Monday, August 30, 2010

You Call This Summer?

We have had exactly two hot days this whole entire summer here - nope, not exaggerating for once in my life - but that ain't going to stop us from inhaling summer melons or heading out to the beach.






It's exhausting, trying to enjoy this weird, cold, non-summer summer.

Monday, August 16, 2010

You Know You Are an East Bay Kid When...

...you spend a sunny weekend afternoon at Lake Merritt, running after Canadian geese (and avoiding Canadian geese poop) and end the day at Fenton's with a giant ice cream sundae. Awesomesauce.

The bonus was while we were waiting for a table at Fenton's a fire truck parked outside and let the all the kids around take a look inside. Since Sody is so little I went in the truck with her, something I've never done before. They actually got a call while we were inside so we rushed out and they took off, sirens wailing. Pretty cool. And this explains Sody's new hat in the last picture.







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Tuesday, August 10, 2010

How Sody Learned the Word "Beach"

This is a total cliche but I will say it anyway: sometimes, the best stuff is the simplest stuff. This applies to so many aspects of life and especially with kids - like how they can end up liking the wrapping more than the presents, for example. Another example is what happened to Sody and me yesterday. We went to the beach. I didn't really set out to make a trip to the beach, but that's where we ended up and it was perfect. What I had originally set out to do was to get some actual exercise for once: get Sody in the jogging stroller and run the trail along the beach right by our house. However, I am not a runner by any stretch of the imagination so this turned into more of a brisk walk pretty quickly. And when I got tired of that I took Isota over to the sand to check out the beach.

We live so close but for some reason don't head over there much. So I wasn't quite prepared by how much she would love it now: the wet sand that is so different from park sand, the way you can poke your hands in and glop the sand around, the seaweed and the little shell fragments and most of all the water. She had so much fun just walking down along the water's edge, getting her feet and hands wet and greeting passersby. Part of me was kicking myself for not having my camera to capture her happy little face in the sunshine, and another part of me was glad I didn't have anything there to distract me from taking it all in with her. The air was clear and the sun was out and the SF skyline was ahead of us and we were just stupidly happy to be outside by the water. She ended up soaked and sandy from the waist down and I was sort of cursing the cleanup when we got home, but it was all so totally worth it.

Sometimes I feel guilty that I am not able to give Sody certain experiences. When I was a full time nanny I took my young charges to various (expensive) activities like Gymboree and music classes and I kind of wish that I had the time and money to take my own daughter to those type of things now. But I snap out of it pretty quickly, knowing that she doesn't need expensive classes to have fun, she just needs me and my time. And a simple, perfectly free, long expanse of beach.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Chugging Along, Falling Behind

OK, so, obviously I am having a rough time keeping up here. Been so busy living life that I don't have time to document it properly. Sody and I have been babysitting a ton, four days a week. Some are half days, some are full, some have been double booked (babysit for one family in the morning, rush home to let Sody nap, then straight to another family house for afternoon babysitting), and some afternoons I have had two kids to watch along with Sody. Which is all about as hectic as it sounds. Basically we are just always running around somewhere, to and from Berkeley a thousand times a week, and Isota is logging lots of carseat time. Too bad they don't give out travel miles for that like they do for airplanes.

In any case, because of all this running around I haven't been whipping out the camera much lately. And lord knows that I don't want to spend my limited free time on the computer. Even right now, writing this as Sody is napping, all I am thinking of is the laundry that needs to be folded and the laundry that needs to be washed and the dishes piling up in the sink and the cupcakes I want to make but the real food I need to make for Sody's meals this week and how I have hardly any produce left for her but god knows when I am going to get to the grocery store. Etc. This is what my days have been like. Just trying to keep my head above water and everyone happy and fed.

The good side to all of this is that Isota is getting regular playmates. When I tell we are going to So-and-So's house to play, she laughs and claps. She knows their neighborhoods now, too, so when we get close to the houses she starts getting super excited. There's lots of walks and parks and friends and different toys, so all of that can't be too bad, right? Hopefully a fair trade-off for getting dragged all over town all week.