In some ways it's hard to believe we've only been here for two months. In other ways, it's hard to believe that it hasn't been longer. We've discovered more places around the house that are useful. We even made it out to breakfast one weekend morning.
You had a somewhat eventful month. You went to the La Brea Tar Pits twice, once with me and Aunt Tabetha, and once with Dad. You seemed to enjoy it very much. They had a couple of exhibits about saber tooth cats that you were particularly interested in. Each time, you spent the next couple of days talking about rescuing mammoths stuck in the tar.
You visited the school where you'll start preschool in September. You were a little shy at first, which is normal for you. You sometimes like a little time to asses the situation and get comfortable. But you got to see and touch the pet turtle, so that was cool. I hope that you enjoy being there. It will be different from Mayflower--there is only one class and everyone stays for lunch. They do have a nice outside space. I look forward to you getting more exercise.
Speaking of exercise, we started you in some martial arts lessons at the YMCA. It's not really martial arts--they're focusing on teaching you how to get away from someone trying to kidnap you. So I think we will either find a different martial arts class, or do gymnastics instead. We did see a class practicing kendo at a park one day, so now you're all about taking classes with swords, too.
We went to the beach one afternoon. We didn't have a very good idea of where to go, but we managed to find a nice spot that was close to a parking lot. You loved playing in the waves, much more than we had imagined you would. We hadn't even brought you swimsuit; it was only good luck that we had a change of clothes in the car for you.
We went to the library and got library cards. The central library isn't far from us, but we decided to go to a different location which was next to a park. You and I played on the playground while Grandma went to the library. That worked out well.
We went down to Long Beach one afternoon. We drove over the Gerald Desmond Bridge, which goes over the Port of Long Beach. It was impressive to look down and watch the giant cranes unloading the cargo ships. We saw locomotives waiting for their trains to be hooked up and we speculated that most of the trains we saw on our drive to CA probably came from Long Beach. We had lunch at a funny little food court. You and Miriam liked looking at all of the live lobsters and crabs. Then we went to the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, which you enjoyed very much. We learned what a radula is, and we got to hatch grunion in a little jar. Then we walked over and played on the beach for a little while, this time with your swimming suit on.
Your behavior has improved over the last month, too. The first couple of weeks were pretty tough--you threw a lot of tantrums and you seemed to enjoy finding every last one of my buttons to push. One night after a pretty big fight, Dad and I sat down and had a long talk about what we thought was going on. Since then, we've tried some different strategies to keep us all on the same page, and I think they've been working. One of the strategies is letting you give up your afternoon nap. It's meant no fights in the afternoons, and it's made bedtime much smoother, too.
Another part of the problem was that I was treating you as if you were older, because you've gotten so much more capable. My favorite example of your new abilities is the morning that you came into our room, already dressed. You were so proud of yourself, and we were proud of you, too. Then we noticed that you had put on everything either backwards, inside-out, or both. But we didn't want to criticize, so over the course of the morning we would pretend to suddenly notice your shirt or your pants. When we told Grandma over breakfast that you had gotten yourself dressed, you said, "I put on these pants with the stripe so that I would look spiffy!" Grandma nearly laughed herself off her chair. And it's moments like that which make it hard to remember that you're still so very, very young.
I hope that you will be honest with yourself, throughout your life but especially as a young adult, about your own level of maturity. I know how it was to feel like I was a grown up and prepared for life, and I know how that simply wasn't true. It is not only a matter of being graceful about your own ignorance--ignorance is not a character flaw, it's a fact of everyone's life. It's a matter of recognizing where you are in your life, and balancing your knowledge with your experience. You will never know everything. That's okay. Know yourself.
Love,
Mom
You spent an afternoon as a bunny:
At the Tar Pits with Mom and Aunt Tabetha:
At the beach:
Martial arts class:
At the Tar Pits with Dad:
Hatching grunion:
Dressed up as a sea turtle:
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