Kitties and Rabbits

We are home and slowly getting back to normal. Cora has been waking up at 5 the last three days, so beyond the jet lag fatigue it's tiring being up so early each day. I think today, Wednesday, I will try to get a nap in.
Our flight home went fairly well. Cora wasn't as good as she was on the way over, but she was better than she was for our flights at Christmas.
Cora is very happy to see her best friend Somer again, and Somer seems to like having Cora back home, too. This morning I found Cora invading Somer's space again. This was the first time I've seen Cora in Somer's bed, though in England she did get in the dog's bed at Uncle Pete and Aunt Doreen's house.
Somer resigned herself to bed-sharing, though she refused to show interest in the Virgin Atlantic wet wipes that Cora found so fascinating.
A couple of shots from Saturday, when we had a barbecue at Dean and Jenny's house (Dean is Stace's brother). The weather was great, maybe even breaking the 60s, and sunny.
Cora enjoyed petting the rabbit, though she then grabbed its ear and yanked. No wonder the rabbit kept hopping away from Cora (see video).

Cast free!

Cora is back to toddling around (with help) and pulling herself up to standing. She had her cast removed Friday morning, and a specialist felt around her ankle and gave her a clean bill of health. She began bearing weight on it in the doctor's office, and he said she looks good to go. We have a copy of the doctor's notes and her x-rays to show her pediatrician in Santa Clarita on her next visit.
On Friday afternoon, we went to the Willow and Wetlands museum, which gives a great overview of the environment and ecology of the Somerset Levels and the willow trade. The levels are low-lying areas subject to flooding, which have only become suitable for farming and commercial/residential building since channels and pumping stations were built in the last couple of hundred years. The photo of Sue and Gord with Cora is from a walk we took out on the levels a couple of nights ago. Decades ago, 9,000 acres of the levels were used for growing willows, or withies, which were harvested and processed for making baskets and furniture. Gord spent a number of years working in this cottage industry when he was younger. The museum was really interesting, and we enjoyed hearing Gord tell us about the work.
On Friday night, Cora stayed with Sue and Gord and Stace and I went out to a very nice Italian meal in Yeovil with Dean and Jenny. This afternoon, we'll go to their home for a barbecue for Gord's birthday today. We're also getting ready for our trip to Heathrow on Sunday, when we fly back to Santa Clarita.
The last photo is from our visit the other evening with Jane and Matthew Gould. Cora had fun crawling around their home, and impressed us by saying "Thank you" when Jane handed her a remote control. On the speaking front, Gord has taught Cora to say "Ta" when he hands her something; that's English shorthand for "thank you."She's also started saying "What's that?" when pointing to things. Lastly, Sue has taught her to raise her glass when we all say "Cheers!"

What we've been up to...

Here are a few shots from recent days...
We met Charlie, the beautiful new daughter of our friends Dunc and Lindsey. Not surprisingly, Cora was more interested in playing with Chelsea, their older daughter, who is nearly exactly one year older than Cora.
On Sunday, we had a nice family meal at the Crown and Victoria pub, where Cora gave a "Cheers!" to Nanny by lifting her cup.
Later on Sunday, we went for a long walk up Ham Hill with Nan, Pop, Dean and Jenny.
The last photo shows Gord reading to Cora and Ben, the son of Stace's cousin Karen and her husband Martin. Next to Gord is Auntie Doreen, Gord's sister. We visited with them on Saturday night.

On Tuesday, we had our best-weather day of our trip, and so we went to the park so Cora could play. Nan, Nanny and JT went along and we all had a great time. I didn't have our camera with us, as Stace had taken it to capture his golf game with Andy.

London

On Thursday we took a train ride into London to spend the day. Stace and I hadn't spent any time in the city in four years, and Sue is always up for a trip to London. We took an 8:20 train and got in just before 11. After having a picnic lunch in Hyde Park, we did a bit of shopping in Harrods, where the old actor Tony Curtis was having a press event to publicize his new art exhibit in the giant department store. We then took the Tube to Covent Garden, before heading to the revitalized Docklands area in the East End of the city. There, we saw an awesome new museum about the Docklands and London in general. We'd like to go back and see it again, as we got in just an hour before closing and had to rush. The upside was, they didn't charge us for entering since we came in so late. We then took the Tube back, stopping for a quick walk around the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge, before going back to Waterloo to catch the 7:20 train back to Yeovil. A great day out, all went well and it didn't rain (though the wind was freezing).

