Monthly Archives: August 2012

A week of firsts

Even though it seems that every one of the blog posts recently have been about “Sirena’s first [insert something cool here]”, we had one full week of pretty exciting “firsts” that deserves its own post…

First trip to the zoo

I’m sure the words “Oakland” and “Zoo” together don’t conjure up visions of really cool animals but, surprisingly, the Oakland Zoo is quite the zoo!  We met up with my co-worker Debra and her 18 month old son Cruz for a visit to the park and we’re so glad we went!

Getting ready for her first safari

The gang ready to see some animals!

Sirena and Cruz, the little buddies

Happy mama, daddy and baby

Kevin, Debra and the kiddos walking through the park

We saw so many cool animals!  Like a mama and baby giraffe…

Me and my baby with the mama and baby giraffes in the background (awww…)

And a lion!  Apparently this guy never comes out into the open and we happened to be there in the 2 minutes he left his little enclosure…lucky us!

That zebra musta been real scared

Pumba was there

And so was this handsome fella

And this crazy monkey who was putting on a good show for us

We visited the fruit bat enclosure and got up-close-and-personal with some kinda cute/kinda creepy creatures.

Sirena wasn’t too impressed with the bats as you can see here

After all of the animals it was time for a break!

Is he not the cutest thing ever?

A tired and very full baby getting burped by daddy

Family photo outside of the flamingo enclosure

The Oakland Zoo is a gem in the middle of this big city and we would highly recommend it!

First college campus tour

We took Sirena on her very first college campus tour at UC Berkeley (it’s never too early to start, right??)  I have been wanting to go for a long walk on Cal’s campus since before my maternity leave started and I was so glad we finally did it.  Too bad the weather wasn’t spectacular that particular day but that didn’t keep us from having a good time.

It was chilly that day so we put on her going-home-from-the-hospital beanie and it made her look like a brand-speankin’-new baby again

Lola didn’t have to wear any sort of hat with that gorgeous fur coat of hers

Lola going for a stroll with good ol’ “Pappy” (Kevin and I are weird, what can we say?)

This face can only mean one thing…dirty diaper!

And what better place to change a dirty diaper?  On the bench in front of some old building on the campus, of course!

I couldn’t resist taking this picture, it looks like the Invisible Baby or something (I know, I’m a dork)

One of my favorite things about this campus is The Campanile

Sirena with The Campanile in the background (if she ends up going to Cal I think it would be awesome to take a similar picture of her standing in this spot on her first day there. Gah, I’m such a mom.)

First concert

We made it back to Stern Grove for one of the free summer concerts and once again it did not disappoint!  Jess and I went to a Stern Grove concert my first weekend living in San Francisco in 2009 (see post here) and Kevin, Lola and I went with some friends last year (see post here) and I had been looking forward to taking Sirena to see the band Ozomatli before she was born. We met up with Jessie who snagged a great spot right in front and hung out with some of her friends that afternoon.

As new parents we naively brought S to the concert without having thought through how to protect her tiny little ears and we were prepared to sit away from Jess and her group to keep S far from the speakers but luckily the Red Cross booth had ear plugs that we could use and they seemed to do the trick!

Happy baby getting ready for the concert to start!

Ma and Pa enjoying a baby-free moment while Aunt Jessie was dancing with S

Mama dancing with Sirena

Here are two short videos of Sirena dancing with me and dancing with Aunt Jessie (notice how deep asleep she is in both videos even with all the ruckus going on)!

Sirena’s Monthly Photos: Two Months Old

Dear Sirena,

You have become quite the fun baby this month!  Daddy and I have enjoyed seeing your first smiles and hearing your first giggles more than you can ever imagine.  You are a super happy baby when you wake up in the morning and when on the changing table.  You are starting to get the hang of copying us–either our noises, sticking your tongue out like us, or smiling–and when you see or hear us copy you, you get very excited.

You are alert for longer periods during the day and it was hard at first to figure out how to entertain and play with a 4-8 week old baby but it seems we’re getting the hang of it–right now the things that entertain you the most are reading a few books while sitting on our lap in the glider, looking at your face in the penguin mirror while listening to the fun music it plays, jumping and standing on your strong, chubby legs (with the help of Mom or Dad, of course), or just walking around and looking at things while we narrate for you what it is we’re looking at.

You have such a strong personality and although it can be rough at times trying to figure out exactly what you need right this minute you’re pretty predictable and we can figure out what it is you need after a few tries.  We love getting to know you more and more each day and we hope you are enjoying getting to know us too!

Love you,

Mama

The two month rundown

Likes

  • Reading: we’ve read just about every one of your 50+ books in your extensive library at least once through and so far it seems that Brown Bear, Brown Bear is your favorite
  • Music: it doesn’t really matter what kind of music it is, you seem to calm down whenever we put on some tunes (I like to think that your favorite is the Smokey Robinson station on Pandora since that’s basically all Mom listened to while she was pregnant with you!)
  • Bath time: still loving it (thankfully!)

Dislikes

  • Tummy time: although you’re starting to handle it for longer stretches a little better
  • Getting dressed: you do not like having a onesie put over your little head and arms but once it’s on, you’re a happy camper

Monthly Photos

See past monthly photo posts in her mini armchair here: One Month

The many facial expressions of Sirena

And a special treat for our readers…Lola’s best photo bomb to date!

I think it’s safe to say that Lola misses her monthly photo bomb opportunities during the pregnancy!

Sirena’s first dip in the pool

My mom and Steve came up for a few days so that my mom could attend the Brave New Voices international spoken word competition that was being hosted here in the Bay Area (she works with a group of youth from Long Beach that were competing this year) and so they decided to make a trip out of it and come spend some time with us too.  The competition was amazing (I attended one of the day’s events) and although the LB team didn’t win it was so inspiring being there and hearing their amazing work.

Here are some photos from their visit, including Sirena’s first time in a swimming pool!

We went to a car show in Danville where Steve’s nephew’s car was being shown and Sirena seemed to enjoy herself almost as much as her Daddy did!

Sirena’s first car show

Hot rods make her happy, apparently!

We then went to dinner at a yummy Italian restaurant…

Ma & Pa

Sirena with Steve

No meal is complete without a chocolate-dipped cone from Foster’s Freeze!

And now for the photos you’ve all been waiting for…when we found out that the pool at my mom’s hotel was heated we immediately went out to Babies R Us for some swimming diapers, strapped on her first bathing suit, and got the cameras ready!

Diaper duty before hitting the waves (the smallest waterproof diapers were for 16-26 pound babies and she was only around 12 pounds at the time so we just had to fold them over quite a bit and pray that there weren’t any accidents in the pool [luckily there weren’t!)

“Hey Daddy!”

Can’t forget the baby sunscreen!  Getting a massage from Mom.

Suited up and ready to go!

I think she was a little nervous, just judging by this photo, haha.

Here we go!

My mom took a video of her first dip in the pool, check it out here!

She was totally at home in the water and we see swimming lessons in her future!  She’s our little fish and we loooove how much she enjoyed herself in the pool.  Here are more photos of the lady being passed around…

She is learning to love the prickly kisses from Dad

Getting so much love from her Aunt Jessie!

Flying high with Mama

That’s quite a view!

Love this girl

The happy little family

Group photo

Swimming with Nani

She was in the pool for at least an hour (maybe more?) and she eventually passed out in her Nani’s arms…

After getting dried off and into some warm clothes she sat around with her Aunt Jessie soaking in the last rays of sunshine of the weekend…

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