little fireman

The Little Puffer at the San Francisco Zoo has been unexpectedly "sick" for the past 10 days, and so this week, on our Mama n' Luke day, we went to the Oakland Zoo, where they have a variety of rides for the tiny tots, in addition to animals. Here's Luke riding, all by himself like a big boy, in a firetruck ride.

my boy is so french

Friday night, we had dinner at our local French bistro, Le P'tit Laurent. Laurent is a friend of ours, and although the restaurant isn't really a kid-place, Laurent is very kid-friendly. Luke loves the pretty waitresses, the yummy French bread, and the restaurant's most excellent feature: a big picture window looking right out onto a bus stop. What could be more perfect than French bread and a constant flow of busses? Dada ordered his favorite appetizer -- escargot -- and Luke surprised us both by declaring, "Try it!" This pic is his cute little face trying a mouthful, after which he said, "more!" My boy is so French.

PS - I'm still traumatized by the haircut.

coming to terms with the haircut

Luke seems to enjoy it (as he keeps rubbing his head saying, doux, which is "soft" in french). Jackie, Luke's nanny, declares it "guapo," which is handsome. Mama should get over it. Here's a pic from breakfast (age 23 months), plus a bonus pic of Luke at age 6 months in the same chair.

hair yesterday, gone today

I saw a super-cute toddler boy in the new LLBean catalogue who somewhat resembled Luke. I took the picture to the kids' hair salon, and Luke got his first "please make it look like this" haircut. Only, instead of a super-cute, short but still with some sassy attitude cut, Luke now looks like a Marine recruit. What was I thinking? I'm so traumatized, I won't post a photo until it grows out some.

Updated on 8.19: Dada says Luke does not look like a Marine recruit, just a regular Army recruit, since his hair is the same super-short length all over, and it does not have the Marine-style shaved sides. Nonetheless, I'm still traumatized.

back on the vicks

As things seem to go in the Vally household, I got Luke's cold. My lungs are congested, I have no energy, and I had to call Jackie for some extra help chasing the toddler, who clearly isn't as sick as I am. I am going back on the Vicks.

In other news, Le Chat, who is 70 in cat years, killed a mouse and brought it into the dining room at dinnertime last night. Ewwwww! I was secretly impressed by our old man Chat, and simultaneously grossed out that we had (and hopefully don't have anymore) a mouse in our house.