Busy Bee

Petra has been a busy busy girl. First a long three day trip up to Big Sur for Auntie Alena's memorial, then a long weekend with grandma visiting. Plus, developmental explosions galore. This is one busy baby!

Last weekend we had 3 long days of driving for the memorial. Friday we drove to San Simeon (with a little break in Santa Barbara to have lunch and run around a bit, and another in San Luis Obispo at the Mission). San Simeon was socked in with fog and drizzle, but Petra loved the beach anyway. She collected each and every pebble she could find, and there were a few. She'd hand each one to Mommy or Daddy (who would surreptitiously toss it behind their back), then pick up the next. Very sweet. Geologist, I'm sure!

Saturday we drove the windy road up to Big Sur, and Petra slept the entire way! Such a good girl! We spent a beautiful day on the beach with Alena's family and friends, and said our good-byes. Petra really had a great time (proven by the repeated use of the word "beach" since we've returned. Nearly surpassing "park"). She ran in the sand, climbed on the rocks, ate sand, chased the waves, and watched a kite fly (and said "Kite"). You can bet she slept like a log all the way back to San Simeon that evening, and you'd lose! She slept until the last 5 minutes, then fussed and whined because she was still in the car when she awoke. Poor thing!

Saturday was then the long drive back, with a break in at the lovely town-cum-tourist-trap Solvang. Truth is, it's not much different than a mall, but the shops at least were independents instead of chains. Petra danced on the street as the clock tower rang (oh so cute!), and ran into an antique store to pound out a few notes on a $19,000 piano (yikes! Run!). She also enjoyed the magic show in the park, though she wouldn't volunteer to disapear into a hat.

This weekend was all grandma, all the time- grandma and a bath, grandma and stories, grandma and drawing, grandma and swings, grandma and hiking, grandma and a bath (again). Mommy and Daddy even got out of the house for an hour or two to run errands while grandma watched over (a sleeping) Petra. Of course, grandma was thrilled to see Petra. Thank goodness! Grandma leaves tomorrow (careful with the punctuation there), and will get to hang out with Petra in the morning on her own for a few hours. Good luck!

Now, what has PETRA been up to? Lots of new words, some with more than one syllable (Tractor = "tracdido" her current favorite), some replacing existing signs (Flower = "Fla"). She's always surprising us with what she knows. She can pick out all the animals in her books (show me the penguin, snake, owl, ghost (!) etc.), she matches objects she sees in one page of the book with the same objects elsewhere in the book. While her drawing skills may not be perfect, she can recognize all the objects and characters Daddy draws on the easel- and his drawing is FAR less than perfect. What a good little brain she has. She has also begun to do imaginary play. She'll take her stuffed animals or dolls and "feed" them with a spoon, or give them drinks with a cup. She also carefully tuck them into bed. We'll be having tea parties any day!

I Love this baby!

All wet

Yes, our supercool baby loves to take her baths, as long as she can wear her shades. Just mention "bath" and she will start saying "bath, bath" and jump off your lap, run into the kitchen, and start undressing. Silly girl!

Her favorite pastime, though, is watching slideshows of herself on the computer. She can sit there forever watching, or at least until pictures of her in the bath show up, then she runs into the kitchen and starts undressing. Silly girl!

We went swimming again today. She was really looking forward to it. Saying "pool" a lot, and doing swimming motions. Now if only she could swim! We need to get her some lessons before we go to Hawaii.

We picked up an easel at Ikea (Thank you co-workers for the birthday present!), and Petra sat on her bench drawing at the easel for about a half hour tonight (truly amazing attention span that baby has sometimes!). We'll have to start sending out her "art" to the g'rents! Refrigerators beware!

Petra's finally big enough to be carried comfortably on Daddy's shoulders. We went out to buy lottery tickets the other day (oh please oh please), and she rode back giggling and bouncing. She had such a good time that after a while she wrapped her arms around my head squeezed and said "hug!" Oh, my heart strings! I love this baby!

Astronaut

I'm sure our little girl is on her way to the stars! While out at dusk with Daddy she was pointing at the moon (and saying "mooooon!") and was reaching up as high as she could to grab it, giggling away. Then I'd lift her as high up as I could and she'd do a great super-baby pose reaching out as far as she could. Such a fun baby!

"Star" also happens to be one of her words (one of many we forgot to list).

And let's not forget the moonwalk training she's been doing. Two weekends in a row she's gone to birthday parties with bounce houses- and she loves it. Bounce bounce bounce! I think she likes it better when there are bigger kids playing rough so she bounces even harder. One small step for a baby, one giant bounce for Petra!

