"choo choo and mer mer": hana at almost 21 months

last weekend we decided to take a trip up to tilden park in the berkeley hills and visit the steam trains. not to be confused with the train at the zoo that we've been to many times, the steam trains are actually miniature trains that run on steam power. also unlike the zoo, the steam trains are only open on the weekends and it's a little further from the house, so we have only been there once before. but this seemed like the perfect day to go since it was hot, and our non-air conditioned house can get as warm as the exterior weather outside, making it like a dry heat sauna. since the berkeley hills can be a little cooler, we ran for the hills.
hana insisted her "gyasses" would be the perfect compliment for her sundress.

the first time around on the steam train, we all sat together. hana was excited but seemingly pensive as she took it all in. she's been to the steam trains once before but she was only 17 months old then... just a baby (ha!). it seems like a lifetime ago.

sitting in daddy's lap... on our subsequent rides, she sat on the bench by herself, like a big girl.

the trains are run and maintained by train enthusiatists who volunteer to maintain them and run them on the weekends. it's a nominal fee to ride and it's usually not so crowded that you can't just ride time after time, as it was on the saturday that we were there.

the train winds its way through the verdant scenary of tilden park. the trains have been there for a long time (over 50 years?) so the trains themselves are absent any noticeable safety features like seat belts and sides to keep you from falling out. when i sit in the train, my knees are level with the sides of the train! they just don't make'em like they used to...

here's the engineer tooting the horn...

part of the trip takes our train over this trestle, which you can see is not very high. the trestle covers a path you can take to even smaller working live minature trains. they were under construction so you can't ride them now but apparantly, you can go on those too... anyway, hana loved the train so much i'm convinced that she dreamt about it the next couple of nights. you see, hana's not really a morning person, so she generally sleeps until 7:00 or 7:30 a.m., and even when she awakens, she's pretty mellow. she usually just waits in her crib, talking to herself, until we come in to get her ready. but for the next couple of mornings she was up before 6:00 a.m., and through the monitor, you could hear whining "mommys [she still on the plurals kick]choo choo... mommys i want go cars... go cars uh uh choo choo!" i think we are entering a train period.

all blissed out from the train, hana was not looking forward to getting back in the hot car. but we wanted to drive down the road a couple of minutes and visit the merry go round. she's been on the one at the zoo, but this one is supposed to a historical landmark (i think it was built in 1929). she was unhappy for the next few minutes until she got her first glimpse of the building where the merry-go-round was housed. and then she exclaimed "wooooooh wook it"...more oohs and aahs ensued. then a bell rang and hana went "uh oh mommys". when i assured her it was just the merry-go-round getting started, she made this face you see above and went "ooooooh mer mer". a love affair was born.

all three of us went on the first trip. with daddy on board, i got to ride on my own horse. this mer mer's no joke! it picks up a good amount of speed for a merry go round and i actually had a little wind in my hair...

hana getting strapped in for ride 2 of 7... jon did not accompany us on the final 6 rides, choosing solid ground to spinning platform.

"woooooooh wook it" ... "horsie mer mer"

this one's blurry but i like it because you can really see the joy in her face. she loved waving to daddy on every lap.

it's been 8 days since we went to the steam train and the merry-go-round, but hana still talks about wanting to go to the "choo choo" and the "mer mer" several times a day, even standing at the front door wondering why we are getting ready to "go bye bye cars mer mer" (get in the car and take me to the merry-go-round).

good times...

in other news, hana's gotten some new fall clothes since most of her 2T clothes look ridiculous on her. here, she's showing off her new "boofwys shirt" a.k.a. butterflies shirt. she thinks daddy's shoes go well with this ensemble... but she can't seem to decide which pair she wants.

and here's you see the lego indoctrination... you may all be aware that jon is a lego maniac... so it's no surprise that hana is totally into "bwoks". since jon has put his real legos away in the garage because they're still too small, he's had to settle for these.

meet the sillys

this is the last of the catch-up photos... i hope this blog blitz will satisfy those who chastised us for going 2 months without an update, and in some cases lowering our blogs status to second from the bottom (di-ane!).

this is from labor day... hana, jack and charlie thought it was fun to carry this basket all over the house. this was fun for about 15 minutes, until they starting fighting over who was going to stand on top of the basket. then the basket went "night night"... and soon after, so did the kids...

most of these other pictures are from the hot, august "family date night" when we watched the justin timberlake concert on TV (woohoo!) and had a picnic dinner on the living room floor. dinner was followed by general sillyness.

here, hana has discovered the mommy horsie for the first time and finds it superior to her rocking horse.

hana took this series of pictures of "daddys" - she's pluralizing everything these days ("mommys", "daddys", "i want some oatmeals"...)

i must preface this video by saying that hana has her favorite books at story time and she wants to read them every night! while some more enlightened people believe that repeating an act in ritual form can be meditative, i think that reading the same story night after night can drive a person batty (as you will see). so instead of reading "today i feel silly & other moods that make up my day" by jamie lee curtis, which is actually an awesome book the first 50 times you read it, i chose to sing it like a country song. now i'm not a good singer, but i think the lyrics match well with a country melody. so when carrie underwood, or reba mcintire record this, remember, you heard it here first...

just too darn cute...

jon had the camera in the video setting so instead of getting this shot as a still, it's a video. her eyes are just amazing here! they're like giant chocolate pools of cuteness. i had one of these images as a still, i would blow it up, maybe in black and white, and hang it on the wall and probably miss a lot of work staring at it... i just think this is ridiculously cute!

