Day At The Beach

I am so behind in posts. I blame work and my general inability to function after about 7:00 pm these days. When Bubby was still here Aunt Amy came up for a quick weekend. Aunt Amy's favorite place in the whole world is the beach so we try to go to Half Moon Bay at least once every time she's here. It was delightfully overcast, but there was no wind, so it was actually warmer than I have ever seen it.



Too bad no one likes Norah at all.

Aunt Amy's baby belly is growing more awesome by the day. Norah was mildly obsessed with it and wanted to talk to the baby all of the time. It was her first request upon waking in the morning and the last request she had at night. Amy convinced her if she looked in the belly button hard enough she would be able to see the baby.

I call this picture, "looking for my cousin."

We ate yogurt covered pretzels and mango slices and took a long walk though the sand.



The tide was unpredictable and the waves inconsistent. Right after this picture was taken Norah got down to put her feet in the water and we both got drenched by a giant wave. Bubby had excellent reflexes and grabbed her by the hood (scared the crap out of her, but it was much better than what the alternative would have been).

We had lunch at our usual place, Sam's. This sea captain became Norah's new BFF while we waited for a table.

She wasn't interested in her mac and cheese, but couldn't get enough of Bubby's spicy mahi mahi. I think next time I am going to order her an oyster shooter.



Fun times, as always. You may need a wet suit to get in the water, but there is no other place that's more relaxing or enjoyable.

Family of Bears

Norah's Uncle Andy has a special talent for picking out stuffed bears for little kids. Megan, Trevor and Norah are all incredibly attached to their special bears. Megan's is Oliver, Norah's is Bear, and Trevor's is Syrup. Clearly I don't have the creative kid.

Missing All The Fun

Tuesday is Animal Day at Ardenwood Farms. I had planned to play hooky from work, but I got slammed this week and so sneaking away didn't work out. Luckily, Pam is in good with Norah's BFF's and so Norah got to go even though I didn't. Can you say, jealous much? Thankfully, Pam sent me pictures from their visit so I lived vicariously through them.

I looked at this picture about 10 times and got warm fuzzies every time from seeing Ruby's hand on Caleb's back. But the closer I look the more I have convinced myself that Norah has her arm hooked through Caleb's. (If it is just an optical illusion I don't want to know).

I imagine they were probably far more excited than this picture shows.

No one is allowed to go again without me!

Little People Have Butts

Norah is really into Little People right now (as in the Fisher Price toys, not the family from the TLC show). We got several sets second hand and she spends a good part of her day every day playing with the princess tree house (I know, I KNOW), the pirate ship, the garage, and the whaling boat. Little People have gotten way better since I was a kid (see above). They are no longer the serious choking hazards they once were. My mom (the cleanest hoarder you'll ever meet) pulled a bunch of toys out of the attic last time we were in Austin and she had boxes upon boxes of little plastic death traps.

Anyway, I was playing garage with her after work today and this was our conversation:

Norah: Need gas (one of her favorite things to do is to fill the cars and the people with gas from the little pump--it makes noise like an old time gas pump and everything).

Me: Why do you put gas in the people too?

Norah: Cause they are thirsty. I put gas in their butts.*

Me: Why do you put gas in their bottoms?

Norah: Hmmm. (Long pause). Because their butts is where the hole is.

Well, I can't really argue with that logic. In other funny news, I asked her what she had for lunch today. Pam had already told me she had macaroni and spinach, but I like to ask her about her day. She told me "chicken nuggets and guacamole." I said, "really, how interesting. How was it?" She said, "good. A little spicy." Hmmm. Sociopath or genius? You make the call.

*I don't know why she says butts. I really don't. We say bottom. I swear. I mean, sure she still hears me say asshole every once in a while, but I don't say butt!

Bubby

Norah is a lucky girl because Bubby came out to take care of her for about 3 weeks. They had a fabulous time and it was as though they had never been apart.











Thanks, Bubby, for helping out so much and for loving our girl. We miss you!

