B&B

Emily3Cat showed off her "B&B" in a beautiful rose color. I'm not sure what B&B stands for, and am trying to find that out. But it got me thinking about the other B&B which I am familiar with ... bed & breakfast inns....

It's been quite a while since I stayed at a B&B. That would have been Sept 2004, when we stayed at the Grand View Inn in Pacific Grove, CA. I really like the Seal Rocks room there. We've stayed at this inn twice. I really like staying at B&Bs, it's just so much nicer. My other favorite B&B is Grape Leaf Inn in Healdsburg, CA. Love the Chardonnay Suite there. This place has a speakeasy where they have wine tasting in the afternoons. Breakfast at this B&B is awesome. We've stayed at this inn twice also. The B&B that started it all was Inn at Depot Hill in Capitola, CA. It was OK, but I don't think I'd go back there cuz there really isn't much in Capitola.

Don't know when DH & I can make it to a B&B again. We're thinking of a trip to Carmel sometime in February. The inlaws have agreed to babysitting M for 2 nights. Yay! :-)

Need to start working on the babysitter checklist & info sheet ... not that I would expect them to read it.

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While reading a phonics/word book with M, she saw a picture of the number "5", and identified it by saying, "fie," which is how she says five. She tends to drop off the endings of words. Wow, I thought it was so cool that she recognized that number. We've been practicing saying the sequence of numbers 1 through 10. She skips over 1, 2, and 7. I can understand 7 being a bit more challenging with 2 syllables. I usually start by saying, "1, 2," and then she follows with, "free, four, fi, sih, (skips 7), eh, ni, te."

Still not doing very well in the nap dept. She had transitioned from 2 naps down to 1 nap. Now it looks like she is trying to shake off her 1 nap, and that is just bad bad bad. She is such a fuss bucket without any nap.

My latest challenge has been getting her into her highchair. DH is able to get her in, but she doesn't want to sit it in when I try to put her in it. On the upside, she is getting better at sipping out of a real cup as long as we hold it for her. She wants to held it herself, but we know that she'll fling it around and drop it, just as she does with her plastic sippy cups.

I finally sat down and sorted through photos from the past 6 months. I had to pick up the better ones for my inlaws. As I was going through the photos, I observed that the photos were much better 6 months ago (more in focus). Most of the recent ones were not very good because M moves too much.

During our last visit to the inlaws, she climbed the 10 steps up to the 2nd floor for the very first time. She got to the top and then immediately wanted to be picked up. She was extra clingy that day. Partly teething related I think. She's still teething (big bad molars coming), poor girl.



The two pictures above were taken outside The Fish Market restaurant in San Mateo, CA. It is one of the restaurants my mom likes AND it is relatively baby friendly. Mom loves good food, usually in restaurants that aren't very good for M, and is also picky about her food (not to mention sensitivities to foods). My restaurant choices are limited to "family" restaurants, chain restaurants, and any other place that is generally on the noisy side (and preferably with a baby changing station in the restroom). Mom wants to go check out Myth ... a dinner-only place and not baby friendly. Right now I can only think of 3 restaurants which Mom likes and where M would be welcome: The Fish Market, Mimi's Cafe in San Mateo, and Elephant Bar Restaurant in Daly City. Sigh... it'll be a while before I return to Chapeau! or Boulevard.

BTW, besides decent seafood, The Fish Market has a great flourless chocolate cake.

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In some ways it is a good thing I am too busy to keep up with current events. I don't even get to read or watch the news. And whenever I do hear of something happening outside my little bubble of a world, it's usually something bad. Why don't they report good news?

What is happening to this city?

I am shocked at the shooting of officer Bryan Tuvera, which happened not too far from where I live. And on the same day, there was a tiger mauling of a zoo keeper at the SF Zoo. It was a busy night for my friend T who works at SF General Hospital. Can't believe someone shot (several times) an Irish tourist while trying to mug him; he lived, btw.

I can't believe that someone stole a stroller 5 blocks away from where I live. Someone left the stroller outside the copy shop while taking care of stuff inside, and I guess when he/she came out, the stroller was gone. Who would do such a thing?

Ah, but this isn't as bad as my neighbors (I'll call them X), who live on the same block, who think it is OK for their kids (and their kids' friends) to run around on 2-story high rooftops. This happened on March 6, 2005. One kid broke and fell through a plastic awning of my adjacent neighbor's house and tried open the gate to run down the stairs towards the street. Unfortunately, my neighbor's gate has one of those locks where you have to use a key on either side to open it. So this kid climbed back up, tried to run across our plastic awning, broke and fell through, but managed to hang on and pull back up onto the roof. So DH goes down to X's house to inquire whether that kid was OK. The adults in that house gave him the brush off and said, "they were just playing." WTF, just playing?! I really want to move to a nicer neighborhood where the neighbors don't think running across the roof is a normal thing. BTW, these are the same neighbors who jumped over their backyard fence to their adjacent neighbor's yard just for the heck of it. Yeesh. The people in the X household also like to call other people in the neighborhood by derogatory names, well, everyone except perhaps my Russian neighbor because they can't think of a derogatory name for her. I really feel bad for the Italian guy who lives adjacent to the X house. He's a very nice elderly gent, retired, who spends most of his time doing volunteer work and stuff for his church. The X neighbors think he's gay, which he is not, but I think they jumped to that conclusion because he has gay friends who visit him (or was it his brother, I forget which, but it doesn't matter). On the upside, he is out of his house most of the day. ..... I can tell you lots of strange things about the comings & goings of the X household, partly due to having spent a year breastfeeding M around the clock. It's amazing what you see going out outside in the wee hours of the night. But I won't mention all that and other stuff (noise disturbances, domestic disturbances (complete with police presence), etc). I guess the best way to sum up the X household is that they fit every bad stereotype.

As for moving to another neighborhood, I'd like to add that it would be nice if it was a neighborhood where people wore helmets while riding their bicycles, and where they don't have 2 people riding on a non-tandem style bike (viz. a bike designed for one person). M will eventually get to that age where she will want to have her first bicycle. It would be nice of the neighbors set good examples for her and don't give her any reckless ideas...

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I have done zilch in the knitting dept ... see M's nap reference above. For a while I was getting quite a bit of knitting done in the car while she napped. Now I'm getting nowhere with my knitting. Wondering whether my first finished object of 2007 will be in February...

I still haven't touched M's mitten, which I botched. I mentioned this in this 12/25 post ... gosh, has it been that long? I'm thinking it'll be summertime before she gets her mittens. I should concentrate on working on the first mitt. Hopefully I won't suffer from SMS after that. No, no, not Storage Management System or System Management Server. That would be Second Mitten Syndrome (similar to SSS = Second Sock Syndrome).

Can't knit fast enough. I have three scarves to make, all new designs, one of them for myself. I suppose I'd do better if I knitted stuff for Barbie, lol.

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Itching to play The Sims. I recently reinstalled the game and started a new neighborhood. It will be a diverse neighborhood. My newest family are the MacKennas, Dubhlainn and Aedan. Dubhlainn works at home as part-time art investor while building his skills to open his new home business of pressing Elberberry Nectar. Aedan had a bad start in the Entertainment track when he missed his first 2 days of work (oops!), but is now doing well in the Science track.

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Oops, forget to add teatime ... I drank Peet's Jade Mist organic green tea. Love Peet's, it's a local company which originated in Berkeley, CA.

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