Riot Act (Portugal Bus Story)

Several people have asked about the "riot" that was eluded to in Sierra's Xmas letter, so I'm including the story here for those interested.

Jonathan had a conference in Lisbon in the summer, so we all went together, along with Karen and Bradley, our good friends from here. When we arrived in the airport, Karen and Bradley offered to take our luggage with them in a taxi, and we opted to go the public transit route since we didn't have a carseat for Sierra.

When we got on the bus, there was clearly a disruption going on, and it took us a bit to figure it out since we don't speak Portuguese. Our Spanish helped us a bit, plus people's body language. The bus was really full, and apparently (before we got on) a slightly older white man had gotten on and seemed to assume that a younger black woman would stand up so that he could sit down. The woman's boyfriend was taking it out with him for being racist. They were yelling and pushing and shoving each other.... mind you, there was no where to shove because the bus was literally wall to wall people. The other people on the bus were taking sides, and a group of about 15 or 20 people were shouting and jostling.

When we got on, a black man on the other side of the bus saw me with the baby and promptly hopped up and offered me his seat. This was very nice except that suddenly we were in the middle of things.... part of the "issue". The man kept saying something along the lines of, "Of course I'd let a woman with a baby have my seat, that's different," etc., etc. Of course, it was after we had already sat down that we sort of figured out the context and everything that was going on.

I don't think we were in real danger, but it definitely was a bit scary to have a full-on fight going on inside the crowded bus we were on. We decided that there are different kinds of risk and safety, so when we returned to the airport after the conference, we got a cab and held Sierra on our lap.

Rock-a-bye board book

For Sierra's birthday she got a small cradle that eventually she'll be able to use for dolls, stuffed animals etc. (Thank you, Pat!!) As of yet, she hasn't shown much interest in those sorts of toys, but her favorite thing on the planet is her board books. Yesterday I peeked into the living room where she was playing while I was working in the kitchen. She had put some of her books into the cradle and was rocking them, then taking them in and out and "reading" them (she always has this drony sort of hum that she makes when she is looking at her books). The next time I looked in, a few minutes later, she was doing the same thing, only she had dragged the cradle clear across the room!

You've got mail!

Today Sierra decided to send an email. She replied to a message in my Inbox (to Bryan Riffel), and typed the following:

2440

.http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~aldrich/sierra/ooooooooooooolllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Yes, that's her website address in there, so I guess she wanted to make sure Bryan was keeping up to date on her pictures..... oollllll of them.

Whole Lotta Hula Going On (Sierra's First B'day)

Sierra's First Birthday was a blast! We were in Hawaii with Grandma and Grandpa Billock and all of the aunts and uncles on the Billock side, plus cousin Hudson's Nana and Papa and uncle Mike. After a really nice long nap at the beach house, we went down and played in the water with the kids (Hudson was very anxious to ask if it was ok if he didn't wear his shoes at Sierra's beach party--she seemed to think that would be ok). After the fun swim we went back to the beach house and had a big feast of Mexican fare with lots of cilantro and limes and those amazing monstrous Hawaiian avocados (Yumm!). We also made up tropical fruit smoothies that were fabulous.

After dinner we busted out the grass skirts for Sierra and Hudson. Sierra's was complete with a wee coconut bra, a lei, and a shell necklace. Both of the kids were adorable! For her cake we had strawberry shortcake and ice cream.... Sierra's first "official" dessert. She loved her cake and also guzzled down an amazing quantity of fruit smoothie. (The next day her favorite food was still peas and garbanzos, so I guess it didn't ruin her healthful eating habits too much!)

She was really tired by the time the whole cake scenario was over, so we decided that it might be a bit of an overload to have her open gifts that day. The day following her birthday we had planned an all-day trip to see the volcano, so she ended up getting her gifts two days later, on the 9th. Her favorite gift was a book in the shape of a snorkel and mask from Uncle Paul and Aunt Sheena. When we were getting ready to leave a few days later I wanted to find that book to put in the diaper bag for on the plane and I couldn't find it anywhere around where her books and toys were. It turns out that Sierra had it with her in the other room.... guess she wanted to keep an eye on it!

Water Wary

We just returned from a trip to Nana Aldrich's for Xmas and then to Hawaii. For some reason on this trip Sierra became very afraid of the water. She was really scared to get her baths at Nana's house and we were worried about how she would do at the beach when we got to Kona. She was pretty scared at first, but she loved to play in the sand, so we put her playing near a tide pool about a foot away from the water and she was happy as a lark. After awhile she made her way closer and closer to the water and finally decided it would be ok to go in. Since it was a slope down to the water (a VERY tiny one), she turned around and backed into the water "toes first" as she does for going down the stairs. It was very cute!

By the end of our week in Hawaii, she was totally comfortable in the water and even didn't get scared when the waves would come in. She must miss it now that we're back home because today I found her in the bathroom swishing her toy around in the toilet.