Bubbles!

Tessie's latest favorite pastime is blowing bubbles. Fortunately, we found a spill-proof soap solution container that she can use on her own without creating a mess. Now, she asks for "bubbles" all day long, but she is well able to entertain herself quietly with them, and she's really cute doing it.

Citius, Altius, Fortius, Chaoticus

Tessie's day care held a fund raising event on Friday and modeled it after the Olympics. Tessie and her cohort (the "Pooh Bears") "competed" in a total of three events, and the whole thing took about twenty minutes, which is a significant improvement over the usual two weeks the real Olympics consumes. While there was no specific "cat herding" event, the staff certainly had Olympic potential; the children were as entropic as one might imagine.

The events seemed to me to be more in the spirit of training the little ones for the working world than for athletic competition. The first event, a crawl through a series of tunnels, teaches the kids that the seeing the light at the end of the tunnel only means they haven't entered the next tunnel yet, the obstacle course is set up to make them jump through arbitrary hoops without explaining why, and the scooter race just gets them ready for the madness of commuting.

Or maybe that's just my cynical interpretation. Judge for yourselves:

Tessie at Bedtime

Tessie was even more delightful than usual at bedtime tonight. She seemed to really enjoy playing peek-a-boo with Mommy.

Time Capsule

Over fifty years ago, the Barstow family of Wetherfield, Connecticut, won a trip to Disneyland in a contest sponsored by, of all things, Scotch tape. Proto-blogger Robbins Barstow shot some Super-8 footage, then added narration about 40 years later, and as all such things do, it ended up on the internet. This movie runs over 34 minutes, but every bit of it captures a quaint vision of Eisenhower-era America, including, of course The Magic Kingdom, but also Idyllwild Airport, Knott's Berry Farm, Universal Studios and even Davy Crockett-style fringed jackets and coonskin caps. The Barstow family even stayed in Pasadena, at the Huntington Sheraton Hotel, which later became the Ritz-Carleton and is now the Langham Huntington Resort.

Follow this link to get to the website hosting the video.

It is my hope that, fifty or more years from now, future readers of this site and its content (and yes, I do expect it will be archived by someone, somewhere) will find it just a little bit as charming and entertaining as Mr. Barstow's film. Enjoy!

(h/t Curbed LA)

That's my girl!

Yesterday, when I came home from work, and after I collected my kiss from Tessie, she toddled over to the TV and asked, "Sox?"

I had to explain that the game was already over, but that the Red Sox did beat the Tigers that afternoon, 5-0. Then we contented ourselves by settling in to watch the Dodgers lose to the Diamondbacks.

Legoland, part 2

Here are a few more pictures from our visit to Legoland California, showcasing some of the amazing constructions on display at the park. (Or scroll all the way to the bottom for more Tessie video.)

This elephant is life-size:
but the Las Vegas strip isn't:
Neither is Mount Rushmore. There are lots of humorous details in the dioramas; here, George is getting his ear cleaned with a giant Q-tip:
There's an eclectic mix of landmarks recreated around the park's central lagoon, and there's a short cruise that take visitors past them. The Taj Majal is pretty impressive: as is the Sydney Opera House:The video also shows a large recreation of Washington, D.C., but mostly it shows that Tessie had lots of fun:

Legoland California

We're not big theme park goers, and we're not terribly keen on introducing Tessie to branded merchandise, but we're willing to make exceptions on both counts for Lego. Tessie is quite happy when playing with her Lego blocks at home, so when the opportunity arose for us to visit Legoland California in Carlsbad (near San Diego) with some friends visiting from Indiana, we took it.

The original Legoland is in Billund, Denmark, and we visited it back in 1999, long before Tessie's arrival. We are big fans of the toy, and are grateful that Tessie seems to enjoy it as well. The Legoland theme parks (with locations in Billund; Carlsbad; Windsor, England and Günzberg, Germany) combine theme park-type rides and large-scale displays with hands-on play areas teeming with millions (billions?) of the colored plastic blocks. Oh yeah, and gift shops selling you-know-what. (Yes, we bought some, and no, there's no "factory direct" pricing.)

