Andy, Sonja and Leilani
Tomorrow early morning we’ll leave for Austin, to visit Andy’s parents in Texas, so we pre-celebrated Christmas today.
Sleep in heavenly peace…
When going home from school on Friday Leilani remarked how pretty the East Bay hills looked. “That would be a nice place for a picnic.” she said, pointing to Mt. Diablo.
Saturday we started out to put that idea into action, but while driving across the Bay on what was once the longest bridge in the world, she changed her mind. “Let’s go to the beach!” She begged and pleaded. We finally gave in and tried a short stop at the Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center right next to the bridge, but… Short did not work out. “A museum!!!” she exclaimed. We stayed inside for about an hour, and then sat on their deck and had our picnic lunch while watching all the birds, followed by a short walk to the mud flats at the edge of the Bay.
Geese formations
Great blue(???) Heron
Leilani was pretty lazy…
… but she really takes great photos now – this one is completely uncorrected, not cropped, not straightened
some of her photos are very unusual
A group of marbled Godswits
Birds are boring…
Great Egret
Some more Leilani photos
A few days ago Leilani had her new friends Sydney and Isabella over:
Bubblebath
It’s cold here
I don’t really like to yell. Especially not while my throat is still sore – like right now. But sometimes Leilani does not move on otherwise…
Yesterday was story time at the library at 7 pm. In order to give the kids an incentive to get there on time, they get extra cute name labels if they are there ahead of time,. In the beginning Leilani wouldn’t take no for an answer – when we got there late she marched up to the already reading librarian and demanded her name tag. By now she is just very upset if she doesn’t get it – so she gets one at the end.
So I try pretty hard to get her there on time – yesterday I started at 6:40 (it’s a 3 minute drive, 10 minute walk) – Leilani had to finish playing. At 6:45 I draged her into the living room, told her we were in a hurry and put her shoes in front of her and started to get dressed myself. Leilani grabbed her chair(!!) and ran into the kitchen. I went after her, put the first shoe on and told her again, that we’d be late otherwise and she would not get a name tag. I turned around to get her coat and she took off again. At this point I started yelling at her. Loudly. She looked at me sadly with a trembling lower lip and said: “Mommy, Mommy (for once not Sonja like she usually calls me) could you please …[sob]… yell at me a little more quiet”.
I had to laugh, and she was really proud, and we did make it on time – Leilani was the last kid to arrive, just when the librarian picked up the book, but she was nice enough (and knows Leilani’s attachment to the labels well enough by now) to put if back down and write her name tag.
At night we walked (actually we ran) to the train station in San Bruno:
Leilani ran up behind me and pretended to scare me – I pretended to be scared and jumped…
Santa and Frosty shook her hand…
Leilani listened intently to the christmas carols
After the Parade we had lunch at the Vegetarian House and walked to the playground.
Actual comment: “Someone just left this ship here and I found it and now it’s mine to keep…”
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