Cora update

Our appointment went well today. The specialist said that it's a very small break, and Cora will heal quickly because of her age. He asked us to come back in two weeks, so we mentioned our travel plans. He then said for us to come in next Friday (two weeks after the injury) to have the cast removed. They'll take an x-ray again, but it sounds like she should be OK then to leave the cast off. Thank the Lord! Maybe she'll be taking those first steps before her Aunt Melanie walked, after all. (Mel was 17 months before she walked unassisted.)

Uh Oh!!

In her first 14 months of life, we have been so blessed to have a very healthy little girl. She has had just one cold! That luck ran out this past weekend, however. In one hard step down, as she was practicing coming down the stairs, Cora suffered a hairline fracture to her ankle. We took her in to the hospital in Yeovil on Monday since she still wasn't bearing any weight on the leg. The doctor was able to manipulate her ankle just fine, with Cora apparently in no pain, but the x-ray showed the tiny break. We will go back in for a recheck on Wednesday morning, when we hope to find out how long Cora might be wearing her new leg-warmer; the nurse estimated three to four weeks on Monday.
As you can see, the cast goes up her leg quite a way, so that it didn't slip down and cover her toes. And, as you can see, it's not affecting her mobility too much. She's back to crawling full-time, but she is standing more again, now that the weight is falling onto the cast instead of her ankle.
Today, Stace and I spent the morning in Glastonbury, a beautiful ancient town. We walked up to the top of Glastonbury Tor (hill), which you can see behind Cora here.
Here Cora is helping Stace smell a flower. She was loving picking the flowers, and she also got to see cows, sheep and ponies very nearby in the fields.
En guard! I love this photo. Click it to make it (or any other photo) appear bigger.

We're back in England!

This time, Cora's behavior on the plane was a big answer to my prayers. She was an angel! We took the earlier flight, which left about 6 p.m. instead of 9 p.m., and there was enough room on the flight that she was able to have a spare seat in between us. She read her books and the in-flight magazines, she played with the blankets and pillows, she enjoyed her dinner, and she even slept for about 3 1/2 hours. Amazing! What an incredible difference from our flights at Christmas time.
Before boarding the plane, Cora had a lot of fun crawling all over the place and practicing her walking.
You might have noticed that we didn't mention this trip on the blog while we were getting ready to fly. That's because my dear friend JT didn't know we were coming. I kept it from her to surprise her for her 30th birthday Saturday. I think she enjoyed her surprise; I know I enjoyed the yummy Indian food she cooked up for her birthday meal. We've been friends for 10 years now, hard to believe.
Cora liked playing on the stairs, a new treat for her. But while I held her hands, she hurt her leg as she was stepping down on Friday afternoon. We've debated taking her to the doctors, but it seems like she is OK. She won't put weight on that leg, but she seems happy enough otherwise and is crawling all over the place. No swelling or redness; she just won't stand up on it. I've been giving her infant pain reliever to ease any pain she might be in. She's teething anyway, so the medicine will certainly help with that.
Here she is last night, about a half hour after I put her down for the night. She had been sitting up, playing, and then obviously just fell asleep leaning forward into the blanket. On Saturday night, our third night here, she slept from 11:30 to about 6:30 - thank the Lord! Hopefully we're on track now for a nice, normal two weeks of sleep.

More practicing

Cora is really enjoying practicing her walking these days...

Mom, why?

No captions needed, really.
A few tidbits: Cora is getting two new teeth, one on the top and one on the bottom, to the left of her current teeth as you face her. Her favorite word right now is "uh oh," which she says many times per day. She likes to practice walking, but still likes to have you hold both of her hands. When I try to let go of one hand, she uses her free hand to point to my hand and asks me to hold her hand.
She loves playing with her car seat straps, and tries to hook them together.
We had a successful meal at a full-service restaurant on Sunday, a reward for a busy weekend of cleaning. We brought yogurt and cheerios for Cora to eat while we waited for our food, which she also shared with us. Even though she was tired, she did very well, and only needed to be walked around at the very end, when we were waiting for the bill.

Flower fun

More Cora 'n Somer silliness.

One more, see below

Fare well to William!

Cora's first best mate, William, moved up to Northern California last week, so I thought I'd share some sweet photos of them over the past month. We will miss William, Christy and Mitch!

The dynamic duo shared the cart at Costco when we went at the end of February. Christy and I met in our Gymboree class last summer, when Cora was four months and William was two months.

