Hipster Baby

So Clementine and I were off last night to Supperclub San Francisco. We were working on a babysitter but it didn't work out since we needed help today and Monday with Clementine while Ryan is in Colorado.

Anyway, I called and asked if it was totally ridiculous to bring a baby, and they were *so* nice about it, and said that we were more than welcome. We'd hoped Ryan could come but he was working. Anyway, I figured we'd go for 15 minutes to see the friends we were meeting there, and then come home. If she was ok, I'd take any minute beyond that as a blessing.

Well, Supperclub is this big white room lined with a giant bed-like platform. Yes, bed. A queen-sized-bed wide platform with a big matress and lots of big fluffy pillows. Then you're served supper in bed while performers come on between the 5-course meal. Well, this was absolutely, completely, totally wonderful. Clementine loved the bed and our friends, she loved the seaweed salad (under the seared tuna, yummy!), she loved the hearts of palm and the basmati and the crab bisque. One of the performers was like a hip-hop rapping floutist dude... She loved it! She crawled to the pillow at the edge of the bed and layed down on her tummy and just stared. Near at the end, she just laid down and fell asleep. Everyone in the restaurant was so great, it was just awesome. We're definitely going back and bringing Ryan!

Clementine's "Line"

Clementine's "Line"
Originally uploaded by audcrane.

Clementine is ok.

We spent 8 hours in the ER Monday making sure. She was crying, writhing in pain, and incosolable Monday morning for ~10 minutes. This had happened once before, on the previous Wednesday (when I was also down with the stomach flu for two days while Ryan was working hard to complete a contract for a deadline, but that's another story). Anyway, highly unlikely that it's anything, but there was a slim chance that it was this relatively serious thing, so the doctors asked us to come in. She was happy and sweet the whole time except for having her blood drawn and this line put in. That was indescribable except to say that it was the most horrible thing ever, truly. After some prodding, a wheelchair ride while nursing(!) and an ultrasound, they pronounced her perfectly healthy and sent us home. We played with my camera, ate bananas from the cafeteria, and everyone thought she was the cutest baby they'd ever seen.

In other news, we were treated to fireworks next door last night. This is after two previous outages and trips out by the electric company. So last night we had more firetrucks (thankfully, not coming to see *us*) and everything seems fine this morning.

After all this, I'm sure something wonderful is about to happen. It's been a long 2 weeks....

What a Day!

Well, we had quite a day today...

First, we headed to our local drug distribution cent.. er.. park. They were having a "learn how to help clean up your park" day or something, so we of course were game and headed off at 10am. Clementine was due for a nap, but we were trying to keep her up because we had tickets for a bluegrass concert at 1pm, which is about when she'd normally be going down for the afternoon. So we were trying to push everything a bit later. Anyway...

She was quite fussy, so we put the back down, but that just made her mad and she seemed to really want to roll onto her tummy. Usually she sleeps on her tummy, so I fell for this ruse and unbuckled her. Well. That is the perfect opportunity for standing up, right? So she's standing, facing Ryan who's pushing her, and holding onto the handle so he can hold her. This seems kinda dangerous to me, but ok. But by the time we get into the park, she's trying to stand at the front of the stroller. I was nervous about this so I was holding onto her, but then she seemed nervous too and sat down. While I was busy pointing out to Ryan the graffiti that I'd seen applied just 2 days before, she starts to lean out of the stroller, reaching for something on the ground. Ryan and I both lunge for her...but...we...miss! Augh. She fell right on her head onto the bumpy pavement. This is terrible. Ryan snatches her up, I see a huge bruise forming and snatch her away from him (I just can't stand not to be holding her while she's crying!) and pretty soon we're both crying. >sigh< Well I was thinking to myself that this is just horrible, and I feel terrible, but I'm glad that she was already so close to the ground when she fell. (The homeless people seemed irritated by her crying and started to move away, which for some reason I noticed.) Anyway, I'm just thinking that I need to take a deep breath and calm down when a police officer walks up. Normally they're not in the park but because of the event of course there were 3 of them. He was very nice, asks if she's ok, and then offers to call an ambulance. "Ambulance?!?!" This had not even occurred to me, I thought she was fine. But what are we going to say? We don't know. Maybe she does need an ambulance. A policeman would know, right? He thinks it's better to be safe, and calls and ambulance. We sit down and I nurse her and she starts to calm down (Oh how many times have I been deeply, deeply grateful for breastfeeding). Just in time for the fire truck to show up. Five guys run from the truck to see us and we all strip the poor baby down to make sure she's not hurt anywhere else. Then the ambulance shows and two paramedics run up. So for those of you who are counting, we have 3 police officers, 5 fire truck guys, and 2 paramedics, so little naked Clementine now has an audience of 12, counting us. She is happily pointing out birds ("Birr" pinch pinch). The paramedic asks me if I want him to take her in the ambulance to the hospital. "Hospital?!?!" Well after a bit he very deftly calms me down and diplomatic explains in a roundabout way that she looks fine, the bruise isn't even swelling, and he thinks all is well but he can't really say that because of liability and really we know her best but unless we think she's acting strangely we should just keep an eye on her. So we signed a piece of paper stating that we declined a ride and took her home and of course she's fine.

