I Heart Faces - Pouting

I Heart Faces is a site where you can share photos and submit them into weekly contests, of faces, one for kids and one for adults.

So this is my entrance into Week 12 Theme: Pouting - Kids

Habitot Children Museum

On Friday we went to the Habitot Children's Museum in Berkeley. This was part of a Meet-up Playdate and we had never gone before. I had thought that it was for older kids but then was amazed at how much fun we had and how many things there was for babies. First we went to the Baby garden which was an enclosed play area with pillows, cusions, a circle mat and little house, puzzles, and other items for babies to crawl and cruise on.


There was another room set up like a farm. There were cusions designd like bails of hay a farm house play room, a cool tree with velcro holes for apples, a riding horse, and a bench swing. There was a riding tractor and wagon and baskets and eggs and all typs of things you would find n a arm. That room also had something called a wiggly wall. Which was an upright maze wall that you could crawl and climb into.

There was a big art room which I kept Holly away from. But it looked very fun and she will grow into it. There was a Grocery store wuth tons of fresh veggies, carrots, corn, bananas, a counter with stools, two cash registers, and shopping carts that you can put all the veggies into.


Then there was a water room You could run a car wash, play in two large pools, there was a long river where you could pour the water down from the top and it would flow down, and another tower where you could pour water through funnels into little holes and when the base was filled it would errupt like a big fontain.


There was a reading room and a snack room. We met Alex and Angie a 2 and 4 year old and Saturnina and her mom whom I knew from month ago at swim class and then they stopped coming after Thanksgiving. Holly was Saturnina's favorite little baby and she remembered her right away. She is two and a half now, which is why they don't come swimming any more.

We played from 1:00-3:15 and then headed over to swimming. We got into Habitot for free because Katie gave us a pass for being consumer's of Through the Looking Glass which is where Holly gets her services from.

Swimming was a nightmare. There had been a power outage at some point which "messed-up" the pool. The chlorine levels were too high and they had to put chemicles in to lower it. They kept saying 15 more minutes, 15 more. They tested it at 10 to start and it had to go down to 5 before we could go safetly in.

Well class starts at 3:30 and it was 4:45 before I got into the water. There started out with bout 40 babies and only 5 hng on till the end. But we got in, sang our songs and hung out in the water for an hour, and had about the whole pool to ourselves. Since Joel didn't get off work until 7:00 I had nothing better to do then wait and we had lots of fun once we got into the water.

That was our friday.

Circle Time

Circle Time
Originally uploaded by vczdavis

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Eden Shores Park

Eden Shores Park
Originally uploaded by vczdavis

On Thursday we went to Eden Shores Park, as part of a Meet-up group play date. At first I didn't think we would have so much fun. There was grass and wood bark on the ground, and I didn't think I would let Holly do much running around. There were some baby swings which were fun too. But then once the other Mom's arrived, we had a blast. CJ an 11 month old hung out with Holly and they swung back to back, giving each other support, and loving it. Then CJ's mom took him over to the play structure, and let him go. He was actually walking, and I let Holly play too. She could go up the small stairs, walk across the bridge, go through the tunnel, and even get to the top of the slide, where I met her and helped her slide down. She had so much fun steering the ship and turning the gears and being able to navigate and play on her own. She was joined by Jake a 10.5 month old and Evan a 16 month old. We had a great time, and it was a lot of fun. It was a very warm sunny day, but the park is in Hayward by the bay so there was a cool ocean breeze, which made it feel cool out. Holly had on her sun hat and long sleeve, so stayed safe, but Momma came home with a Sun Burn. I am sorry I don't have more pictures to share at the moment they are on the "broken" laptop. This is one I took while playing on the camera phone.

Ball Pit

Holly is such a climber. When I was out the other night, Joel let her climb over onto the couch arm and reach towards the mantle. She discovered from here she could climb into the ball pit and now she is wanting to do it all the time. This is a video of holly playing in the ball pit. Her newest skill is putting things "on top" like blocks, but now that she knows we want her to do that, she tries to put everything "on top" even if it is balls on top of Holly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hFz4w1iRjo

Star Stacker

This is a video clip of Holly taking her stars on and off the stacker. I can't believe she is doing such a good job of this. In my positive parenting workshop we learned about all the things that kids do that we don;t like, and how it is really the way they learn about the world, so throwing blocks, is learning about gravity. We may not like it but they need to do it. So the theory is when they do the behavior you don't like you simply ignore it, but instead when they do the behavior you like, you clap and applaud and reward them. This concept has helped me to not only teach Holly "in" which is the start of putting away her own toys, but also "on" As illustrated in this video, whenever Holly takes the Star's off, I don't respond, but when she puts them on, a new and emerging skill, I clap and tell her what a good job she is doing.

