My family is here for the week and we are getting out and about. Wessy is (mostly) loving it. He is now totally, completely mobile and quite quick and wily. He is constantly busting out new words that I don't know that he knows and his memory and knowledge of things he has done before is excellent. In other words, he is getting tougher to trick.
On Christmas Eve, we went to the zoo. They were doing a little tour, so we signed up. We had two tour guides leading us around the zoo while my dad asked arcane questions and Wessy approached every enclosure and said "DOGGY!" At the end of the tour, we got to meet a mystery "special guest" animal, which turned out to be a ferret. Turns out ferrets are actually illegal as pets in California (they get loose and eat small mammals), but the zoo takes in a few refugees a year. Ferrets have very flexible bodies (almost like furry snakes) and can fit through any space that their head can fit through. Fun Fact: They used to be used by electricians to sneak wires through tight spaces. At the end, we all had an opportunity to pet the ferret, whose name was Ukulele. When given the chance to pet the ferret, Wessy looked at the ferret and scornfully said, "No, no." Okay, guess someone's not a ferret fan. He was, however, a fan of these laid-back meerkats:
Our little bear also enjoyed looking at the real and not-so-real Grizzlies:
Christmas Eve in the evening we went to church for a lovely candlelight service, after which we were obligated to take a bunch of pictures of the whole fam damily:
Christmas morning was great. Christmas falling as it did on a Sunday, it was a hustle to get to church and back and have time for opening presents afterwards before Wessy's nap time hit. We made it, just barely, and he had a blast even if he didn't exactly "get" the whole Christmas thing. The biggest hit was the scooter from Nana and Pops, which comes with a handle and a seat that can be taken off in succession as Wessy grows:
That evening we went for an amble around the city and ended up at the top of Twin Peaks, amongst the Eucalpyti of the Inner Green Belt and in the midst of many an expensively renovated Victorian:
The next day, we kept up the relentless pace of walking and went on a hike in the Marin Headlands. Wessy surprised us right of the bat by spotting a horse in the stables at the trailhead and announcing "BYE-YO," which is a pretty darn good approximation of the Spanish word for horse, caballo. He continued to be delighted by the sights and sounds of the hike, babbling happily to himself and making unintelligible observations about the surroundings to those around him.
Today we headed out for a tour of Billionaire's Row, or a tony part of Pacific Heights where a lot of the wealthy tech founders and CEO's live. We also passed Nancy Pelosi's and Diane Feinstein's homes.
We then went down Lover's Lane to the Presidio's Officer's Club where we ate at Arguello and did not forget to stop and smell the flowers while we were at it:
After that, we went to the museum at the Presidio Officer's Club. Certain individuals are not particularly quiet or respectful museum-goers, so we found a little classroom off to the side to run around and burn off steam while everyone else was actually looking at the exhibits.
From there it was onward to Alta Plaza Park, still one of the best playgrounds in the City. Wessy located and targeted another little toddler who had a CAH (toy excavator) and wheedled his way into playing with it. He was glowing with happiness for the few short moments he was able to play with it before we had to go.
Then we went onward to Japantown for noodles for dinner. This proved to be exhausting business.
The bus ride home was a little touch and go but was saved by watching truck videos on YouTube (mommy's desperate little trick to prevent Wessy from exercising the nuclear option).
All in all, it's been a full and happy holiday so far. My mom observed that Wessy is just at the point of really talking. He is saying so many words (new ones today include "stroller" and "pine cone") but as of now they are just fragments. He is right there on the verge of putting together little sentences and really being able to tell us what he wants and what he thinks.
He is more and more his own little boy and less my baby every day. It stings a little bit, but it's also the natural order of things and I wouldn't want it otherwise. He still smells like warm hay. His body looks like someone shrunk Stevo. Since he has been crawling he hasn't had that classic "baby" body with a big belly and big thighs. He is lean and has little muscles. He has two little chips in his teeth which just make him look impish and a perpetual cowlick. I just turned in his preschool application, where I described him as "busy" and said he would eat anything and loved following big kids around. All true. I love him so. Merry Christmas, little Buddy. You're our little world.