That afternoon we went to the all-ages show that's part of the San Francisco Bluegrass Festival. I translated this as "bluegrass show that your children are welcome to". Which was great because Clementine laughs every time she hears a banjo. But what it really meant was, "kids bluegrass show". Rats. Gayle Schmitt teased us with one Bob Wills song and then moved on to such classics as 'How Many Biscuits Can You Eat' and 'Ain't No Bugs on Me'. Ah well. Clementine was tranfixed, but she did not think it was funny. This concert was at the Randall Museum, which saves random animals and puts them in a strange petting zoo / aquarium room. They have a few owls and hawks, a robin, a duck, two bunnies, etc. etc. I thought this might be perfect to see some birds up close but then a raven "CAW"d and my poor baby literally yelled in fear and burst into tears. Every time she'd calm down that stupid raven would start cawing again. She never got used to it. Well, they are really loud up close. I guess we'll go back soon so she doesn't develop ravenophobia.

After a nap and dinner, she and I headed out to the Chinese New Year's parade. For one dumb reason or another, Ryan and I have never been. The one in Paris, yes, but never here. We found ourselves a spot before the official beginning of the parade, sort of the staging area, where there were fewer people and we could sort of walk around and see everything. Wow. What a beautfiul, amazing thing this parade was. Little elementary school kids as lion dancers and fan dancers! Drums and fireworks and horses and big floats and the most beautiful dragons. We got to see the "finale dragon" up close -- so meticulously detailed, painted and lit from inside. It was just amazing. And wonderful to see such things so close to home, just a few blocks away. This is why we live here!

And what an urban baby. Horses, sirens, drums, gongs, firecrackers, lions, dragons... No problem. Ravens? No freakin' way.

Real Food!

A friend of ours booked a restaurant for his birthday dinner. We were lucky on 3 counts:
1) The restaurant, The Public is literally half a block from our house.
2) The restaurant serves real, wonderful, fabulous, food.
3) They booked the place, and kids were welcome.

...so we dressed Clementine in her new little black velvet dress and pink coat and put sparkly pins in her hair and off we went! (I have photos, but true to my word, I'm not waiting to upload them before I post.)

It was just amazing to be in a real restaurant again. We knew very few people, but they were all incredibly nice and interested in Clementine, which of course is charming. Dinner was a bit late and we ended up not getting home until 11pm. Poor baby fell asleep in the restaurant! One of the guests, who is hoping for a little girl someday soon himself, was cuddling her while she was sleeping. He was talking to someone else, as was I, when I overheard him say to his friend, in all earnestness, "Isn't she beautiful." Absolutely heartbreaking.

The Dwindling Days of Movies...

Went to see "Ring of Fire" tonight at the Baby Brigade. They don't allow babies over a year (give or take, they're not carding) to come on Monday nights. There's family night on Sunday, but you're expected to go outside with your kid if they start fussing. Anyway, we're creeping up on that year mark and I'm starting to realize that soon we really won't be going to the movies much anymore, which is such a bummer because I love the movies. Anyway, I'm starting to see why there's the age limit... Clementine is getting less and less happy there. Used to be she'd nurse or sleep through the whole movie. Now she's crawling around (luckily they have couches) eating and looking at other babies and getting cranky about not being allowed to get on the floor. Thank goodness for the music in Ring of Fire, anyway, which transfixed her. We just had to manage the stretches between songs. Hopefully next week "Rent" is playing...

The trouble with blogging...

...is that I keep wanting to put up photos and video. But I can't find the camera, and the cord, and a computer all at the same time. And if I do the blasted "rechargeable" batteries have lost theirs (charge, that is) and I can't get the photos off the camera and onto the internet and then I don't want to blog because I have like 3 old entries in my head and it will take too long (see Beer Church, below).

Anyway, I have resolved to just blog and add photos if I can. I did finally get more photos up, all the way back to December, so see Flickr link, right.

Anyway, that little baby is just chatting away. She says and signs "kitty" all the time now, with great accuracy. She also signs "more" and "daddy" (though with her hand behind her head instead of in front of it). She says, but does not sign, "bear". She also says and signs "bird". (The sign is how we can tell the difference betweeen bear and bird.) She is very insistant about birds. We went grocery shopping on Saturday and stopped to look at the birds. The next morning she woke up, crawled to the window that our bed rests against, and said and signed "bird" over and over again. Ryan was shocked as he's never shown her bird and I had just started the day before. Anyway, birds are HUGE with this little baby. That makes 3 words (kitty, bear, bird and she's working hard on 'poop') and 5 signs (kitty, bird, milk, more, daddy) and not even 11 months, for those of you keeping score. It's absolutely adorable. I will get video up soon, I promise.