Funny

I have lots of pictures to share from the past week or so and I swear I will actually sit down and do it. Soon. But for now, here are a few cute Norah-isms.

This morning we were having breakfast and she had a bunch of blueberries on her plate. She picked out a big one and said, 'dis the mama' and then picked up a little one and said 'dis the baby.' Then she said, 'I eat the mama,' popped it in her mouth and laughed hysterically.

The people across the street have teenagers and every once in a while their house gets toilet papered (who knew kids even did that anymore???). Norah has been very confused by the paper in the trees and so tonight I asked her if toilet paper was supposed to be in trees. She said, 'no, in potty to wipe my butt!'

Aunt Amy was just in town for a long weekend and this morning Norah was very sad that she wasn't here. She told me 'I miss Aunt Amo sooooo much.' Then she started to fake cry and said, 'me so sad. Me need to watch Handy Manny.' The kid is good.

She has gone to time out several times in the past couple of days for hitting. It isn't anything major and she is just playing around, but we have a zero tolerance policy for hitting and we take it very seriously. The latest infringement was when she tried to 'fix' me and whacked me in the eye with her rubber hammer. I think she finally gets it because her baby doll has gone to time out about 37 times today for 'hitting' Norah. I watched her at one point pick baby up, make baby's arm whack her head, say, 'now baby go to time out!' walk over and put baby in time out, then a few seconds go get her and say, 'now tell Norah what you did and you be sorry.' Then she gives baby a hug and they go on their way. Until it happens again 5 minutes later.

Her latest favorite food is pickles. But she pronounces it 'peekles.' I let her have them just so she'll say it.

There are a million more. We keep thinking she can't get any cuter, but man. She does.

The Cleaner

Norah is awesome at cleaning up her toys. You don't even have to ask her, she just does it. Most of the time she doesn't even want any help. I give Pam and Bubby full credit for instilling this excellent habit.




And just in case you were thinking about coming to kidnap my perfect child for yourself, while she may be excellent at housework I also have a sneaking suspicion that she might be a bit of a sociopath. This is evidenced by the fact that last week she SHOVED one of her very best BFF's Ruby off of a slide. Shoved her right off. Norah and Ruby had been bickering over the slide in Ava's back yard for a bit (Ruby would want to slide down and Norah wouldn't move, so Ruby came down and nailed her in the stomach-they both cracked up; they kept trying to block each others' effort to climb the stairs, etc.) and it all seemed to be in good fun until I looked over and saw them both at the top. And then Norah shoved Ruby who fell flat on her back. Slow. Motion. You have never seen 4 moms move so fast in your entire life. Ruby got the wind knocked out of her and was pretty freaked out. I was traumatized. Norah wasn't phased in the slightest. She happily sat in time out (for like 10 minutes) and didn't seem to understand what the big deal was all about. It finally registered with her that night when family movie night got canceled and we talked ad nauseam about what she did and how sad she made everyone. Every day since the 'incident' without prompting she tells me 'it is not okay to push Ruby OR ANYONE ELSE off the slide. It makes Mom sad. Please us watch Nemo.' I hope she gets it. And that Ruby doesn't break up with her.

Kaboom

Today was a sad day because we said good-bye to some of our very favorite people. Ave, Sam and Lilah (better known as Baby Kaboom) are leaving SF for Sam's super fly new job at Emory University in Atlanta (he is a sort of molecular biologist chemist brain nuclear physicist mad scientist extraordinare--and now going to be a fancy schmance professor).

Ave and I worked together (before she ditched me for a different job post maternity leave) but she quickly became much more than a co-worker. She's quite possibly one of the funniest people I have ever met (and easily one of the smartest). We were pregnant at the same time and I can't ever adequately express how awesome it was to be able to talk about search and seizure law and the human cervix in the same conversation.

Even though we don't work together anymore she's still my favorite lunch date and Norah loves Lilah and talks about her all of the time. We will miss you Kabooms! This certainly isn't good-bye, but rather, 'see you later.' Come back soon.