Well Holly is a clever little bugger, and now she is trying to see just how much she can get away with, and what counts as an on or an in. She will pick up a block, or in this case a star and then immediately drop it back in or on. Sometimes she will gesture to put something in or on, and then pull it away, and always she will look at me slyly with the mischievous grin, and those curious eyes, will this behavior get an applaud. Who is quicker, do I play "chicken" and pull away faster then Mommy notices so I get her to applaud... its rather cute, and it simply amazes me the way in which she works so hard to figure out her world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGRZUT7zdW0

Grrr

Just a quick note... My laptop is dying and may need to be sent back to Dell. I am in the process of getting everything backed up off it, including pictures from my awesome day today, so you might not get very wordy or image filled posts from me for a while. I have a few video's up my sleeves for the next few days, and Hopefully by next week I will be set up on Joel's computer till I figure out things with mine.

Color Game

We have a game. Holly loves to turn the pages of books, when she turns the pages of her color book we will say the color of the page. She goes back and forth between the different pages, and when we say, yellow, red, green, blue she gets all excited and watches and looks and waits for us to say the next color. I only caught the the tale end of the game here, she got board and game the book to me to tell me she was done and then tried to come in for a kiss.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA1U-BICLBA

Opps... Here is the link

Bubble Gum

Holly loves to bang on the lever and loves to watch the balls run around in circles down and out. Once the balls fall through, she loves to put them back in. Over and over she watches and the balls go in and then back out again. She especially likes the lights and music it makes when they drop. It is amazing that just a few months ago, she didn't understand what "in" meant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcMub32eYk

Wordless Wednesday: I Feel Better

I Heart Faces: No Flash

I Heart Faces is a site where you can share photos and submit them into weekly contests, of faces, one for kids and one for adults.

So this is my entrance into Week 11 Theme: No Flash

Kids:

Miserable Monday

So last night was pretty bad, Holly originally went to bed at like 9:30 but then was up again at 10:00 until almost midnight, then she woke up again at 2:00 and again at 6:00. Since we hoped she would have therapy today Joel did eventually wake her at around 8:30 but she was sick and still had a fever. So I called Katie to let her know she had a fever, but no other symptoms and asked if she would see her or not.

In the mean time I called the Advice Nurse at the pediatrician's office and spoke with them. They ended up wanting to see Holly today because they thought it could be a viral infection going to her ears, and wanted to rule out any ear issues.

So before I knew it I had a little over an hour to drive all the way to Orinda, ok, not that far, but like 20-30 minutes away, and see the Doctor. So I called Katie back, told her we would be cancelling and headed to the Doctor.

That morning Holly threw up, Joel gave her a four ounce bottle with Motrin and after drinking about 2 ounces she vomited. Eventually I was able to give her the second two ounces.

By the time we got to the Doctor she was feeling a little better, but her temperature was still around 99.7 The Doctor looked at Holly's ears and said they were fine, so in the end, she didn't really know what was wrong with her. She suggested that it might be Roseola but wasn't sure.

So basically I am to sit and wait and see if she suddenly gets a rash, if not and she does still have a fever in a few days then I pay another 20$ to have her ears checked again in a few days.

So I decided after leaving the Doctor to head to the super market and get some Baby Yogurt, we were out and that's really all Holly will eat when she is sick, and she hasn't really been drinking much either. She had fallen asleep on the way to the doctor, so I was hoping she would fall asleep going to the store. She had only had a 1/2 bottle and some yogurt and was getting cranky so I gave her another small bottle in the car, but she never fell asleep.

So I arrived at the store and had to items to return, but realized that perhaps Holly wasn't sleepy because she made a big messy diaper. It was terrible, it was all over the place, she even some how managed to get it on her check, on the diaper lining, and even the diaper itself. I don't think I have ever had to clean up such a mess before.

Then we went to get my refund but the store said that since Joel used his card I could only do an exchange and I had to first shop for my items. We were shopping and then next thing I know while trying to pick out some baby foods, Holly simply vomits. She gets it all over her pants, jacket, shirt, floor, and shopping cart. I had to grab wipes, and clean off her hands before she put them on her face and in her hair, and I had to get her cloths off her without making more of a mess.

Eventually I got out of the store, Holly cleaned and she did take a nap. But she was cranky most of the rest of the day. later i checked her fever after another 1/2 dose of Motrin and it was about 101 But tonight it didn't seem to high, so we decided to wait to give her more Motrin in case she woke in the middle of the night.

I fed her some more yogurt and even some guava Gerber level 2 fruits. It was the night of our parenting class and I ended up having to go by myself, Holly was too fussy to take along, so Joel stayed home with her. They had lots of fun though.

In the end, it wasn't "that" miserable, but it certainly didn't start of so well. Tomorrow is a better day, lets hope that the fever is gone and there is no rash... one can hope right!

OK... So lastly, I mentioned a bit ago that Holly has been standing independantly when she is in the tub. I tried really hard to get a picture of it, but wasn't able to, but here she is mid squat, it will have to do for now, I didn;t have any other exciting pictures to share.

Science Sunday

Last week Holly and I met Lucian and Tracey at the Science Museum in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Tracey has a Membership so we were able to get in for free, and have been hearing so many good things about it, especially the Aquariums.

