Slide, NJ, Slide! Redux

The kid's attitude toward sliding has changed considerably in the past few months.

Ballard Of A Sunday Afternoon

The kid's big achievements of the week have been lifting up so she's standing flat on her feet and hands (is standing next?) and deftly honing her mood swings. The former is self-explanatory, right? So: The latter.

NJ has been a giggling, smiling, delightful delight for the past several days. Except when she's been a screaming, crying feral creature. Ever since we returned from Oregon she's done a lot of wailing to get attention. Lately, I haven't been clued in to the fact that her nap is over by the sweet, lilting sounds of her jibber-jabber over the monitor, as per usual; it's been zero-to-sixty crying. Same when we put her down -- crying, not talking. And as often as not, the middle of her nap has been punctuated by a short wailing burst. Nothing is really wrong, of course, but she's really perfecting her crying-as-attention-getting skills.

Otherwise, she's been a dream. Her latest move is to look at a toy, hold it up to me or The Wife, and flash a big, toothy, "I love this thing!" grin. ("Toothy" meaning "two tooth nubbins.") It's pretty cute. Also pretty cute: stream-of-consciousness jabbering that would make James Joyce proud. No longer does it come simply in spurts -- now she talks in sentences, only with words that make no sense (to me, at least). "Baden," "daden," "doy" and "ooooyyeeee," which is something of a wistful sigh, are her favorites. In her mind, they are probably all swear words directed at me.

Today was a big day for NJ. We went to a toy store to buy some new toys, toys that she can't have for another week when we fly to New England. Hopefully, brand new things to play with on the airplane will keep her more happily occupied than the tired old things she's currently got strewn all over the house. It'll buy me some time before I have to invoke the It's My Turn rule.

NJ with an anonymous toy store patron.

After that we hit Ballard for the street market, where NJ saw another girl in a stroller who has co-opted her "antique telephone" method of thumb-sucking (thumb in mouth, other hand clutching ear). We got lunch at the extremely kid-friendly Old Town Alehouse (the first place we took her to, I believe, back in the fall). Her wailing was on full display as she scarfed down a lunch of roast beef, fries and bread dipped in minestrone:




Nom nom nom. Waaahh! Nom nom nom. Waaahh! Nom nom nom ...

Finally, at the end of the meal, NJ gave it her hearty seal of approval.

I'll smile for the camera, but I won't let you see my tooth nubbins.

Oh, The Places She Went

Oregon, in particular. Portland, Black Butte Ranch, then Portland again. it was the first time NJ had ventured farther away from home than SeaTac and Bellevue. And it was the first excursion-with-a-baby for me and The Wife. All in all it was a good trip -- we saw beautiful scenery, a fun and beautiful wedding, scoped out a couple of potential future vacation spots, and spent some time in one of our favorite cities. Oh, but it wasn't all balloons and sea shells, though. Let's recap, shall we?

We put the good car seat and the lightweight stroller in the SUV, along with a billion other items, and set off Friday morning, right at NJ's naptime. It was all pretty uneventful. Extremely uneventful, in fact. There's not a lot a couple of foodie/wine lover urbanites can do in a city with a ten-month-old. The main reason we stopped off in Portland was to break up the six-plus-hour drive from Seattle to Black Butte, but we naively thought we might have a little old-school (read: pre-baby) fun in Portland as well. But: no. After NJ's afternoon nap (and mine) at the hotel, we ate room service and watched an in-room movie (the exceptional comic abilities of Carell and Fey overcome a pedestrian plot).

All this for a three-day weekend, and not a single baby wipe in any of those bags.

Saturday morning we headed for beautiful Central Oregon, driving through the Detroit Lake area and almost to Bend until we hit Black Butte Ranch (warning: automatic audio track when you click the website). We arrived in time for lunch, but NJ didn't sleep much on the drive and needed her afternoon nap in a big way. The ranch is a beautiful place, but its fatal flaw was the lack of air conditioning in our room (since we were only staying one night, I booked cheap). No windows, only a sliding door to the small porch -- which was surrounded by a six-foot wooden fence, perfect for keeping cool breezes out of the room. We pointed the fan at NJ's crib, and her nap lasted until 3.30 p.m., when we rushed to get ready for the 4 p.m. wedding. Once there there ceremony was about, oh, forty seconds old when NJ decided to yammer loudly about whatever was on her mind (the couple exchanged vows in a spot by a lake with the view in the first photo above), so The Wife spirited her away to the back of the field where they played -- joined by our friends and their kids, one who was ring-bearer and the other flower girl -- while our buddies Jill and Ray got hitched. After wowing everyone at the reception with her off-the-charts cuteness, NJ was hauled off to the sweat box-room by The Wife and put down. Dad Solo remained for a while longer, at one point breaking out his world-famous Mick Jagger funky-chicken dance moves when the band played "Honky Tonk Women."