little hana's growing up!

hana is like a sponge and seems to pick up new skills everyday. this video is from august, when quite suddenly it seems she started counting to 10. but of course, will only do it when there is no way there can be any photographic or video evidence of it... observe my feeble attempts to get her to count for the camera while she is more interested in getting ready to count (as opposed to actually counting), or helping me take the picture:


now, to be clear, it's not always reliably correct. for example, she pretty routinely forgets 2 and in this video, she repeats "...7, 8, 9..." several times, ending in 14.

but perhaps the biggest news of august was that she went pee pee and poo poo in the potty!!! she mostly does this at daycare where other kids are potty training. in fact she went poo poo in the potty before going pee pee at daycare, which they dutifully took a picture of (both process and product - i will spare you that)...

at home she has only gone pee pee in the potty twice out of about 20 seatings. she likes to sit on the potty sometimes. we usually try right before she gets in the bath because she has started the annoying habit of peeing in the tub. so i'm trying to put her on the potty when i know she goes so she gets used to it. most of the time however, she sits on the potty and reads her book or blows bubbles... but then urgently wants off the potty to get in the bath... to pee in it. sigh. we're trying to keep it low key around potty training. i know the old school way would be to train her right now, but i'm a fan of the new school because i think, when she's ready, it will go quickly. for now, she's more interested in flushing the toilet (which leads to a lecture from daddy about wasting water) but peeing in the tub. we'll be sure to get her straight before she gets invited someplace royal.

when hana and jon are left unattended

as a father, jon is generally very reliable and attentive. you now how sometimes, when you're out and about and you see some kids acting a little crazy or doing something totally unsafe, but you're not in the ghetto so it's not that they're unattended... yet they are not old enough to be without adult supervision so you know someone must be watching them... and then sure, enough you see the dad letting the kids play "tight rope walker" with the yellow safety line on the BART platform, as you shake your head incredulously wondering what the mother might do if she saw this... sound familiar? yeah, well, that's not jon. he's way WAY more reasonable. nevertheless, when jon and hana are left alone, hijinx ensues...

recently, i have had a standing 7:30 a.m. appointment which leaves jon alone to handle the morning routine with hana. here's jon's first attempt at styling hana's hair unattended. not bad. i think the final clip count for this style was 17...

jon is also on solo hana patrol on tuesday nights...

it starts out innocently enough with a little coloring...

and then a little playtime with the cat. bailey is one of hana's most loyal buddies. whereever she is, he's not far behind, despite the fact that hana is a toddler and does typical toddler things to animals: like try to wag his tail for him, or use his tail as a handle or a jumprope, or try to take kitty-back rides, or get him to play catch with a ball....

here she is sharing her chalk from a little chalk board she has. i can't get her to share that well with other kids, but she will share just about anything with bailey: toys, ball, her dinner, her snacks... she thinks bailey should do whatever she wants to do. she wants bailey to wear shoes. she wants bailey to jump up and down in her crib with her. in fact, she asks "i want jump kitty cat jump kitty cat...", like, everyday.

and then there is the time that jon introduced hana to this clown horn he's had for years... mind you, this was happening on a warm evening with all of the windows open. this prompted the neighbors to say "what is that?!... is that a muscial instrument?! ... is someone trying to play something?!... is that geese?!" jon overheard this and realized that the horn was probably a little loud for open windows but there was no taking it from hana until she was good and ready, which was pretty much when he pried it from her fingers after she'd fallen asleep.

ok, maybe that last bit was a tad hyperbolic... but suffice it to say, jon realized only in hindsight that giving a horn to a toddler was perhaps ill-advised.

"hana's delight" - the lil'ist dj

i got a birthday card from my dad and marianne that played "rapper's delight" when you opened it. i thought it was cool. but hana though it was REALLY cool and the next two nights became "hana's old school dance party", hosted by hana, who played about a minute of the same track... over and over again. sadly, but perhaps mercifully, the card wore out after 2 nights of opening and closing...

other random shots from costanoa...

there were so many pretty shots we got from our travels this summer that i thought i would play a little catch up and fortify our previous postings with more pictures...


if you recall, jon and i hiked down to the beach, austensibly so that hana could play at the beach. however, on the walk down, and for all of the time that we hung out by the water, hana was asleep. we found this look out and jon and i hung out here for a good 45 minutes or so before hiking back. it was really amazing and i wish that i'd brought a picnic, because only hunger inspired us to walk back...



this was the view from our room at costanoa... i woke up early in the morning and got to run those trails before hana and jon woke up. the part the i was on took me up to the first ridge you see (as opposed to the 2nd one that's more hazy). it was fun running and the views are amazing. they offer sweeping vistas of the coast.

hana sleeping... and missing out on the beach. but this is one of those pictures that reminds of how sweet life is for a toddler (outside of the fact that no one understands what you're saying half the time...), get to ride around in a back pack, napping, with the sounds of the crashing surf as your lullaby... that's goooood livin'.

there was a playground at costanoa (although it's a little old and clearly not the highlight). after breakfast (and before our walk to the beach) hana played at the playground and picked this flower/weed, or as hana calls it "fwowah".

here's hana picking the aforementioned fwowah.

hana and i liked the swings... although i think swings of a more recent vintage are more comfortable...