Q and I got married four years ago this weekend. (It was a hot and sunny Saturday and, like yesterday, the Badgers played at Camp Randall and won.) In a way it feels way longer than four years – especially given how much our lives have changed since that day. It’s almost shocking how much having a kid changes your life; someone got it right when they said (and I’m paraphrasing), “I don’t know why people say ‘I had a baby,’ when a baby clearly has you!”

Anyway, the three of us are celebrating by spending the weekend in the Santa Cruz/Monterey area. Like last year (we’re big on traditions, as you know), we’re going to the aquarium – and I can’t wait to share our pictures.

-M

Zoe and I met our friends Polly and Miles today at the Legion of Honor. We visited Rodin’s The Thinker and a beautiful glass tree, checked out the Women Impressionists exhibit (Mary Cassatt has always been a favorite of mine) and then played around outside. It was gorgeous and warm – and one of those days that reminds you of how great it is to live in San Francisco!

-M

After my last post, I just had to get a pic of her “pretty” outfit. She wasn’t in a real picture-taking mood yesterday, but I did manage to get one shot.

-M

It’s warm in the city, so I dressed Zoe this morning in a little floral skort and (what else?) pink top. As I pulled the shirt over her head, Zoe looked at me and said (for the first time), “pretty!” She then ran to the mirror to twirl around and admire herself. Could she BE any more girlie??

-M

Like a lot of little kids, Zoe has a fascination with babies. For many months, starting when she could first talk, she would point at a stroller (or anything that looked like a stroller, such as a shopping cart) and say, “ba-bee.” She loves cuddling and feeding her toy babies, and one of her favorite things to watch on TV (well, the only thing we actually let her watch on TV) is Go Baby, a 5-min, partially animated show about, yep, babies. And whenever she sees a real baby (like she did this weekend), she always runs up and starts to smile or jump around.

Like a lot of parents, I still consider my baby, well, a baby. But as I watched Zoe and Gabbie this weekend, and observed all the things that Zoe could do that this little 6-month-old couldn’t (walk, run, talk, laugh, point, grab things, etc.), I couldn’t deny it anymore: Zoe’s not a baby anymore. With all her newly acquired skills, she’s actually more like a little adult than she is a helpless baby, and it makes me sad/proud/nostalgic/excited all at the same time.

Now I know what all those people meant when they said kids grow so fast!

-M

Along with swimming, Zoe did a lot of giggling, tickling, kissing and hugging, and just hanging out with her friends this weekend. (She, Miles and Zander were also joined by 2-year-old Alice and 6-month-old Gillie.) It felt, at times, like the kids outnumbered the adults – and I’m sure Zoe and her friends loved that! Here are a few more pics.

-M

This weekend, the three of us stayed with several other families (including Miles and Zanders’) at a cabin just north of San Francisco. (More specifically, we visited the tiny town of Monte Rio, right on the Russian River.) On Sat. afternoon, we threw on Zoe’s suit and headed to the beach, where she waded, collected rocks, splashed around with Miles – and built up a big appetite. (Notice the snacking at day’s end.)

-M

Another month – and more changes. One of the biggest areas of development, as mentioned here before, is language. Zoe is constantly saying new words, repeating things she hears us saying, and uttering multiple-phrase sentences, like “Mommy purse” and “Daddy bye-bye.” When we ask her if she wants to do something (e.g. “Who wants a snack?”) it’s now customary for her for raise her hand and say “I do!” And one of her favorite words these days is “more” (pronounces like “mawww”) – which she says when she wants me to re-read a book or Q to play another game with her.

Speaking of playing, some of Zoe’s favorite activities are pushing along her baby stroller, playing with her little animal figurines, walking around in my or Q’s shoes, and jumping on our bed while singing “Ten Little Monkeys.” (This is also a favorite song for her to listen to in the car; as soon as I buckle her in, she usually says “mon-key” until I put on the CD.) She still loves books; some of her current favorites are those from the “Bright and Early Books” series – like The Eye Book, The Ear Book and (her most beloved) The Foot Book. (My mom saved these books from when my sister and I were little, so it makes me especially happy to see how much Zoe likes them.)

Zoe can walk up stairs on her own at this point (down is a different story, I think), and is able to get up and down furniture without incident. She’s often climbing on her little step-stool to look at her goldfish, and she loves feeding them their “cookies.”

Although we’re not pushing the toilet-training issue, Zoe has had some recent success with her new potty. (Might a life without diapers be within our grasp??)