Sunday's drive back to Portland marked the first time NJ rejected her bottle of formula, a situation that lasted until we got home last night. No obvious explanation -- she was hungry, but wouldn't take the bottle. In Portland again, we toured a street festival and the riverfront -- NJ got a cute little tie-dyed dress out of it -- before returning to the hotel. At lunch The Wife had given her some solid food, but without the formula supplement it wasn't enough and by dinnertime the kid was famished. Dad Solo's decision to eat in the excellent restaurant attached to the hotel proved to be a controversial one: NJ fussed and squawked to the point that The Wife thinks one couple decided to leave rather than listen to her. This was when I defiantly steeled myself, sipped my cocktail, and tucked in to my Kobe brisket. For the first 44 years of my life I weathered countless crying babies on trains, subways and airplanes and in restaurants and other public venues, never once complaining to a parent, sighing dramatically or otherwise expressing my feelings. Now, world, It's My Turn. I will do my best to limit baby-related noise and activity, and you will keep your big yap shut if it doesn't always work out. Oh, and the brisket was ridiculously excellent. NJ devoured four grilled chicken strips and a handful of french fries, which had been cut up into little pieces and piled in front of her. We ordered desert to go. I looked at the mess under NJ's high chair and promptly overtipped. The last night of our vacation? I read, The Wife watched The Food Channel, and NJ fussed for a good, long time before finally drifting off.

NJ did some reading at the hotel, too.

We got home yesterday afternoon. NJ took a two-hour nap on the drive (missing out on a lot of Mariners trade talk on the radio). She's back on the bottle, and a slight fever she had in Portland is gone, too. So all's well and her first vacation is in the books. We've learned valuable lessons about packing and planning around naps, hopefully, because our next trip is in a couple of weeks and we're flying across the country for a week. And the It's My Turn rule will be in effect then, too. I hope I don't have to invoke it. But listen up, New England: I will if I have to.

This Place Is A Zoo!

That's what I said after weaving my way through the crowds after getting our lunch at a stand at the Woodland Park Zoo. The Wife didn't appreciate the humor as much as she should have. Because that is very, very funny, and my timing was impeccable.

We walked the twenty or so blocks south to the zoo today, after seeing how surprisingly nice the weather was going to be. NJ enjoyed the stroller ride over, but really got excited when we stopped at the park before going in and put in some swing time:




Note the leaned-back posture NJ assumes in the swing. The boy next to her, who was the same age, used the opposite strategy, leaning all the way forward. Hard to tell which is more effective. Not that it matters, really, because after all we're only talking about toddlers in swings.

At the zoo, which we joined last week, we saw a couple penguins, a couple of species of bears, tigers and meerkats. I say "we" saw them because The Wife and I did; we're not sure NJ caught any of it. She was enjoying being out in the sunshine with lots to see, though, even if she couldn't pick out the sloth bear* in the tree. After lunch, where NJ ate a significant portion of The Wife's salmon fillet, we hit the carousel before leaving. This NJ LOVED. She loved sitting on the wooden horse and holding the pole, and once we started she spent most of the first round waving. One section of the go-round went by mirrors that were placed in angles that made it look like you had already passed yourself up -- this tripped her out the first time she saw it, but after that it was old hat. As the final trip around started, NJ leaned her head back and looked up at me with a nice little smile that probably meant "Thanks!" or something like that. Then we tucked her newest stuffed animal (Meerkat Mike) into the stroller with her and left. By the time we got home she was asleep in her stroller. Once inside, though, she was all smiles again. We'll definitely be going back. (We have to, because we bought a membership and it takes three trips to make it worth the money. But still.)

*UPDATE: I am reliably informed that it was a sun bear, not a sloth bear, that was up a tree.

Slide, NJ, Slide!

Remember Mike 'King' Kelly, the great baseball player in the late 19th century with the Chicago White Stockings and the Boston Beaneaters who popularized the hook slide? And the poem 'Slide, Kelly, Slide' that made him a household name?

Yeah, NJ doesn't either.

This man enjoyed sliding.

This girl doesn't.

