Search Results for: stroller

2 weeks ago we tried to go on a hike with the San Bruno Mother’s club, but due to too much chaos in our lives – not RSVPd and arrived at the wrong meeting point and late – we failed. We had lots of fun on our own though, and we saw the mom’s club walk by from a distance while we built our sandcastle. They all had strollers, so Leilani probably wouldn’t have enjoyed that hike anyway.

Time flies (that’s why all the Baby Blog posts are so late…)
Andy says: I drew this on the sand, with a driftwood gnomon. I made it at noon and it was accurate for a little while, maybe until the next tide washed it away, like the sands of time…

Hiking on the coastal bluffs in Pacifica

If you look closely, you can see an island on the horizon to the left of us. I don’t think you can see Kaua’i from here, so it must be the Farallones (30 miles – 50 km away).

That’s San Francisco in the far distance, Ruwan’s neighborhood, with Mt. Tamalpais above and beyond.

Leilani loves to climb anything and everything. I think she had more fun on the dirt hill than on the beach itself.

Leilani and I built a strange sandcastle:

Leilani showing off her new yoga skills:

Leilani managed to take 2 pictures with her unique perspective, before she stuck the lens in the sand and got her ear pulled…

Then we went a few miles south to Pilar Point Harbor, at the north end of Half Moon Bay. We walked to the north point where there were tidal flats, and then to El Granada, and back to the harbor where we had dinner at Barbara’s Fish Trap.

Yikes! Cold!

And another sunset…

Someone in El Granada was cutting their Nightblooming Jasmine hedge, and I took some home – the next afternoon I discovered the Jasmine rainbowshadow below:

Jasmine Rainbowshadow, that sounds like the name of a My Little Pony.

I found a few photos that I thought deserved to be on the baby blog…

Kuilau hike we did in February. Thanks Irene for the photos!

Goodbye when I was leaving for the Big Island

Leilani turned her horses into paints and pintos…

Andy and Leilani went to a potluck while I was on the Big Island

Line them all up…

Entropy…

Leilani and Elsa had a play-date, Andy was adventurous enough to take them to the farmers market:

I also heard from a few people that we are not the best communicators… sorry… OK, here is the whole story on the move

Andy is leaving in the beginning of September, housesitting in San Francisco for 5 weeks, while buying a car, looking for a rental. Leilani and I will visit him once there, and start organizing the move from this end. Mid October will be the actual move of stuff, and we will keep the downstairs office – transformed to a small living space.

We will keep the house, garage and downstairs are rented already, upstairs is now for rent on Craigslist
Please tell everyone who you think is interested and will be a good tenant.

Andy’s job will allow telecommuting once he is a prooven worker and a team member, we are planning to be back in 2 years at the latest.

We will have a Good-Bye Party mid to end of October, most likely at Lydgate.

2 Weekends ago, on April 5th we went to Hanapepe again, to hear (and see) Makana.

After the concert Leilani and Elsa rode the stroller

…to the firestation

…and climbed up a tree (with a little help)

Written back on March 13th.

I had a nice afternoon with Leilani yesterday, although there was one of those uncertain parenting moments.

Mommy had put her to nap and needed to get some work done, so I took over. I managed to get her back to sleep twice—she now likes being in the rocking chair and listening to my French songs. When she finally woke up, she didn’t cry and walked out of the bedroom by herself to find me. After sitting on the potty, she suggested “let’s go to the park,” which suited me because I wanted to take her jogging in the stroller on the way there.

On the way there, she wanted to go see the “donkeys” she had heard one evening. We can sometimes hear cows in the fields near our house, but she knows what donkeys sound like and she said she could hear them. I was fairly sure it was just her imagination, so I played along with her. Since there are no donkeys in our neighborhood, we went to see the horses and feed them for 15 minutes. For once the horses came over to the fence to be fed grass I picked nearby, and she loved feeding them herself. Then I got my 30 minutes of jogging around the neighborhood done, and as promised we ended up at the playground.

When I took her to the potty after a while, we saw an 8-yr old boy walk out of the bathroom with the roll toilet paper. I didn’t think much of it until we saw the boy and all his friends wrapping one of their bikes with the paper and I thought they were playing a joke on an unlucky friend. When I was 5, the big kids on my street took my Big Wheel and ripped the stickers off, which was traumatizing—but I couldn’t bring myself to yell at these kids.

Next, one of the kids had a lighter and lit the paper around a handlebar, while the owner of the bike rode around and the others watched. The wind from riding around made the fire spread, but without making big dangerous flames. So while I was even more tempted to intervene, I had to admit the kids were being rather ingenious. I had never done something like that when I was that age, but I was starting to wish I had thought of it.

