FFFA: Little Farm #2

We talk about farm animals a lot at our house. It might be due to the fact that our child has approximately 37 farm-related toys and books. Is that unusual? I'm not sure. Point is, we know all about how the cow brings us milk and the horse says neigh-hey-hey-hey! and the bright-eyed rooster gets up so early that then he gets tired before everyone else. (Is that even true? Do roosters retire early?)

At any rate, since we talk about farm animals all the time, I thought it was time we revisited the Little Farm. Really put a face on these critters. We even got romaine lettuce at the Trader Joe's the day before going, that's how well-planned this adventure really was.

You may recall that last time we visited the farm, the cow made Baby Grady feel concerned. Well, this time, the cow had the audacity to say "moo" and Baby Grady veritably wept. You know how sometimes, you just feel deep in your soul that something does not suit you? (I feel this way about clogs.) Well, that is how Baby Grady still feels about cows. He was so clear about these feelings that we did not even get a photograph this time.

We fared better with the goats:

And the foul:

And the goats:

Grady even loosened up enough to go free-range and smiley:

Dat! (It's a goat.)

After we ran out of lettuce, we hit the overrun little play structure. It was chaos and really windy and wind sort of makes me cranky, but I was really tough about it and stayed and let Grady play anyway. It's a play structure geared for bigger kids, as several of the exits lead you onto rock cliffs:

Slides are fun:

One winter weekend

Right, so, because we live in the Bay Area, where our real estate taxes include a "damn near perfect weather, damn near all the time" surcharge, we were able to take these pictures in February. But I'll have you know, it's a serious kind of a surcharge, and I really shouldn't be joking about such things, because omigosh, you guys, I just saw a listing for a house in Texas that was a kid-you-not mansion looking thing and it was so CHEAP. But, we can go outside in the summer. And, blue state things. We have it good.

So, once we put horrible colds and a round of the stomach flu behind us (yes, seriously, we are living in a world of pestilence up in here), we enjoyed a very lazy, recovery sort of weekend of hanging out at home, going to the park, and so on and so forth.

This is what that looked like. (In related news, Jasper bought us a new, fancy camera so that now we can take wonderfully better pictures of our speedy little toddler. So, you can expect ridiculous levels of photo frenzies around here until we get over it. Which will be approximately never, because have you seen our baby? Who looks like a little boy? I know... we are the fools who got the good camera after having the baby for a whole year. It's basically like that cuteness never even happened so we should probably take a mulligan.)

The boy and his books

Happy Valentine's Day to me!

 

Yesterday I won roses from the building management at my giant office building. I have no idea how many winners there were, but I was stunned. Like everyone else in the world, "I never win anything!" It was one of those drawings where you put your business card in a fishbowl to enter. I love those, not because I ever win them (I really don't), but because I just don't have much use for business cards these days? Because no one has a rolodex anymore? And putting them in a contest fishbowl feels like something that isn't wasteful? 

The roses, delivered to me by two representatives from the building, were a garishly presented dozen long-stems in a giant gold box. I would have been horrified and possibly offended if they'd been from my husband. I mean, I would have tried to appreciate the thought, and I would have assumed he was just delirious with sleep-deprivation and perhaps his finger slipped when he was trying to order me the apricot tulips. 

The good news is that my roses were devoid of baby's breath, so I didn't have to wonder whether building management wanted to take me to prom in 1985. 

Far more thrillingly, yesterday also brought the arrival of Baby Grady's first craft project! Could it be any cuter? Sweet, chubby little handprints... arggghhhh... Immma gonna eat you up, baby!

   

I can't for the life of me figure out how they managed to put paint on his hands and then transfer it to the paper, without covering the entire baby, outfit, teaching staff, and five-county area in paint. I can't feed the baby a cream-cheese sandwich with so little mess. Professionals, is what I'm saying.

In other Hallmark-holiday news, I apparently missed the memo on Valentine's themed outfits. If you are under the age of five(?)(I'm guessing?) it is a given that upon the day of February 14th you will wear red or pink and preferably also with hearts or the phrase "my mommy thinks I'm a stud" and other general dapperness. So, I'll admit, this is absolutely the sort of thing I might willfully opt not to partake in. I would think, "So silly; my kid does not care; not buying special themed outfit; done." And that would be fine. But. You guys. I didn't even realize it was a thing! I didn't willfully opt out; I just... missed it. It didn't even occur to me. So, I felt like kind of a loser when I picked the baby up from daycare and there was a roomful of toddlers in red and my kid in a brown onesie and blue sweatpants.