They shared toys at William's house, and William helped show Cora how to get around. William is much more physical than Cora, and started walking at 10 months old. Christy tells us he is loving walking around his new back yard, pretending to water the plants.
Generally, when Cora and I would visit Christy and William, Cora would have a FANTASTIC time for about an hour, and then wear herself out and become cranky. Cora is much more melodramatic than the even-keel William.
On Easter weekend, we had grand plans to take a family bike ride with William and his parents. We got the babies all settled and started off, but William wasn't happy in the trailer. He didn't get happier as we rode, so we went back home and decided to walk to brunch instead. We walked to the Egg Plantation and had a great breakfast.

The walk and breakfast did the babies in!

Outdoor fun

On Friday, with Stacey blessed with the day off, we took a nice family bike ride with Cora riding in her trailer. After stopping at the park, where Cora played in the sand and practiced her walking (see video below), we continued on to Panera Bakery for lunch,where Cora hammed it up with her daddy's hat and her mama's sunglasses.
I wrapped up some of our leftovers, and we got back on the road. When we checked on Cora a mile or so down the road, we found that she wasn't quite finished with her lunch. She had dug through my bag and taken out the cream cheese to snack on. She was reading her doggy book at the same time - or was she using her doggy book to hide what she was doing? Hmmmm.
Sadly, Cora got an upset stomach on the way to lunch and shortly before we got home, and was in quite a mess. She looked pretty miserable too. She recovered quickly, thankfully, and was in fine spirits once we got her upstairs and cleaned up. That was the first time she's ever thrown up.

The week is going well. On Wednesday, we picked Stace up from work and went to Vasquez Rocks, where we had a nice pre-dinner hike.

Easter Sunday

Cora enjoyed her second Easter Sunday. We went to Real Life Church in the morning, where Cora played with some animals in the special petting zoo. She was very gentle to the bunnies, though she did try to crawl over one to get to another one. She wasn't very interested in trying to pet the goats, ducks or chickens, however. She tried to feed the bunnies carrots, but they must have been stuffed by previous carrot-feeders all morning long.
In the afternoon, after a nap, we spoke to Nan, Pop, Dean and Jenny on the Web cam. Cora entertained us by sorting out her diaper covers, similar to the sorting she did in the blog post below this one. In the evening, we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house, where we had a nice steak dinner to celebrate both the Resurrection and my dad's birthday last week. Stace and my dad watched the Chelsea game, while Cora had her first splash-time in the spa with her auntie, while my mom and I finished making dinner. Cora entertained us during dinner by dancing. For dessert, we had chocolate-dipped strawberries and pineapple-upside-down cake I made earlier in the day. The pineapple cake was a specialty of my grandma's.
The last photo here is from the Stroller Strides Easter Egg hunt on Good Friday. Since Stace was off on Good Friday, Cora and I didn't go to Stroller Strides, but instead we rode our bikes to the meeting location to catch the tail end of the egg hunt. Cora is enjoying the little graham crackers that were inside the egg.
Don't forget, you can make any photo bigger by clicking it.
More on our weekend events, coming soon!

More Somer 'n Cora

Somer seems to like Cora more and more, and Cora is getting better about petting her gently, as we keep reminding her. This morning, I let Cora play with diapers fresh out of the dryer and Somer emerged from our bedroom and lay down right next to Cora. The cat could have chosen to hang out next to me, or jumped onto the chair or the spare bed. But no, she lay next to Cora and tolerated her petting. In the video clip, Cora was done petting Somer, but you can see her sorting out her diapers.
Cora is enjoying practicing walking these days, along with pushing her ride-on toys around the room. She doesn't push them while walking, however, but up on her knees. It's pretty funny to watch, and Cora is very proud of herself. She gets the biggest smile on her face while "motoring" around the room.
This afternoon, she occupied herself for quite awhile with her animal puzzle pieces. She played with them while knelt in front of her little chair in her room, and was having a great time. When it was time to get ready to go, and I picked her up, she threw a fit! She was not ready to stop her little game.

Zoo trip

We had a great family day Sunday at the Santa Barbara Zoo, with perfect weather. Cora was in a great mood and really enjoyed pointing out all the animals. She especially liked the birds, from the colorful tropical birds to the crows on the paths. This was our first time at a zoo since our trip in April to the Los Angeles Zoo with the Partridges.
The zoo's setting is gorgeous, with views of the mountains and the ocean and sand. My grandparents used to live very nearby, and I remember waking up to the sound of lions roaring.

Cora this weekend has started saying a new word, and it's one that melts our hearts: when we give her a bit of food, she has started saying "Thank you." This morning at Stroller Strides, I gave her some cheerios and another mom heard her say it and commented on it.
She also says "nana" for food, especially bananas, of course, and she seems to say "mummum" for me. Her favorite word right now is "sadu," which she says often, though we don't quite know what she means.