First grade?

I've officially been blogging for six years now!

hummingbird

hydrating, originally uploaded by girlwithgreencard.

I was having a lovely lunch on a sunny bench next to a fountain yesterday (ALL ALONE, WHICH WAS MARVELOUS), when a hummingbird zoomed by, landed on the edge of the fountain, turned its head this way and that, and then started sipping water. Uncharacteristically, I had my camera ready and already aimed at the fountain (since there was a rubber ducky floating in it), and was actually able to take a photo of the hummingbird!
This is even more surprising because what usually happens is this: A bird lands and does some fun, cute bird-type stuff. I do a very subtle, excited flail and run off to get my camera. I turn the camera on, take off the lens cap, zoom, and then the bird flies off, giggling triumphantly.
Birds. They are evil. Especially to me.

Zoo!

Noah likes animals. He often asks me if we can "go to the amables" today. Usually, the answer is one of my cleverly designed distractions, like "HEY! Wanna go to the ... (pregnant pause, excited voice) ... GROCERY STORE today?! It's going to be SO. MUCH. FUNNNN!"*

Not today though - today, we met our friends at the LA Zoo. They have a membership and were nice enough to use one of their guest passes for us. Zoos are fun. Zoos for free are even more fun, trust me.
We had a great time!

Two sweet, goofy girlies.

This started out as a hug. I grabbed the camera to capture the awwwww-moment, but I was too slow. Instead, I captured this gem of Noah, determined to hug, choke-holding Kevin, determined NOT to be hugged. Hee, hee.

 You know how it is with those fun days... at the end of them, all you have energy for is soaking your hurty feet in hot water with peppermint oil while throwing some photos at the internet and calling it "blogging." So, enjoy that, and take it from me - don't wear Chucks on a day when you do a lot of walking (this PSA sponsored by my feet and knees).

We had a heck of a time finding the elephants. They have a neat new exhibit that apparently makes it very easy for them to hide. NOT COOL, elephants. Not cool.

As we arrived at the giraffe enclosure, a zookeeper was just leaving. This giraffe had followed him to the gate and then hung out really close to the fence, right where we were standing. WIN!

Two boys, three Komodo Dragon babies.

*I feel the need to state for the record that I don't usually talk like that. Because it's annoying.

Craftity

Noah and I have been a little cabin-fevery lately. We no longer work, and toddler gymnastics is on hiatus for a few more weeks.Cabin-fever makes it hard to get along, you guys! Noah is acting his age and I run out of patience quickly... we needed something to do!
One thing I remember as a constant in my childhood (and I mean "one of many," not "the one and only" constant here) is crafting. We were forever cutting and gluing and sculpting and drawing and folding and painting. I figured making something with Noah would be a good way to burn daylight without losing my mind.
Yesterday, we made hearts.

 Noah made the top left one all by himself!

We used up a fair amount of my clear contact paper, but it was totally worth it. We both had fun, and Noah was super-excited to show off his hearts to Papa when he got home from work.

I continued the streak today and made play dough*. I had never tried that before. I've made salt dough, but always with the intention of baking it, so this was a bit different. It was really easy, and the play dough came out great! It smells good and it feels very nice.
We started out with almost equal amounts of four colors...

... until Noah decided that it'd be fun to stack them on top of each other, so now we have a lot of green and very little blue and yellow. He didn't care though - he loved it. So much so that he made Papa play with it after dinner until it was time for bed.

*Can you tell I discovered a new blog? I'm thinking about making the beeswax crayons soon. Also in the works: sidewalk chalk.

two short vignettes to make you say "better you than me" (aka birth control)

Noah wandered into the bathroom while I was showering this morning and decided that he wanted to "shower wif Mama." He then took off his pajamas and diaper and even went potty (unprompted!) before climbing into the shower. I was so proud!
Though unfortunately, he'd pooped in the diaper first, so when I got out of the shower, I had the pleasure of cleaning toddler excrement off the floor and toilet seat.


Later, I dragged Noah on a bunch of errands. We're working on getting him used to using the actual toilet rather than a diaper, so he often wears underpants now and I take him to the bathroom all the time. He doesn't yet tell me when he needs to go. So - errands. Diaper-less errands. Our last destination was Trader Joe's. When I opened the car door to let Noah out, he told me right away "I did NOT poop, Mama!" This, of course, means that he had just pooped his pants.
Without getting too specific here, let me just tell you that I performed a clothing change that, had I been at home, would have included use of the bathtub/shower. In a public (though thankfully very clean) bathroom. And I hadn't brought any wipes, so I had to wet down hand towels. I'm so incredibly impressed with myself.

ETA: I stopped buying disposable wipes a while ago because I simply don't use them up before they dry out. It wasn't until I read all the "Why don't you carry wipes with you, you dummy?!" comments that I remembered that I had my emergency wipe stash (of these cool wipes) in my purse the whole time. Um, yeah. Mommy brain?


So that was my Wednesday. A day of excrement-related accomplishments. I wonder if I should mention this on a resume/CV when I re-enter the (paid) work-force.

springy

It's been pretty characteristically spring-like weather around here, so Noah and I have been hanging out in the back yard. He plays in the sand and mud and tells me long stories about mixing sand and dirt and about how he's not supposed to do that.

Yesterday, I was weeding in my (currently defunct) vegetable beds (while my nemesis, the gopher, looked on from his hole that's in between the beds). As I moved my tomato cages, I saw that a ladybug had landed on one of them and was laying eggs! During the next 20 minutes or so, I tried (and failed) to capture the process on video (it really was very fascinating), growing increasingly irritated with automatic focus and with new-fangled technologies in general. I eventually settled for photos (which turned out only thanks to my Digital Rebel and its manual focus):

Finally, I just settled in to watch and enjoy the moment, glad to have the sun warming my back and my child happily playing (rather than disturbing the ladybug birth). A pretty good day, I'd say.