Poor baby though, she's got a double ear infection at the moment, and has to have 10 days of her favorite orange flavored amoxicillin. Oh wait, I mean, the amoxicillin that she hates with a fiery passion. Poor little thing, and poor Mommy and Daddy having to fight with her to get it down her throat twice a day.

Two

Since tomorrow is Petra's 16 month birthday, we were checking the AAP book to make sure she was hitting her developmental milestones on time. You could say that. The book says at 18 months or so, your baby should have about 15 words she uses regularly. Just to be sure, we did a quick count. Hmmm, she might be a *LITTLE* bit ahead of the curve. In alphabetical order her words (and signs) are:

1. Baby (Sign)


2. Ball


3. Banana


4. Bath


5. Bed


6. Bird


7. Blue ("color")


8. Boat


9. Boot


10. Bowl


11. Box


12. Brush


13. Candle


14. Candy


15. Car


16. Cat


17. Cereal


18. Cheese


19. Cold


20. Crab


21. Cracker


22. Cup


23. Dada


24. Dog


25. Door


26. Dora (!)


27. Duck


28. Fish (Sign)


29. Flower


30. Glasses


31. Go


32. Grass


33. Hat (Sign)


34. Hello


35. Hot


36. Hug


37. Keys


38. Mama


39. Moon


40. No


41. Noodle


42. Nose


43. Phone (Sign)


44. Piper (The cat)


45. Pole


46. Pool


47. Pull


48. Puzzle


49. Quiche


50. Raisin


51. Sasha (The dog)


52. Shoe(s)


53. Swim


54. Toes


55. Touch


56. Tractor


57. Two ("Number")


58. Vanna (The anti-cat)


59. Water


60. Yogurt

Many of these are somewhat less than the proper English pronunciation (Banana comes out "nanananana," but she uses them consistently, and always for the correct objects/actions. A couple are used in place of the generic term- "Two" stands for any number or letter at the moment, and "Blue" for any color. And a dozen or so are signs left over from her pre-verbal stages.

Zoo-rama!

We're back in the saddle again. Other than a stray cough and pint of snot, everyone is healthy again. Hooray! Just in time too, we had a 3 day trip to San Diego where Mommy had a conference (at the Omni, where we were upgraded to a junior suite- Sweet!), and Daddy got to play daddy with Petra! With travel times, we really only had one day, a morning, and an afternoon, but we made the best of it. The half days were spent wandering around with Petra in the Kelty-Kids backpack (she loves being up high), chasing birds at Seaport village, riding her first Carousel (she loved it! Though she got too enthusiastic rocking at one point and banged her head against the bar on the horse- ouch!), and eating pizza.

The big event was the trip to the San Diego Zoo! Daddy did his best to get it off to a bad start- had trouble finding the park (Duh! Balboa park is huge and hard to miss!), and parked in the wrong lot so we had to get back in the car and drive further to find the real zoo parking lot. D'oh! We did arrive just as the zoo opened though. Petra's first animal view one I remember from the old Zoo-rama show- the giant flamingos cackling near the front gate. She tried to climb the fence to get in with them! She actually tried to climb any number of fences on our trip to the zoo, as well as tables, benches, chairs, a tree and a goat. She's becoming quite the climber!

Then it was off to the children's zoo- which, of course, doesn't open until 1/2 hour after the rest of the zoo. We had some crackers and played among the park benches until the gates opened. Petra loved the Macaws, though I can't guarantee she even noticed many other animals. She found her own things to play with- a bench shaped like a lizard, the posts bordering a pathway, the log benches in a storytime pavilion (the only tears of the day- round logs are treacherous to climbing toddlers!). That all changed though when we got to the petting paddock. There, she charged right in and climbed right into one of the feed tubs already occupied by a goat! She loved the goats, pigs, and sheep, and got covered in poo, giggling the entire time.

The only distraction was when her eyes suddenly locked onto another kids shoes- "Dora!" she started repeating endlessly, and yes, the kid had Dora the Explorer shoes. Please note- WE have never seen Dora, nor purchased a Dora branded item. Petra, on the otherhand, seems to know all about her, and is in love. Sigh, what's a parent to do vs. the baby-entertainment-industrial complex?

