bella turns 1!

I can't believe it! Today was Bella's - our nanny's daughter - first birthday! She is a whole year old! And that means Charli is almost a whole year old! And that means... *sniff* she's growing up! Waaaah!

Well, we were supposed to meet Bella and her family (including visiting aunt and grandmother) at the zoo, to hang out with the goats and whatever. Unfortunately, Charli napped late, and then traffic was terrible, and it was raining. This all conspired to make us pretty late to the zoo, so that when we got there, the ticket lady actually discouraged us from buying tickets (she was practically refusing to sell them to us). It was about an hour til closing time, and since it was raining, she thought they might have put a lot of the animals away, and she really didn't want us to spend all the entry fee money and then maybe not see any animals. However, although she warned us quite strongly that any money we spent would be generally wasted, she was not willing to let us in for free. We dithered around for a bit and then tried to get someone else to let us in free which also didn't work, but she did tell us that at 4:30 you can get in free every day. Of course, that didn't really do us any good, since the petting zoo closes at 4:30, and that's all we came to see, but then it would have been even more stupid for us to have bought tickets. We ended up spending the intervening 15 minutes very well - hanging out in the pumpkin patch and taking lots of pictures until we could go in for free. We met up with Bella and family on the way out. *sigh*

After that we went over to Bella's house for party and cake! Charli likes cake! We had a lovely dinner and hung out and met a bunch of Bella's (and Nina and Dex's) other friends. Dex's family is really nice, and everything went really well.

Here's Charli hanging with her homie. BFF!

bay area discovery museum

Today we joined the Bay Area Discovery Museum, which means we'd better bring Charli back here a lot. Actually, with this membership we can also get into 2 other kids' museums in the bay area, as well as a pile of other museums throughout the country, so we don't have to bring Charli ONLY to the one in Marin (although it's very nice, and we wouldn't mind).

The Discovery Museum isn't really much of a museum (translation: boring for adults), it's mostly just kid oriented play stuff, which is really pretty good. There are a lot of different areas catering to kids of different ages, there's indoor and outdoor parts, and best of all, it isn't too crowded. There's a room with all these sort of waterbed things you can crawl around on, and another room with structures you can climb through, and an art room for kids under 5 and another for kids over 5. There are all these buttons around that kids can press and they make animal or insect noises. Charli had a fabulous time, as you can tell from this video.



There's also a little cafe, but we have no idea how the food is because it closes much earlier than the actual museum does. However, we did manage to get the last cheese sandwich (yuck), as well as a PB&J and a banana - which gives us the opportunity for more banana face pictures. Brian took this one. :)

costume

Our sharecare partner told us about a professional photographer who takes free pictures of kids and pets in costumes a week before Halloween, so Brian and I went to go check it out. The occasion is a pet parade, which we missed, but we did get to see lots of pets in costume while waiting in line for the photo booth, and they were really funny! One of the best costumes we saw, which I didn't take a picture of for some reason, was a kid dressed up as the Titanic with his dog dressed up as an iceberg. :)

The photo booth line was short in terms of length, but LONG in terms of time. We waited for about an hour, but we finally did get the pictures, and I think they will definitely be better than the ones I took, so I have high hopes. The pictures are displayed in Farley's, a coffee shop in Potrero Hill, throughout November, and then we can pick them up at the beginning of December.

In the meantime, here's some of the pictures we already have. Isn't she adorable? The outfit is from my grandmother, and we made the hat. It's so cute! And the dog was just such a good picture, I couldn't resist putting it in. Her owner had a coordinating costume.

11/12

Whoa - Charli is 11 months old as of two days ago. That is 11/12ths of a year, Charli! Which is almost 12/12ths of a year! Which is a whole year! Where has the time gone?

In other news, Charli is really getting ready to stand up - she stood up for Maria and for Kim! Also, it seems her tooth is finally in. She has been sleeping really late in the mornings lately, and still been napping well. I think she's making up for all the sleep she's missed due to that tooth.

She is still adorable, and we are going to the zoo next week for Bella's 1 yr. birthday party. Should be lots of fun!

teething

Poor Charli has been having such a hard time lately. Her 4th tooth seems to be causing a lot more pain than all the others put together. She woke up Monday night at around 11:30 and cried for about 45 minutes. We finally gave her some tylenol, which helped, and she managed to finally fall back asleep and was fine the next morning. She was a little fussy on Tuesday, but not too bad, and then on Wednesday she ran a fever in the afternoon and had to have more tylenol at Nina's. On Thursday she ran a fever again in the afternoon and had some tylenol, and hardly napped at all and was fussy all evening. Friday she ran a fever again I think, but she was in good spirits so I didn't worry about it. Today she is a little fussy, but no tylenol has been needed yet. I thought the tooth was already out, but now it seems to have disappeared again...

Also, we've decided that Charli's record setting poops lately are a result of the teething, not my taking laxative tea. Especially since I've stopped, and she hasn't.

cleansed

Well. I have just completed the master cleanse, which theoretically cleans out my insides by not allowing me to ingest any new toxins, thus letting my body cleanse itself of toxins that are already in me. Toxins like what? Well, like food, apparently. That's right, no food for 10 days. Instead, you subsist entirely on lemonade made from fresh organic lemons, grade B maple syrup, and cayenne pepper.