[Thing one: I really don't care for the baby in brown. Thing two: I didn't dress him. Thing three: If I had, I wouldn't have done any better, because hey, it's daycare, and that's when I use the clothes I don't really like anyway. Thing four: Thankfully they'd taken the Valentine's photos on a prior day when he was dressed somewhat cuter.]

I wonder if there is still time to get a toddler-sized powdered wig on Etsy for Monday...

Filtration

So now that I have an iPhone, I'm finding it easier to participate in the whole hipster-filters-on-your-baby thing. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I liked how this treatment made Grady look like a still, pensive baby. He was, in that moment, and the filter emphasizes that, I think. Right, so, I have no idea what I'm doing. But that was Grady, chilling his baby out in the viking ship at this absurdly picturesque toddler playground in a little urban redwood grove. Too much, you guys. 

Speaking of my hipster baby (we were, right?), he is partying like a boss these days. Over the weekend,  he developed a new habit of crashing parties at the rec center/park next door. He crashed both a going away party and a 4th birthday party, by simply toddling himself assertively over and joining in on the fun. Basically, he sees balloons on the rec center, and he is all in. I hope he keeps this up. I don't know what it says about me that I feel this way, but I really like the idea of my kid scamming cake and bounce-house jumps from random birthday parties.

He also attended a 40th birthday party to which he was invited. He ate Doritos and mashed potatoes, introduced himself to all the strangers, and laughed and laughed at his own jokes and at Jasper's friends' goofy faces. There was little doubt that he won the party.

Afterwards he had to sleep on his face with his buns in the air for a while, as one does.

One day at the museum

And that was January

Right, so, then I took a month off from blogging. I don't know. I didn't see that one coming either. I imagine that the four of you are dying to know what we've been up to. (Let me dreeeeeaaam!)

Grady grows more impossible to photograph with each day. Here he is dragging Kasper Klip-Klap around. Kasper is from Germany by way of Switzerland.

Fun, right? He totally is.

So what did you miss in January? These things:

"Tell me about your world!!!!" -- Grady is now pointing at things nonstop and saying, "'at!" and we tell him what "that" is. It sounds completely adorable, and it is, until you are on a hike in the redwoods and the dialog sounds like: 'at! tree. 'at! tree. 'at! another tree. 'at! yeah, that's a tree too. for.ev.er.

Kitchen inventory -- He developed a fondness for being carried around the kitchen so that he could open each cabinet in turn and take inventory on our dishes, glasses, spices, and other kitchen things.

Word of the month -- uh-oh (just wait until you hear his new February favorite word!)

Food of the month -- baby smoothies that come in pouches; perfect blends of organic fruits, veggies, yogurt, and whole grains for your baby-on-the-go, which Grady most certainly is

More slides -- Now he goes down properly, on his tush, with a huge grin on his face. He is especially skilled at his personal home slide that he got for Christmas from Granny J and Gumpa. He crawls to the top, throws his farm animals down first (uh-oh!) and then scoots his own adorable self down. It's crazy cute. Must take more pictures.

Night terrors -- So, yeah, now the baby not only wakes up a million times a night, but also screams frantically and inconsolably when he does. It's disturbing and also rather disruptive, I'm not gonna lie.

Chabot Space and Science Center -- Geems and Pop-pop got us a membership for Christmas and we went three times in January! Grady's favorite part is the entrance to one exhibit that has long strips of clear orange plastic like a walk-in cooler. He'll go back and forth through that thing for ten minutes.

New PR for us and B.O.B. -- Grady and I knocked out 11.5 miles one Saturday (or possibly Sunday) morning with Bob the jogging stroller this month! We didn't even plan on going long that day, but it was just one of those days when you run and nothing tells you adamantly that you must stop NOW because argh... running is awful!!! So, we took the silence to mean that we should just keep cruising along and that we did.

MOLARS, omg, molars, all the molars... -- The baby seems to get his teeth whole mouthfuls at a time. Do you have any idea how many molars there are? I don't either, but the baby has all of them in various states of partially in. Several of them are partially in in more than one place. It is the worst.

So much illness and possibly including the pinkeye, but it was hard to tell -- Grady the Gus was sick for pretty much the entire month, and well into February. Jasper fared only slightly better, and I was sick roughly half the month. It was ridiculous and leaves me wondering whether anyone has ever quit their job to avoid daycare germs? Because omg, it seems like a really reasonable choice to me right now.

Death of the electronics -- Jasper's computer and my phone both decided to call it quits in January. The good news is that I made the switch to an iPhone and I am so in love. So fast! So responsive! It actually works! Of course, I barely know how to make a call with it, but who does that anymore anyway? Instagram!