(This picture was taken before bed tonight. Norah is wearing her Curious George 'silk' (ie, polyester pajamas), courtesy of Bubby. Want to know why she is so happy? We underestimated how long we would be in SF this afternoon and how long it would take us to collect Bubby-who wanted to check out some sights while we were at Ave and Sam's-and so we overshot Norah's dinner time by like 45 minutes. She was starving. And so I did it. My terrible shame. I bought her a McDonald's cheeseburger at a drive-thru. And you know what? She freaking loved it. She ate the whole thing in about 30 seconds and then proceeded to tell us 'that was sooooo good!' and 'that tastes the best!' and 'Norah looooves cheeseburgers' all the way home. BVZ said that we could have saved $14,000 in the past 2 years by feeding her cheeseburgers instead of Whole Foods produce. Norah asked if she could have a cheeseburger tomorrow. I said 'hell no.' She asked, 'what's hell?' I said, 'where cheeseburgers are from.')

Happy (Almost) Anniversary

Our actual anniversary isn't until August 13, but Bubby is in town so we took advantage of the free babysitting to get away for a night. Now, I am not a very sentimental person (shocking, I know), but BVZ is actually far LESS sentimental than I am (shocking. I know). So, imagine my surprise when he suggested we spend the night at the Hotel St. Claire, in San Jose, which is the place we spent our wedding night.

Cute, right?

We headed down to San Jose Saturday afternoon and went to see a real live movie in a theater. It had been almost a year since we went to the movies and we saw Inception. I really liked it. It was the only good Leonardo DiCaprio movie since What's Eating Gilbert Grape (please don't comment and say The Departed was a good Leonardo DiCaprio movie. If you liked The Departed we can no longer be friends. Or family, really).

Here's some blurry shots of the St. Claire lobby.


This is the honeymoon suite which is the only room on the 'half' floor. We stayed there the night of the wedding and cracked up because we are so not people who stay in a honeymoon suite.

The king sized bed is what made it all worthwhile. We need a king sized bed. I think the future of our marriage depends on it.

After dinner we had a fun dinner at the San Pedro Square Bistro and Wine Bar. It was really tasty.

BVZ is very happy at the prospect of going to bed before 10 pm, in a king sized bed, without a toddler.


We started with a yummy bistro salad. It had too many pine nuts. I used to love pine nuts. I really don't anymore. I don't know what happened.


Then we had the crab cake. It was good but had way too much celery in it. I don't like crab cakes quite that crunchy.

The scallops were my favorite.

BVZ liked the mini burgers best. I forgot to take a picture until they were half eaten.


After dinner we, wait for it, wait for it, went on a walking tour of all of our wedding location sites. Too sweet, right? Here is the restaurant we had our rehearsal dinner at. Doesn't BVZ look sad? That's because the restaurant (The Tied House) doesn't exist anymore.

Here's the Corinthian Room at the San Jose Athletic Club where we had the ceremony and reception. It's an amazing building.

There was a wedding going on inside, so I just peeked inside the front door a little.

Classy place, right?

We went back to the hotel and had dessert at the restaurant there, Il Fornaio. It was the place of my bridal shower, after wedding brunch, and many, many cocktails with good friends and family.

Sunday morning we had breakfast again at Il Fornaio.

We ordered berries with creme fraiche, which turned out to be creme fraiche with a few berries. I like creme fraiche, but not enough to drink it.

Thankfully my bruchetta eggs,

and BVZ's salmon frittata were much better.

We arrived home to find both Norah and Bubby in one piece and happy to see us.

It was a fun celebration. I was giving BVZ a hard time because on our first anniversary we were in Paris (the vacation that started this blog, actually. Go back to the 2006 archives to see how thin and well rested we were), and now all we wanted was to be in bed by 10. Funny how things change, but I wouldn't change a thing. Well, maybe I would have gotten more sleep. But other than that....not a thing.