I was aware that Leilani was sitting with me watching all this, but I just couldn’t think of what to do. On the one hand, I shouldn’t let her watch dangerous pranks, but she was amused watching the boys, the bicycles and the fire, so it would be hard to drag her away to play elsewhere. I was watching because I was both interested in what they were doing, seeing what kids these days do, and as the only adult around, trying to keep an eye out for safety. So I did lecture Leilani about the danger of fire and big boys on bikes, but I felt I couldn’t really make the kids stop, they would just go elsewhere and or stand up to me.

In the end, I did call out to them and tell them to stop making fire on the painted surface of the basketball courts because that would ruin it. They accepted this and moved to the grass for the big finale: lighting the paper under the seat of the bike and pedaling around. I have to admit this looked more dangerous and more impressive. I was worried the kid’s polyester shorts could melt, but the paper burned quickly and by riding around, the flames never touched the boy.

At one point, a small piece of burning paper blew onto the court, and Leilani stood up and tried to yell something about no fire on the court, trying to repeat what I had said. They didn’t hear her, but at least I felt she understood how fooling around could be both fun but dangerous and destructive. After that, the boys gave up and eventually biked off their separate ways. I never got the impression they were bad kids, just adventurous. Of course, it made me wonder in what ways will Leilani be adventurous at that age—hopefully she will have forgotten about this specific prank.

As Dr. Seuss famously asks at the end of The Cat in the Hat: “Well, what would you do?”

Today Leilani went to the bookshelf all by herself and pulled out a photo book about Kauai. That in itself was surprising enough… As she started to look at the pictures I jokingly asked if she had ever been there. She looked at me as if I had lost my mind*, pointed to a picture (of Kalalau Valley) and said “Nounou mountain!” Then she pointed to a photo of a hiker with hat and said “Daddy hiking.” [Proud Daddy’s heart melts after reading this.]

A few things Leilani said (funnier if you speak German):

“Another Bohne” – One more bean, Styrian fava beans are Leilani’s favorite
“No like it Blumi essen” – I don’t like it if (the toy horsie) eats the flowers (on my dress)… when Oma pretended that the toy horse was eating the flowers
“Opa (wo) bist du?” – Opa where are you (about 50 times a day, but instead of Opa also Oma, Mimi, Lara, Kiron…)
“Dinner time” eyes barely open waking up from her nap, about 2 hours after a huge lunch
“Oma catch me”
“Swimming pool in, in (25 seconds later) out, cold OOOUUUT”
“Mama weiter schwimmen. Mama Fischi. Underneath” – Mommy, keep swimming. Mommy dive (like a fish)
“Bye-bye Oma, bye-bye Opa, bye-bye swimming pool” – When it was time for a nap
“Lara fahrt mit” Leilani is always hopeful that Lara will ride in the car with her, if only to try to boss her around later (“Lara sit”)
“Stork coming” – there are a few nesting in Gleisdorf, but Leilani pronounces “Storch” very German…
“Gemma home” – Let’s go home
“Goodnight Mond” – Goodnight Moon

Another funny story: Leilani wanted out of her stroller, and then – next to the busy street – demanded to walk alone, and cried and stomped her feet when we tried to take her by the hand. But Leilani, I said, next to the street you either have to sit in the stroller, or have to “give your hand”(the German phrase “Hand geben” means both to shake and to hold hands.) With a dead serious face Leilani extended her hand, grabed my moms hand and said “Byb bye Oma….”

*that’s OK, I don’t get HER sense of humor either.

This car, an Opel GT is 40 years old, and both my mom and I drove one a long long time ago.

My mom Trude and her friends Putzi and Hannelore

My aunt Jutta (mom’s sister) and Matthias one of her sons.

Matthias and Jutta’s dogs Lucy and Linus

Louise is the daugther of a school friend – and the friendliest little girl I ever met, sharing, hugging…

Loreen is one of the 2 daughters of friends Thomas and Maria

Trude Oma reads a book to Leilani

My best friend during high school Andrea and her children

Friz Opa and his wife Christine in their house…

… and in their garden (with mothersday flowers they picked for my mom)

OPEN that door!!!!! Leilani, Aaliyah and the Moriz twins Sebastian and Alexander

My mom Trude and my dad Franz

Ambros, a school friend visits

Leilani shows off her cool new glasses (with Jutta)

Gerd my stepddad and Leilani are playing the Piano

Visiting with Ingo – my stepdad Gerd’s brother and his wife Edith, also visiting is Edith’s mom Rosie

Jana and Aaliyah.

Bye bye Uncle Sharif (Aaliyah’s dad)