More Lego than Tessie has ever seen:

Too much of a good thing? Nope, she's just waiting for her second wind:

The cynic in me says these are just product test centers and marketing opportunities disguised as playrooms, but the kids have so much fun that it doesn't bother me. Had we let her, Tessie would have spent the whole day just snapping blocks together and stacking them on top of each other, but we forced her out into the sunshine and onto a few rides.
The display areas, primarily the "Miniland" portion of the park, present painstakingly crafted replicas of not only a variety of famous monuments but also of cities and even of people. Elvis, Einstein and Arnold "The Governator" Schwarzenegger, among others, have all been immortalized in Lego. Admittedly, the cities are not represented in their entireties, but they are still recognizable from the details. I'll have some pictures in the next post.

The rides are fairly standard theme park fare, and they run the gamut from tame to extreme. Our friends opted to try one in which they were held at the end of a long robotic arm and spun and lurched wildly around three axes, but we were content to accompany Tessie on the kiddie rides. There was a "Safari Trek" jeep ride past Lego African Animals and a boat ride through the Miniland Lagoon, among others, and there were lots and lots of hands-on interactive toys to play with throughout the park. There were a few rides for which she was not yet tall enough; that's probably the last time she'll be told she's too short.
There are also outdoor play areas. There's one where slides and climbing areas compete with bins of Lego for children's attention, and there's a water-based play area with water guns and splashing fountains that must be a great relief on a hotter day; fortunately for us the weather was pleasantly cool.Tessie had a great time and we look forward to taking her back there (or maybe to Legoland Germany!), but not until she's a little bigger. She should grow another couple of inches first, and once she turns three she can take a course at the Volvo Driving School.

Escape!

Tessie's Mom and I were awakened this morning by the sound of Tessie running through our room. This came as a surprise, since I had placed her in her crib last night, and set the gate in its closed position. This morning, the gate was still up while she was on the loose, meaning Tessie must have climbed up and over it, and the fact that we were awakened by happy giggling and not cries of pain meant she had somehow managed a safe landing.

She had also managed to remove the sleeper she had been wearing, but did don a pair of socks. So there she was, in diaper and socks, giggling happily, and we have to assume that it was with similar glee that she "rearranged" all the recyclables stashed in the kitchen.

So. Security procedures will need to be implemented; we just don't know what they will be.

At the very least, though, it's good to know that she's less a Captain Virgil Hilts, the "Cooler King" in The Great Escape, idly passing time in solitary confinement by bouncing a ball against the walls of the cell, and more a Colonel Hogan, craftily devising ways to undermine her "captors."

Vocabulary Explosion

Since I posted "The Lexicon of Tessie," her vocabulary has expanded greatly. It seems that the developmental stage known as the "vocabulary explosion" has occurred, and there is no way we could hope to chronicle all of her new words.

There are, however, a few notable ones that should be mentioned. We encourage, and she uses, both "please" (pronounced peez) and "thank you" (pronounced do-du). Tessie refers to herself in the third person, but she is starting to string together rudimentary sentences, and she can ask for specific items. Her arrival home from day care is usually marked with requests for either "milk" or "bubbles," sometimes both simultaneously. ("Bubbles" refers to soap bubbles we make in the courtyard.) She also knows her colors fairly well and can identify them when asked, usually while she's playing with colorful toys like her Legos or crayons. Many animals are identified by the sounds they make: sheep are "baa", cows are "moo," cats are "meow," and horses are "neigh." Dogs, however, are "doggies," probably because of the lack of consistency in children's literature regarding their vocalizations: do they say "bark," "woof," "arf," or what?

Tooth status update

There may also be molars, but it's hard to tell.