools and rocks at the beach, and we bought the flip book guide.

Fiona has been shirking naps lately. She is a big grouch when she doesn’t nap, so the afternoons have been somewhat challenging. She decided to climb out of her crib, which means she fell, and now likes to climb on her toy box to get in. While I’m proud that she is exploring and problem solving, I’m not happy about the climbing and the potential for injury, so took the front off of her crib:

 

She had a lot of fun getting in and out of bed, but when John got home, he put the front back on because the rail we got at Babies R Us was too long and not made for toddler beds. I ordered one that is perfect for her crib (the model crib in the picture on the box is actually the same as Fiona’s crib) and it arrived two days later (thank you Amazon). We haven’t installed it yet, but it’s going to happen very soon.

Fiona loves to look at photos on the camera, so we took a couple for her to see:

 

I know she looks really unhappy, but she wasn’t really. She likes to make the serious face when I point a camera at her. Lately she has been very interested in my baby albums and I had to tell her several times that the little girl in the pictures wasn’t her but was actually me. She loves looking at the albums and then making all silly faces that I made when I was a child. There is definitely a family resemblance there.

My dad and I took Fiona to a Thai and Peruvian restaurant:

 

Fiona discovered playing with keys and enjoyed “locking” me in to her room and then “unlocking” the door. Note: There is no lock on her door at all.

We enjoyed the sounds of the water fountain in my mother’s front yard:

Today we went to the zoo. We went in the morning, a new time for us. A lot of the animals were out and doing their “things” like eating, swimming, and generally moving around:

 

 

The gorillas were the highlight of the trip:

They were really that close, and love to show us their best features.

Even the giraffe was being friendly:

The following photos are fuzzy, but I am sharing them anyway. The animal in the photos is the Black Footed Cat. In all the times I’ve been to the zoo in the last three years, I’ve never seen this cat. I did not believe it actually existed. I thought the cage was empty and they just never took the sign down. Today it was not hiding at all, but hanging out in the shade, scratching itself and acting like a regular cat, meaning it was eyeing everyone suspiciously.

Someone speculated that the cat felt safe to come out of hiding because the lions that live next door to it were caged due to repairs being made on their habitat. The bulk of the vegetation in the cat’s habitat was trimmed, so maybe that is why it was possible to see it. Either way, it’s like seeing bigfoot. I now believe that the cat really exists, having seen it with my own eyes.

Fiona drinking water and eating snack:

It was fun day at the zoo and I’m glad we went in the morning. I think I will do that from now on.

Developmentally, the last three weeks have been amazing. Fiona’s speech is progressing rapidly, as are her manners. She will now say “please” without being prompted. For example, she needed a paper towel because she spilled something and she came to me and said “paper towel please” instead of just “paper towel”. She is using more complete sentences and saying many new and more complicated words every day. Along with this speech development and improved climbing skills (one of her preschool teachers told John Fiona has the athleticism of a three year old) comes the refusal to take naps and refusal to let her diaper be changed. Every change is a struggle now because she doesn’t want to stop what she is doing. We try making her part of the fun, letting her roll up and throw away the old diaper, something she loves to do, but she still doesn’t want to stop playing. She pees on the potty multiple times a day, can open the toothpaste tube and squeeze toothpaste onto her toothbrushes by herself, can put on her own pants, socks, and shoes, and open screw caps, and can get into her car seat by herself (by climbing in from outside the car). She recognizes books by their covers and can say their names when she sees the books or even just pictures of the books. She asks for specific books by name and sings “Happy Birthday” and “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” as well as some other songs. She makes jokes and thinks she is hilarious. Sometimes she is funny, other times, not so much. She tries to read, turning pages of books and saying the parts that she can remember. Usually, she is pretty accurate. She remembers things and conversations from weeks ago, including things we don’t want her to remember. Sometimes her memory is handy, like when I couldn’t find her nail clippers because her babysitter moved them two weeks before. We asked her if she knew where they were and she pointed right at them (they were on a shelf up high, out of my line of sight). She told me the Amanda put them there to get them away from her daughter.

No more swearing around her because she repeats everything. She says “Holy Cow!” She is learning to count in both English and Hebrew and can switch back and forth with the numbers. She knows her letters and some of the words that begin with some of the letters. She thinks Panda is her baby is carries him around the house, wrapped in a swaddle blanket. Sometimes she tries to nurse him.

All in all, Fiona is doing well and it is amazing to watch her grow and develop. It’s even more amazing to me, given her rough beginning and that she was behind her same age peers at this time last year. I am sure I could go on and on even more because I haven’t posted in so long, but I need to go to sleep.

Hopefully my next post will be less than three weeks from now.

Have a happy week!