Playdate with Zoe

We mentioned Zoe in an earlier post -- she's Fiona's age-mate and the granddaughter of my parents' next-door neighbors (and child of my former childhood friend Aaron). On Father's Day, Aaron and his wife Jessie brought Zoe over to see Fiona. Since Fiona is our first child and we have no basis for comparison, we often get glimpses into her personality when we see her relative to other babies. Watching Fiona interact with Zoe, we could only draw one conclusion: our daughter is a hyperactive spaz. Fiona went into convulsions of joy when she saw Zoe, and then proceeded to attempt to claw at Zoe's face and eat her clothes. All the while, Zoe patiently stared at Fiona with a mixture of tolerance and pity. See for yourself: the photos above speak a thousand words. It's not difficult to identify which baby is Fiona -- she's the one who has at least one blurred appendage in each image.

Another One Bites the Dust

Fiona has continued her bi-coastal campaign of destruction against stuffed animals of all species. See above for a step-by-step illustration of how she subjugated Jimmy the Raccoon (one of my own childhood toys). We thought her method of crushing his skull using her feet was a nice touch -- this without ever having seen an action movie. The stuffed white seal was collateral damage.

Happy Father's Day!

Fiona would like to take a brief break from her role of attention vortex in order to wish her Daddy, Grand-Daddy, and Boom a very Happy Father's Day! She feels very blessed to have three such fantastic men in her life.

Okay, back to Fiona: yesterday, because it was raining (which will hopefully bring cooler, less humid weather - yeehaw!) Nana and Boom took her for a stroll around the local shopping mall. This was Fiona's first time strolling in a shopping mall, and apparently she liked it just fine -- especially the ceiling lights. Unfortunately, we have no photographic evidence of this momentous event. We'll try to do better next time.

Surf & Turf

As mentioned in the previous entry, Nana and Boom have generously provided a little sandbox and pool for Fiona’s summer enjoyment. Both have been HUGE hits with Fiona (although the great thing about Fiona at this age is that she would probably be fascinated and thrilled just to watch paint dry).

As far as Fiona is concerned, the best thing about the sandbox is eating the sand. We're trying to teach her the concepts of “NO,” and “YUCK.” You can see for yourself in the sandbox photos (above) just how well that’s working. In bald-faced defiance of her mother, Fiona is shoving sand into her mouth by the fistful. Adolescence is going to be fun. Erick suggested an appropriate subtitle for these photos: “This sandbox isn’t big enough for the both of us!”

Fiona’s first time in the kiddie pool was also a success. That’s her above, practicing appropriate pool safety by wearing an inner tube in one inch of water. She loved the water, giving it her stamp of approval by attempting to eat it. (Clearly, Fiona is still in the oral stage). This morning, Fiona’s Grandpa (aka. Boom) introduced her to a couple of new things: the Celtics and the Slinky. Predictably, both hat and Slinky ended up in her mouth. Apparently the girl is a Celtics fan.

Live from the East Coast! (Let the spoiling begin...)

We made it! At approximately 3:15 PM Eastern time on Wednesday, June 11, Fiona arrived in Northern Virginia. It was a long day, beginning with an early morning in Foster City at her West Coast grandparents’ house. Fiona discovered Erick’s old Big Bird doll, which she proceeded to tackle and subdue, despite it being twice her size. Everything went as smoothly as we could have hoped at the airport and on the plane. Fiona was cheerful and fascinated with the entire process, and charmed her fellow passengers with her usual tactic of grabbing their fingers and sticking them in her mouth. Note to self: teach her that this won’t work for much longer. Only 3 pterodactyl screams – not bad for a 5 hour flight.

Fiona was tired from her long day of travel, but happy to see her Nana and Boom. Nana and Boom thought Fiona was okay, too. Although we were informed that it was a beautiful day with low heat and humidity, we were a bit dismayed to step outside and find that it still felt like walking through porridge. Ah well.

Fiona has spent the last few days conquering her new environment. Among the accoutrements of Nana and Boom’s house: a sandbox, a kiddie pool, a bouncy swing, and a whole slew of new toys and clothes. Fiona is enjoying all of it! She went to a pool party, the highlight of which was actually indoors: a huge stuffed animal tiger, which she body-slammed much in the manner of Big Bird. She’s also making new friends, most notably Zoe, our neighbors’ granddaughter. Zoe is 6 days older and 10 pounds heavier than Fiona. They got along like gangbusters from the first, smiling and reaching for each other’s hands. Then they started talking. We suspect it went something like this:
FIONA: My parents are kind of strange, but they feed me.
ZOE: Same here. What a drag – I can’t wait ‘till I can crawl.
FIONA: Yeah, then we can sneak out at naptime and go play on the swings in the park.
ZOE: Cool!

Photos of most of the above are included for those of you who are visual learners (Zoe is the baby on the left in the swings). Maintaining this blog might prove more challenging than I originally thought, since Fiona’s grandparents don’t have wireless internet, but I’ll do my best by spending naptimes at the local coffee shop.

See? Actually, Fiona looks meaner.

The travel begins today - finally! We'll stay over with the Grandparents Gong tonight, and fly to DC early tomorrow morning. There will likely be a few days of silence on this blog. East Coast, get ready for Fiona!

Farewells (Part 4) & "Heat"

Yesterday and today, it was hot in Berkeley. By "hot," I mean that it got up to about 80 degrees. When it gets this hot in NoCal (where most people don't have air conditioning) everybody walks around in a stupor. Although she can't walk yet, the same is true of our daughter. When we took her out for a stroll today, she produced the mean expression in the top photo. (Looks a bit like Robert DeNiro, no?) Little does she know that, in just one day, she's entering the jaws of the beast. I hear from an anonymous source that the DC area is "disgustingly hot." This may be a challenge for our Bay Area baby.

To continue our seemingly endless farewells, Fiona visited her EarthTeam Aunties. Those of you who knew me when I worked at EarthTeam know that I had the best co-workers EVER. The EarthTeam ladies have known Fiona since she was a little zygote who forced me to run to the bathroom every 5 minutes for the first 3 months -- and yet they still managed to be surprised when I told them I was pregnant! I love these women.

Anyway, Chicory (EarthTeam's Program Director) is getting married and moving to Wyoming over the summer, in blatant disregard of our absence, so it was particularly important that we wish her well. We had a nice visit with Chicory and Trisha, and we took a photo -- see above. For some reason, Fiona, to whom posing for photos is second in enjoyment only to eating, was fixated on grabbing my necklace. But Chicory and Trisha look great!