This isn’t exactly new, but Zoe has been exhibiting some “terrible twos” behavior. A few days ago, for example, she was having so much fun “feeding” her little baby at Elena’s that she didn’t want to leave – and she cried and squirmed until Elena finally let her take the bottle home. Zoe is also known to get upset if her snacks aren’t served just right: one day she stomped her feet and pouted and refused to accept the half-piece of cheese I had given her – because she wanted an intact slice. She has also gotten angry in the past when her breakfast bar was broken. (I try putting the pieces together and explaining to her that they taste the same even broken, but there is no reasoning with her.) And as I’ve mentioned here before, we’ve been hearing an awful lot of the word “no” from her.

A few other random comments/stories:

-Zoe’s current food-obsession is goldfish; she’s constantly running up to us and asking for “fishies.”
-Her favorite song to sing (this month, anyway) is “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”
-The morning after returning home from our recent trip, I asked Zoe, “who are we going to see today?” and she said, “Elena!”
-Q was sitting with Zoe one day and scratched his head; she promptly reached out her hand to scratch him in the same spot.
-A few nights ago, without prompting, Zoe started rubbing my toes and saying “tickle, tickle.” And last night, when she saw a red spot on my foot, she leaned down to kiss it. (She thought I was hurt, and she’s used to us kissing her when she gets a bump, scrape, etc.)

-M

Per tradition, we met up at the playground with friends this morning. Here are some pics with Zoe and her buddy Zander.

-M

Is it set in stone that “no,” at some point, has to become a toddler’s favorite word? I think it must be, and Zoe must have heard it was time to start adopting the word as her own. A typical exchange over the past several days:

“Hey Zoe, do you want to read a book?” “No.” “Do you want me to sing you a song?” “No.” “Do you want to draw?” “No.” “Do you want to look at your fishies?” “No.” “Do you want a snack?” “No.” “Can I have a kissie?” “No!!”

And at mealtime: “Do you want some yogurt?” “No.” “How about some applesauce?” “No.” “Pasta?” “No.” “An egg?” “No.” “Fishies?” “No.” (Now that’s the amazing one, considering her love for goldfish.) “How about some milk?” “N – yeh.”

Elena even commented yesterday that Zoe has been a bit more, er, negative than normal. I really hope it’s a phase (or a grumpy mood brought on by teething or her sniffles) because I miss my happy girl. And I’m very tired of hearing the word, well, you know.

-M

Time to post a few recent pictures that haven’t yet made it on the blog. They all make me smile, but I’m especially fond of the one in the backyard. (Such a serious face!)

-M

Q’s dad recently commented that it would be challenging to continue listing all the words Zoe can say – just because she talks so much these days. (He’s right: it’s difficult to keep up with her!) Still, I wanted to at least try to document a few of her most recent utterances, and a short list is below. (The previous list can be found here.) I think it’s safe to say she has about 100 words in her vocabulary right now; she’s definitely a chatter!

-M

airplane
apple
Ashlee
aqua (Spanish)
besito (Spanish)
blue
bus
button
chicken
choo-choo
Coco
cookie
Dan
Dash
elbow
elephant
eye
Gil
go
Grandma (sounds like “baba”)
Grandpa (sounds like “baba”)
hair
hand
hat
home
horsie
hot
I do!
Jenny
kiss
manzana (Spanish)
monkey
more
outside
pan (Spanish)
pocket
Polly
potty
purple
San Francisco
Sandy
Sarah
Safta (sounds like “Sasta”)
sock
spoon
tickle
twinkle (as part of Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star)
turkey
where (as in “Where’s Daddy?”)
yea
yeh
yuck

Update:
oh gosh
oh shoot

Q is away for the weekend, so it was girl-time for me and Zoe. (We’re both fighting little bugs, but that didn’t stop us from getting out-and-about.) We went to storytime at the West Portal bookstore, met friends (including little Nicolas) at the playground two days in a row, and even hung out on a fire-truck. (Amazingly, we didn’t even go shopping – except for a quick Target run yesterday.) Zoe has a lot to tell her dad when he gets home!

-M

Just a day after we posted the pictures below, Zoe grabbed her dad’s shoes (two different ones) and began clunking around. With her obvious fascination with shoes, I’m wondering if we have a little Imelda Marcos on our hands…

-M

I mentioned below that Zoe is well out of size-5 shoes. What I learned today is that she’s actually a fan of size-9.5 women’s shoes – especially if they happen to be peep-toe slingback wedges. Zoe walked around in these things all afternoon; check her out below.

-M