From here we headed to the elephants, as Petra is very fond of making the elephant's trumpeting sound (Loudly and repeatedly. Especially in the car.). Barely made it past the elephants before she conked out (9am is usually nap time, and here it was 10 already). So, Daddy was on his own on a tour of the ungulates- camels, Oryx, sable antelope, and the beautiful giraffes. The giraffes were the only one that I really wish that she had been awake for. In a fit of good timing, Petra awoke just as we arrived at the Skyfari ride, so we piled in and flew across the park back to the front entrance. Petra was not at all afraid of being up so high. We had a nice little (bad for us) lunch (where she drank with a straw for the first time, stole my french fries, and fed me raisins), before Petra insisted that we go on the Skyfari again (she would point and flap each time a car went by overhead). By then it was getting a bit late, so we mad a last few stops at the polar bears, bonobos and gorillas, before heading back to the hotel to meet Mommy, who of course was sad she missed our adventures. Next time for sure!

Back at the hotel, we went down to have a swim in the pool (Petra, of course, says "pool"). She was the happiest, sweetest little girl, and had a giggling good time in the pool! Not afraid of the water at all, nor of being dunked under (1, 2, 3, sploosh! Daddy would say). She danced on the stairs in the water, and spashed all about. I love this baby!

Basket Cases

It has been a rough year, and as you can tell by the dearth of postings, we've been basket cases because of it. Luckily, Petra is very cute in a basket!

Last weekend was very long. We went to Aunt Christine's memorial in Bandon, OR. 1 hour drive, 2 hour flight, 2 hour drive, 3 hour drive; and then back! Petra, as always, was a wonderful traveller. She read books and played and slept most of the way. We did make time to stop and visit friends in Portland, so she got to see snow, and play with Noah (6 months her senior). It's sad that Petra won't get to know her Aunt Christine, she was a talented and caring woman that would have been a great Auntie for Petra.

Monday we went a memorial for Aunt Alena. Our very good and understanding friends came to babysit for Petra while we went. Petra slept well pretty much the whole time, but poor Katie (and parents) didn't get any rest. We apologize! Despite all our rules on naming (see the Monkeyblog), I had still been tempted to slip Alena in as at least a middle name for Petra. Alena was the Rock Star friend that everyone is in awe of, and besides, she would have taught Petra how to kill people with her X-Ray vision. Hard to beat an aunt like that!

We are mostly over a variety of colds and ear infections (Feeding Petra nasty orange flavored Amoxicillin twice a day is quite traumatic for everyone), so hopefully things are starting to look up.

What has Petra done that is incredibly cute recently? Well, let's see:

• While on the plane, she started feeding Mommy from a bag of Sunchips. Daddy had to join in because Petra was shoving chips into Mommy's mouth so fast she didn't have time to swallow. She fed Daddy a cookie last night as well. Such a sweetheart!


• While visiting grandma, she got to see Sasha the Rottweiler. The next morning, the first thing she said was "Sasha", and did her panting "dog" sign. Grandma heard and was thrilled to pieces.


• Petra was a bit grumpy while sick. Daddy was asking what she might want "cracker?" "No"; "cherry?" "No"; "banana?" "No"; "hug?" "Huh" and she came to me with her arms open. Being a daddy doesn't get much better than that!


• Petra loves the puzzles she got for Xmas. "puhpuh" she calls them. She's starting to get the hang of putting the pieces in the right spots. She also is getting really good getting pieces into the shape sorter ball.


• Three molars! Count 'em! One over Xmas, and then the two uppers simultaneously just before we left for Oregon. She was hardly cranky at all (even with the cold thrown on top. I love this baby!

WORST YEAR EVER

It was bad enough all of us got sick starting pretty much as the ball dropped on new year's eve. Coughing, sneezing, sore throats, snot production galore (Petra, of course, suffered least of all, Daddy the most). Just when we were starting to think we were getting better, one of our best friends, Petra's "auntie," passed away suddenly. The weekend was spent in shock. Then Monday when life was returning to "normal," Petra lost another aunt to a freak accident. We're pretty devastated, though Petra only knows that mommy and daddy are shook up. She had only met each aunt once, our friend only the week before. We can only hope that things get better from here.

Petra hasn't let these event get her down though. She is growing and learning like crazy. Just a few of the things that she has started doing in the last two weeks:

• Wearing Mommy and Daddy's shoes around the house (clump, clump, clump)


• Doing "somersaults" (really rolling over, but damn it's cute)
• Lots of new words, including the dreaded "No!" (complete with stiff arm block). Other words include puzzle, water, quiche, cheese, Dora (yikes!), po-puf (crunchy puff treats), pole, bowl, pull, touch


• Walking back into her room when you say "let's change your stinky diaper"


• Pulling her wagon around the house


• Climbing up on chairs by herself (suddenly the 3' high child safe zone is 3' too few)


• Sitting in a regular chair at the table instead of the high chair


• Walking backwards, just for fun


• Playing the piano (small and large)