Mika & Camila's Picture Diary

New Childrens Zoo at Oakland Zoo

Although it's not quite complete, the Oakland Zoo opened its Valley Childrens Zoo recently and of course, we had to visit on a really hot day in July. A good time was had by all, at least until Mika and Camila both needed naps.

I'm a turtle!

Definitely the biggest frog I've seen.

Where are all the lemurs?

Nothing is better than ice cream on a really hot day.

I will get up this slippery slide.

You can't catch me!

My doll wants to ride too.

Mika in the park

Mika has been having a pretty fun summer - going to the library, the park, and fun activities during the weekends. She's no stranger to mischief, specially when there is a lipstick around:

What can a summer be without ice cream?

There is a new park in Castro Valley with really cool play structures and a lot of water play:

Sometimes she looks mischievous

And sometimes she is

Camila gets around

Camila is now 6 months old. In the last few days she's been pretty cranky, complaining and even crying every few minutes. Might be teething, but we're not sure. She's a little bit better today, but it took me an hour to put her down for a ten minute nap - I suspect she'll be grumpy again soon.

Camila hasn't been very interested on eating baby food, but she's certainly into what everyone else is eating. She also grabbing *everything* that comes within her reaches. So the other day we went to an Afghani restaurant, and she had to try the bread.

She doesn't live on bread alone, spoons and cameras are desirable objects as well

Afterwards we went to the park, Camila is already old enough to go into the swings, for a little while at least:

She spends a lot of time on her office, eating of course:

She really would like to crawl, though she's still far from there. But she does make an effort and manages to move herself around.

At the MotoGP

Mika wasn't thrilled at first and kept asking to go home, but when we got to the motorcycle displays, it was hard to get her to leave. A week later, she was asking to go to the motorcycle races again.

This Honda CRF50F is just my size - and it matches my clothing.

This is comfortable too- and it still matches.

The Suzuki JR50 feels pretty good.

It's hard to drink and look at balloons at the same time.

This Yamaha PW50 seems to fit me the best.

I can see cars far away. It's going to be a while before we get out of here.

Hiking with Camila

Dad and Camila took a five-mile hike through a nearby park. When she wasn't sleeping, Camila had a great time. So did Dad - but his legs were sore for a week.

Zzzzzzz.....

I love being outside and seeing all the trees here.

Five and a half months old

Do you like this pose?

People nearby are much more interesting than a puppet show.

She poked me :-(

A Friend's Birthday Party

I see you!

Water fountains are great for great for drinking - and making mud.

This is so cool. Check out my hair!

I can't be bothered right now - I'm concentrating on frosting.

Mika at her computer

Michaela has her own computer and she mostly uses it to watch The Simpsons (her dad's doing). What attracts her so much to that show is beyond me. She doesn't usually like it when I take pictures of her, specially when I interrupt her, but she did "pose" for me for these shots:

Camila's first meal

Last tuesday (July 12th) I fed Camila solids for the first time. If truth be told, Mike had given her before a lick of ranch dressing and a lick of cake frosting which she seemed to like, and she's eaten quite a lot of paper, but this was her first solid meal. I started with mashed bananas (gerber's organics) which is what i first gave Mika as well (I think). As you can see Camila was less than thrilled. I tried again the next day with similar results - and she reacted just the same to mashed sweet potatoes today. She pushes the food out of her mouth so she's not getting any. I think I may actually try some cereal next - maybe she would actually like something tasteless.

And here is another picture of Camila in her "office" just for good measure

Some pictures of Camila on the crib

Who's looking at me?

Oh, it's my mommy!

I like lying next to the pillow

My brother David is always curious as to what color Camila's eyes are. Well, they are...

At the restaurant

Camila grabs for everything close to her, it's dangerous to have her close to a table or the desk. Mike has started feeding ice to Camila, he insists she always wants more, but I'm not sure she likes it.

Her eyes are turning brown, they're still a bit gray on the outside but clearly she'll have my eye color or thereabouts soon. She's moving all over the place now, not crawling yet (please no!) but by rolling and pushing herself she can get herself most places, it's getting hard to put her to sleep and she's starting to crawl on her sleep.

5 1/2 months

Camila is now 5 1/2 months. She's developing soo quickly. She turns around quite well, though can't always make it from her belly to her back. She is working hard on crawling and manages to push herself quite far. Today she pushed herself off the bed - fortunately she seems to have landed on my robe before rolling onto the floor as she only cried for 10 seconds. She had a couple of more bumps on her head later as she continued in her quest for mobility.

She is very interested in all objects, she grabs at everything she can and no desk or table is safe if she can reach it. She loves to play with paper and to eat it - it's kind of sad that her first solids have been paper. She's a drool monster, with copious ammounts of drool falling everywhere around her, but we haven't felt any teeth coming out yet. She loves attention and laughs - particularly at Michaela -. She's fascinated by the cats and pretty much by everything that moves. She smiles at herself in the mirror and at pictures of herself. In all, she seems very aware of her surroundings. She does get bored easily, however.

I love it when you take pictures of me!

Here I am again, looking gorgeous.

The lambskin is very soft

Ummmph, it's hard to crawl!