Just Powers

When you’re 22-months old, the two greatest things in the world are trains (”choo choo”) and merry-go-rounds (”why-oh-why”). If you say “choo choo” and “why-oh-why” over and over again, it sounds a little like the lyrics to a Kajagoogoo song. And then that song becomes another one of the greatest things in the world.

(As an added bonus, Emma is wearing her new horsey Halloween costume she just got from her friend EJ.)

I know that most of the cool kids were in San Francisco last weekend for BlogHer, but Emma and Mike and I are in town this week for the AFSCME Convention. Mike is working behind the scenes to make sure the convention goes off without a hitch, so he is working pretty hard and is not getting to hang out the way Emma and I are. We did have dinner with him last night though, so that was cool.

So here is a quick recap of our trip so far:

Saturday: As we walked up to the gate to board the plane that would bring us to San Francisco the flight attendant looked at us and said “Oh, we don’t do children.”

Huh. Really? REALLY Ms. Flight Attendant, you don’t do children?

I think Mike and I both laughed at her because she very quickly corrected herself and said “We don’t do early boarding for children”.

Huh. Thanks United.

The flight itself was a little hairy since we decided not to buy a seat for Emma. But I will leave that for another post.

Once we settled into the hotel, Mike had a meeting so Emma and I explored the area around the hotel. We quickly discovered that Yerba Buena Gardens is right across the street from the hotel, and there is a very nice merry-go-round there too. And in San Francisco, if you buy one ticket on a merry-go-round, you get two rides. Ok, not really, but you do on the Yerba Buena Gardens merry-go-round. Which seems like it would be wonderful, but really in the end just makes it harder for a merry-go-round obsessed toddler to stop riding when the time comes.

Sunday: Emma and I started early (around 7:30) and went for a walk to Union Square. There were some artists just setting up for the day and we browsed some of the art. We found one that I loved of a little girl on a merry-go-round, so I bought it. This trip is starting to have a theme. After wandering the Union Square area for a while we went to the hot breakfast bar at Whole Foods which is just two blocks from the hotel. Then we wandered around Yerba Buena Gardens again, rode the merry-go-round and watched the very beginning of the theater festival happening that day in the Gardens.

Monday: Emma and I decided to go to the hotel restaurant for breakfast, just to see what it was like. The bad news was that it was $25 for the breakfast buffet. The good news was that Emma ate at least $25 in raspberries and I ate at least $25 in smoked salmon. Jen and Emma: 1 - Hotel: 0.

My big plan for the day was to go to Fisherman’s Wharf via cable car so we walked to Powell Street and stood in the looong line to get our Muni passport (because I had a brain cramp and forgot to do it at the airport). Then we stood in another long line to wait for the aforementioned cable car. Needless to say as each cable car passed by us and we didn’t get on, Emma would let out a little yelp in protest. Luckily there were lots of pigeons to distract her.

We finally made it to Fisherman’s Wharf. We found out way to Pier 39 which kind of reminded me of Provincetown in Cape Cod. We grabbed a crepe and a lemonade and went to find the sea lions and eat. Emma loved/hated the sea lions. Wouldn’t let me put her down, but didn’t want to walk away. Luckily there was - you guessed it - a merry-go-round right in the middle of the whole pier, so she was quickly distracted. We rode the MGR and headed towards home.

Once home I finally got up the nerve to email Doodaddy - a San Francisco local and one of the blogs I read almost daily - to ask him for recommendations on things to see and do in San Francisco. He wrote back almost immediately and invited me to join him and Boobaby and Cry it out Mike and Emmeline in Golden Gate Park the next day.

Tuesday: Emma woke up barking like a sea lion. We decided to try Mel’s Diner for breakfast. While the food was fine, the touristy theme restaurant thing just didn’t do it for me. In the end I think I will probably just return to Whole Foods for breakfast in the days to come. Mel’s cost me $20, and there were no raspberries or smoked salmon. Hmph.

Emma and I hopped on the N train to Golden Gate Park. We had some time to kill before meeting Doodaddy, Boobaby, Mike and Emmeline, so we headed to the Children’s Playground. After another ride on a merry-go-round - the most exotic one of all so far - Emma played on the swings, removed at least half of the sand from the sandbox and slid down a few slides. I think she was relieved to be doing something she was used to, albeit in a strange place.

We walked to the Arboretum, our meeting place, and met Doodaddy and Boobaby, Mike and Emmeline. We spent about an hour at the duck pond, feeding the ducks, eating a picnic, which Doodaddy and Mike were nice enough to share, and practicing diving in the pond. Ok there wasn’t any actual diving, but I am pretty sure I was the only thing preventing Emma from going headfirst into the pond with the ducks. Doodaddy and Mike gave me some more advice about things to do in San Francisco and were just all around welcoming and friendly.