One Day We'll Curse in Fluent Kangaroo

We took NJ to the zoo on this very sunny February Saturday. A zoo trip has been talked about here for weeks, both me and The Wife and with our PEPS group friends. In fact, a trip two weekends ago was canceled because of wet, cold weather. I have been ambivalent about the whole thing, because I don't think six months is old enough to appreciate the zoo. Nevertheless, the weather is gorgeous and we've been cooped up in the house so many weekends in a row because of rain or illness that we had to get out of the house. And Woodland Park Zoo was the destination.

Now, NJ had a good time. She loved watching the crowds walk by, and being out in the sunshine (when it wasn't making her squint), and being passed back and forth between her mom and dad. But I don't think she saw any animals, or cared much about them if they did. Not even this guy, who reminds me of her uncle:

Here’s another thing a monkey won’t do
Go out on a night and get all in a stew
Or use a gun or a club or a knife
And take another monkey’s life
Yes, man descended, the worthless bum
But, brothers, from us he did not come

I know she saw an orangutan, because his big, flat face was two inches from the glass and I held NJ up two inches from the glass, too. She had a thing or two to say to him, but I doubt he heard. It was nothing like being at home when one of the Two Idiots roams the great hardwood savanna and is within reaching distance -- now, that's exciting. She wasn't the youngest child I saw there, but she was among the youngest. She'll love the zoo one day, but today it was just another outing with the folks. Which is pretty good, too. But not quite as good as when you know you're six inches away from an orangutan that could, if not for the glass wall, snatch you up and carry you off.

Turns Out, Five-and-a-Half Months Is "The Age of Aquarium"*

*Oh: It's Age of Aquarius? OK, whatever ... I've got half a pun there and I'm sticking with it.

NJ had a delightful time today at the Seattle Aquarium. She laughed a bit and cooed a lot, smiled a bunch and drooled a gallon. She loved the indoor exhibits -- exotic fish swimming in front of wildly colorful coral reefs, and there was a column of bubbles lit by fluorescent light that she absolutely adored.



(Trust me -- the digital flash does not do this column of lit bubbles justice. It was pink with hot-pink bubbles.)

(And, seriously: Look at her in that hat and pea coat! Who's cuter than that? No one! Who could even be cuter than that? Maybe two, three people, ever, in all of human history -- tops. Perhaps Cleopatra as a child; there's no photographic evidence, but ... maybe. Bottom line: Cute as all get-out.)

NJ also enjoyed the outdoor exhibits, the seals and otters. Slightly less, though, because the bright lighting of the indoor aquariums are more engaging (to an almost six-month-0ld, I assume) than the outdoor venues that house the mammals and birds. Also, she sees Willie the Lab at home, and he is a dead ringer for a seal and/or an otter. So: Been there, done that.

NJ was in good shape after checking out the entire aquarium, so we went across the street to a big antique store. Dad Solo was hoping he might find something the last time he was there, four years ago -- a portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt that would look awesome on his office wall, next to portraits of Babe Ruth, T-Bone Walker, Thelonious Monk, Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio, Muddy Waters and several other great Americans. Of course, FDR -- our greatest president -- would have made a fine, worthy addition. Sadly, the portrait was gone; I just hope a patriotic American bought it instead of some loony Teabagger hell-bent on using it to make some sort of sick, twisted, misguided fascist/socialist/communist comparison. After all, FDR saved our bacon in the 20th century more than any other American, even Elvis Presley. It's a shame how some people are trashing his memory: NJ will know him as a hero, not as anything resembling the dishonest caricature that a small, uninformed minority are portraying him now. (Our Lab, Willie, is a fan,too -- "I think I have a right to resent, to object, to libelous statements about my dog" rings true to any self-respecting canine.)

NJ was an angel throughout our antique store prowl, but once we got home she was extremely reluctant to take her afternoon nap. The Wife has had trouble putting her down for naps lately, but I think there might have been something else going on: All the talk of aquatic life got her riled up. Lately she's developed a crush on a completely different fish than the sort you'll find at your more respectable aquariums. I think she was pining away for Fred, who hangs over our kitchen doorway. Whenever NJ is in the kitchen, she can't take her eyes off this guy. He's something of a Svengali. Or Fishgali. Whatever. All I know is, when I'm in the kitchen busting my butt to entertain this kid, all she can do is stare up at this ceramic fish. I mean, really: All that thing does is hang there, looking exactly the same, 24/7.

Oh, not that I'm bitter. Any friend of NJ's is a friend of mine.