The day we were planning on going we left the time up in the air, you know how it is with naps and all. Well Holly decided that she didn't want to go down for a nap, and instead of having a battle over it, getting her to sleep at Noon, and not being able to leave for our outing until 3:00 I decided, OK, Don't nap, lets go into the city now. Well of course now really meant like an hour, by the time I got ready to head out of the house, and of course Holly fell asleep in the car just as we drove over the bridge. I was supposed to call Tracey when we were parking and she was going to come meet me, but it took me like 20 minutes to find parking, and when I finally found a hidden entrance into the garage, I went to call her and realized there was no signal under ground.

So we parked, and I planned on going to the stairs to call Tracey, but Holly woke up when I opened the car door. So I picked her up, settled her into the stroller, took the elevator up and was finally able to call. Tracey was still a few minutes out so we got a chance to eat, and play. I fed Holly in the courtyard, looking over at the DeYoung Museum, which was just across the way. I love these trees, they are so interesting, the way they are cut and all wood and branches.

Once we were done eating our Yogurt I decided that Holly should get a chance to get out of the stroller and stretch and run around. Just to the right of the museum was this little patch of grass, Holly doesn't normally play in the grass, but i figured, no better time then the present.

It was such a beautiful day and in the distance through the trees i could just see Sutro Tower.

This week on I Heart Faces the theme is no flash, so I figured what better place to take pictures then on the grass in Golden Gate Park, on a sunny day. Holly and I had a cute photo shoot, and boy did mommy go over board.

Holly of course had plans of her own. She crawled all over the grass, and then decided that she would much rather be "walking" and used her stroller to pull up and cruise around.

There were also these cement pillars that she wanted to explore. I had to be really careful following her around, not wanting her to tip back, as cement blocks are a lot harder then hard wood floors. I love this face, with her tongue sticking out, full of concentration, its a face her Daddy makes.

And of course, Hollzilla left a path of destruction in her wake pulling all of her toys out of her diaper bag. I decided to set it out in the grass for her as well, so she would have something a little safer to climb around on.

Once Tracey and Lucian arrived we headed in and went to the cafe for lunch. Then we found out that the penguins were being fed so we headed over to the African Hall to check it out. It was so busy and crowded, that we decided not to stay, we took a peak at the penguins, and then headed out over to the Aquarium.

On the way we stopped to check out the Sting Rays. The main floor has a large globe, that houses the Amazon Rain forest, it is surrounded by a wooden bridge and walkway that goes over these stingrays, below that is the aquarium, and there are several areas that in the aquarium you can look up at the fishes swimming above you and see out to the floor above.

This was a huge catfish hanging about, I loved his whiskers.

Here are Holly and Lucian looking in at the fishies, she loved walking back and forth across the bench using the glass as support. She loves putting her face against it and it really made it feel like she was in the water with them.

I am not sure exactly what the name of this fish is, but it looked just like a prehistoric gigantic sucker. It cruised around on the floor and sand slowly.

Here is another of Tracey and Lucian. Holly was quite energetic, and Lucian is so big.

Next we decided to check out the star fish, this was in a waiting pool where she could actually put her hand in the water and touch the starfish. The water was very cold, and there were both hard and soft starfish for us to feel. I didn't let her do it much though because she liked putting her fingers in her mouth, I think it was the cold water, and well I didn't think it was the healthiest thing for her to be doing.

More fish around every corner.

Holly was mostly having a good time. She was a little antsy, one minute wanting me to carry her, the next wanting to walk and crawl, and then she wanted to be in the stroller, or at least I wanted her there when my arms started to get tired. I had a new hip and shoulder carrier I wanted to try out but it really wasn't that comfortable, at least not when Holly wasn't in it.

I loved the jellyfish. They were so pretty glowing in the dark blue water.

This is a Giant Bass fish, he reminded me of an old man, so big and just floating there surveying his domain.

I thought this was a cool picture, I think these are clams but now I don't remember.

Other then the pics of Holly, of course, I think I liked this one the best. The glowing Orange creatures just amazed me. They were in the deep dark exhibit, and I am assuming they were some type of sponge, but I am not sure.

These were also a different type of Jellyfish, I thought they looked really cool. The base of the tank reminded me to black pearls, it was mesmerizing to watch them swim around and around.

This was a tank of tropical fish. The colors were so bright.

Holly loved hanging out and watching the fish. She really enjoyed simply pressing up against the glass blowing raspberries, and cruising around looking at the fish.

We had a lot of fun. We did end up having only about two hours to look around so we definitely need to go again, we only really had a chance to check out the fish and didn't see any of the other cool stuff.

I had a lot of fun watching this eel, it was cool seeing him slither through the water.

Here, is one last sea creature before we headed out.

We planned on going for coffee so I could wait out the traffic. By this time Holly was pretty cranky and since her earlier nap was so short I had hoped she would fall asleep in the car on the way to the coffee house. Sadly, when Tracey got to her car, or where it was parked anyway, it was gone and she found out it had been towed. It was in a no parking from 4-6 (rush hour) zone. i was horrified for her and felt so bad, but she handled it with such composure, and dealt. Her and Lucian walked home and we called it a night. Holly did indeed fall asleep, which was good since the traffic was horrendous. But all in all, it was an amazing day, and I can't wait to go back.