We boarded the train to return to the hotel for nap time and two stops later Emma was asleep.

So far we are having a great, if exhausting, time. Being the sole caretaker of a toddler in a city I am not familiar with is much more daunting a task than I originally thought. Thanks so much to Doodaddy and Mike for being friendly faces and helping us feel at home!

We have rabbits! In our neighborhood mind you, not in our house (god help me). They usually hang out and eat in our neighbors’ yards and we see them from the car when we are on our way home. We always block traffic stop and show them to Emma and now when we drive by that spot she points and looks for them and makes a little noise with her mouth that sounds like eating.

One day recently when we came home, one of the bunnies was sitting at the bottom of our stairs. I got Emma out of the car and we got within about six feet before Emma squealed and the bunny decided that maybe the bottom of our stairs wasn’t really where it wanted to be. Still, it was cool to get so close.

This morning when Emma woke up she pointed out the window, so I opened the curtain to let her see what was (or wasn’t) out there. Sitting right in front of her window were two teeny little baby bunnies. One of them was a little skittish and when it heard me open the curtain it ran under a bush for a second before coming back out. The other one was all “Yeah, I hear you. Whatev. I’m a bunny, you don’t scare me” and just sat there looking at me. Except then Emma started pounding on the window and both bunnies ran for their lives. I told her the bunnies were going to sleep.

Emma spent the rest of the day saying “bohbee”, insisting we let her look out the window and making the sign for sleep. She has also managed to find every stuffed bunny she has (three or four by my last count) and has been carrying them around all day.

I can’t quite decide if I want the bunnies to be there tomorrow morning or not, although at this point I guess it is ridiculous to think she might actually forget about them, even if they aren’t.

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family reunion - Dynasty

To those folks who are convinced that Emma looks just like me…I guess you are right, but just barely!

Dear Interwebs -

I have been a huge slacker. I haven’t posted a real post in over two weeks. I have no excuse really, the time has just slipped away from me. Please accept my sincerest apologies and my assurance that it won’t happen again. For a while. Maybe.

In my defense, I haven’t been completely MIA. While I haven’t been writing, I have been reading. I know that Catherine at Her Bad Mother has been having killer false labor, and OH MAH GOD, I feel so bad for her (although maybe not so false as of today? Fingers crossed). I know that Doodaddy hit his 500th post, Jessica and A Parent in Silver Spring were featured in the Washington Post Express and over at My Merry Way June gets cuter every day. I have been hanging on every word written at Boobs, Injuries and Dr. Pepper, and have been holding Dawn at Alex Year One (Two!!) in my heart.

I’m gonna go sleep now and dream of all the posts I am going to write.

Talk to you soon.
Jen

Taking turns from Justpowers on Vimeo.

I took this video back in January and never got a chance to put it up. I remembered it the other day and decided the cute factor far outweighed how late I am sharing it with you.

Jumping for Cherry Blossoms from Justpowers on Vimeo.

Emma, her friend EJ, his mom Bridget and I all went down to the Jefferson Memorial yesterday to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom. Despite the freezing cold wind whipping off the Tidal Basin all four of us stayed in pretty good spirits and were even able to find a sunny spot among the blooms to practice jumping.

Just for fun I went back to our pictures from last year’s blossoms - here’s Emma then. Big shout out to our friend Jack and his mommy Kate who went with us last year and moved away not long after. We miss them lots.

I found out recently via Just Up the Pike that the folks behind Arlington Cinema ‘n Drafthouse are opening a new venue in late Summer 2008, two minutes from me, in the movie theater at the Wheaton Mall. A night spot? Within walking distance of my house? Yippeeee!!

Montgomery Cinema ‘n Drafthouse promises first run movies, live music and comedy, sporting events and family friendly entertainment. The coolest part about the Drafthouses (besides the now incredibly close-proximity to moi) is that you watch the movies/comedy/sports/families in a restaurant setting. I saw The Business of Being Born at the theater in Arlington and had a great time eating dinner and drinking a couple of beers while I watched.

Now I definitely need to line up a regular babysitter, and maybe even keep her/him on retainer for a couple of nights a month!

Lunch with Emma from Justpowers on Vimeo.

I just took this video with our new Flip video camera, plugged it into my computer and got it uploaded to Vimeo almost before Emma finished her lunch. What a huge change from our other video camera that takes me what feels like hours to transfer from my camera, edit and upload to the web.

If you are interested, Amazon has the Ultra version on sale right now for $139.99 and an older model for $105.86

This could be seriously addictive…

This video has been viewed over 12 million times, so clearly all of YOU have seen it and just never told me about it. In any case, I just watched it four times in a row and started crying I was laughing so hard. Turns out AIG bought the video and made an ad out of it, AND it just won the 2007 Most Adorable Video in the YouTube video awards.

I’m gonna go watch it again.