Clara's Dear Woodland Park Zoo

Thanksgiving weekend was an especially nice one here in Seattle. Though the air was crisp, the sun was shining--an all-too rare occurence here in late November. We seized the opportunity to take Clara on her first trip to the zoo. We saw a number of animals from "Dear Zoo" and "Good Night, Gorilla"--two of her favorite bed time books. We saw the aforementioned gorillas, lions, giraffes, lizards, snakes, toucans, monkeys, hippos, penguins, snakes, and all manner of tropical bird. She's been "talking" very enthusiastically whenever we see pictures of the animals we saw at the zoo. We may have a budding zoologist on our hands.

Birthdays and Holidays

We have entered our busy birthday and holiday season. We celebrated Greg's birthday last weekend by hosting a brunch at our house on Saturday. Sunday was Greg's actual birthday, which is when he spends all afternoon grading papers. We did get to take a walk around Seward Park in the morning, and I made his requested birthday meal: Martha Stewart's buttermilk chicken and mashed potatoes, spinach sauteed in garlic, and a roasted butternut squash. Everything came out perfectly, if I do say so myself.

Tomorrow we will gather at Kurt and Amy's for Thanksgiving. If the weather holds we may take Clara to the zoo the day after to walk off our meals. And on Sunday, we will be wishing Clara's Grandma Armitage a happy birthday. Then it's one month to go to Christmas, when we will aim to slow down and catch our breath.

More Words

Clara is talking up a storm these days. Some of her new words include "choo" (as in choo-choo train), "cack" (as in duck and chicken sounds), "two" (we're learning to count to three, and "two" is easiest to say), "ee-ee" (as in the car goes beep-beep)and "ice cream" (I have no idea where she got that). Clearly, our Clara has a lot of important things on her mind.

Lawn, Baby, Lawn!

As many of you know, we embarked on an ambitious project to rip out the "jungle" in our backyard and install a lawn. Many people lent assistance in this project. Greg and Doug ripped out all the plants. My Dad and Gerald from Overlake School helped jackhammer out the concrete. Kathy took Clara out for lots of walks while the rest of us rototilled and removed giant roots and weeds. Even my mom helped load up the concrete into the truck to take it to the dump. And Sarah came with us to City People's Garden Shop, good-naturedly following Clara around the store while Greg and I picked out the grass seed. It was truly a group effort. Greg and I finally put down grass seed at the end of September, and I made sure to keep the seed wet for the last 6 weeks. It was a huge undertaking, requiring us to become naysayers to many social invitations we would have otherwise accepted and gain a little muscle in the making.

Well, now we are enjoying the "grass" of our efforts. We are looking forward to the spring when we can let Clara run wild in the backyard without fear of her being swallowed up by the "jungle". Big thank yous to everyone who helped create this beautiful outdoor space that we will enjoy for years to come!

We also want to send out a belated Happy Birthday and a special Get Well Soon wishes to Clara's Grandpa Armitage who is recovering from shoulder surgery (not brought about by hauling out concrete, thank goodness!) We also want to wish Russell (aka Uncle Fun) a happy birthday on Nov. 5. So many reasons to celebrate this fall!

Halloween and a Black (-Striped) Cat

Halloween was a spooky treat this year! Clara and I went with a group from our babysitting co-op trick-or-treating at the shops in Columbia City. Clara didn't understand the candy part of it, but she was very interested in everyone's costume. Clara went as a Manchester United soccer player (or footballer, to all our non-North American friends out there). It was fairly cold out, so as you can see, she was wearing her fuzzy "warm ups" over her uniform.

Just in time for Halloween, we adopted a black-striped brown and gray tabby whom we've named Hugo. He was surrendered by his family a few months ago when their landlord discovered that he and his sister were living in a no-pets-allowed apartment. His sister was adopted by another family, but he remained at the shelter with his date to be euthanized fast-approaching. Tina, an awesome volunteer at the shelter, recognized that there were several young, adoptable kitties who were scheduled to be euthanized, and arranged for them to go to a no-kill shelter: Animal Talk Rescue. On the day Clara and I visited, one of these kitties was going home with her new family. We met Hugo (called Jax at Animal Talk), and I knew immediately we had found our new cat. The only problem was Greg was in Boston at the time, and I didn't feel it was right to adopt him without Greg at least meeting him first. The shelter staff put a 24-hour hold on him, Greg flew back the next day, and by that afternoon, we were bringing Hugo home.

Hugo gets along amazingly well with Clara. So far she has picked him up by the tail, leg, and back scruff, with Hugo issuing just the tiniest meow of protest. I've been re-teaching her how to be gentle, which she does demonstrate on occasion. She also loves to give the full-body hug, which Hugo doesn't seem to mind. As he's probably just a young teenager himself, he seems at least tolerant of Clara's rough play. Unfortunately, Hugo contracted a nasty cold during his long stay at 2 shelters, so he is very, very tired, and has been sneezing quite a bit of blood. So, now I'm trying to teach Clara not to disturb Hugo while he's napping, but she finds him very hard to resist. I think once he gets well, Clara and Hugo are going to be great play-mates. Welcome home, Hugo!