Why would anyone do anything like this? Well, several months ago, I would have said, "Because they are insane." Which I probably did say when our friend Daisy decided to try it. Brian didn't listen to me, and decided he was going to try it, too (I probably said it a few more times then). Along with cleaning your colon and liver, decreasing your weight, improving focus and concentration, increasing spiritual awareness, and enabling you to fly, one of the things that we read about the master cleanse is that long standing injuries may heal while you're on the cleanse. Clearly I thought that was a lot of bunk, until Brian's 6 year old mountain biking injury magically cleared up on the 6th day of the cleanse (it's still gone). He actually had to readjust how he walked, now that there was no pain. After that, I decided maybe I would try it too, after I was done breastfeeding.

So, since I stopped pumping about a month ago, I decided I might as well give it a go. My mother decided she was going to do it too, so we could give each other moral support. Results? Well, I didn't have any long standing injuries to heal. I did have some joints that have been giving me pain since some point in my pregnancy, and they are definitely better, although not 100% better. It did not seem to affect my back at all, although my back hardly hurt at all anymore, even before the cleanse. My skin started feeling really nice on the fourth day, but as soon as I went off the cleanse, I broke out. And I lost 10 pounds (so there I am in that picture, wearing a shirt I haven't been able to wear in years. Yay!).

I had pretty much convinced myself that Brian's magic cure was a fluke, as it occurred further and further in the past. My mother, however, had a shoulder injury, which has given her limited range of motion in her arm for the past 7 years. After the cleanse, in addition to losing 10 pounds, she has recovered full range of motion in that arm. Is that amazing or what?

One curious thing. One of the things you're supposed to do for this cleanse is take a laxative tea each night before you go to bed. It hasn't been doing that much to me, but Charli has been pooping like 5 times a day since I started...

hooray!

On Saturday evening, Charli got from her knees to her feet all by herself and stood there for a few seconds!

california academy of science

We got a membership to the California Academy of Science, which was completely rebuilt and just opened up again the weekend of the Raiders game. We tried to go to the opening, not to actually get into the museum, which we assumed was going to be jam-packed, but because they had all kinds of things going on in the oval out front, like circus performers and ballet and booths and food and piles of other stuff. Unfortunately, jam-packed turned out to be a complete understatement. We never made it anywhere close to the museum (although we did see a line for something - we were so far away from the museum that we can only assume the line was to get into the CAS) before we gave up and decided to go to the beach instead. Even then, it took us so long to get out of the park (the CAS is in Golden Gate Park) that we were very late getting to the beach, and ended up just getting something to eat and going home.

Today, however, we actually went in. The CAS is a natural science museum, and it has an aquarium, a planetarium, and a rainforest. How cool is that? Knowing that Charli likes aquariums, we figured we better go a lot. It has nothing to do with the fact that I like aquariums, too. We got our own special line, which means we got to go right in, rather than waiting in the long line with all the rabble. Once we got in, we didn't go see the planetarium or the rainforest, since there were still more lines for those. But, we did see the Africa hall (lots of stuffed animals), penguins (Charli was a big fan), the various parts of the aquarium (Charli and I were both big fans), and the swamp with the albino alligator (not very good camouflage).

Overall it was lots of fun and we look forward to going again with anyone who comes to visit. :)

fire!

The scariest thing happened today. We all went to the farmers' market in the morning and had a lovely time. When we came back and were driving into the garage, I was sitting in the back seat and thinking the garage door was sounding really funny, like rain falling. Turns out, it wasn't the garage door sounding like that - it was all the water raining down from the ceiling, inside our garage. While we were trying to digest that, two firemen came out of the building into the garage. Alarm bells in everyone's head! It smells like smoke! What could we possibly have left on that started a fire and set off the sprinklers in our unit, which is right above the garage?!? Everything is ruined! How could this have happened? Where are we going to live?

Turns out, it was actually the unit next door to us, which is also above the garage. This was actually obvious after the first flush of alarm, since the water was definitely coming down from their side of the garage and not from ours. Apparently there was a small fire in their downstairs bathroom trash can (incense lit some toilet paper on fire), and the sprinklers went off in the bathroom only. Something was wrong with the sprinkler, though, so it wouldn't turn off, which was why so much water was raining down into the garage. Not TOO much damage, I guess, especially compared to what we were all envisioning, and no one was hurt. Man was it scary, though!

as requested

Here is a cute picture of Charli before the Cubs got swept in the playoffs (again). In case you can't tell from the large picture, the important part is highlighted for you on the right. Both her top teeth are coming in!

And as requested in the comments, here is Charli going down the stairs. I showed her how on Tuesday night, and she picked it right up and remembered on Wednesday morning. Such a smart girl!



Maybe tonight we'll try Brian's method. :)

down down down

Charli can go down the stairs!

charli rocks!

Well, Mom, Charli loves that little keyboard you brought over. Check out her dancing skills!



Also, she has started to say 'uh-oh'! She doesn't know what it means; she's just repeating it - Jillian said it this morning, and Charli was right after. Maria and I both said, "Did she say uh-oh?" It's so cute! If I can ever manage to get it on video, you'll see how cute!