Turtles and Giraffes

Who knew that all those stories we heard from parents about babies and car rides would hold so very true. Kiyomi's definitely a big fan of the car, including her very comfy car seat (big thanks to Catherine and Lauren). She makes no fuss getting in and is as happy as a clam once she's in.

When's she's not sleeping that is.

Thus far, she hadn't lasted much more than about 10 minutes in the car without falling asleep. We'll be happy though once she crosses that 20 lb threshold though so that we can face her forward. It's not a big deal when there are two of us adults in the car as someone has to get in the back anyhow and can see what she's doing. However, when there's only one, it's a bit of a struggle to crawl into the backseat of our 2-door Civic to get her in the seat and then not be able to see what's going on with her while we're driving. Having her face forward should make things much easier.

Kiyomi's also had a few adventures in the animal world in the last couple of days. Yesterday our friends Jan and Alex took us out on a little trip to Little Ray's Reptile Zoo which is a very cool place that few non-parents have heard of. "Little Ray" himself started out with an educational program taking reptiles and birds around to schools and such to talk about animals to kids.
Well the program was so successful, and people kept asking him if he could take care of that alligator they bought for their kid but has just eaten the family dog, that he started his own little zoo. Now the place has all sorts of turtles, snakes, lizards, geckos, fish, crocodiles and birds of prey in a very cool and interactive environment. They had a petting show where you got to hold and pet tarantulas, lizards, skunks (descented) and alligators, and another where they fed the 450 lb crocs who jumped out of the water to grab the food, and a raptor show with a barn owl and a hawk flying inches above the heads of the audience! Kiyomi couldn't keep her eyes off the barn owl as it flew around and around.

The other animal adventure came via a rather large package we received in the mail from Tamara's Dad. Apparently Kiyomi's Grandad had to win a bidding war on eBay for this little prezzy. Kiyomi helped open the box, and to her surprise, out popped a giant giraffe! And when we say a giant giraffe, we mean a GIANT giraffe. It's about 10 times the size of Kiyomi! Surprisingly Kiyomi didn't seem intimidated by the size mismatch at all and took to it right away. The giant giraffe has since been joined by a giant lion which was also sent by Tamara's Dad. Kiyomi's doing her best to keep the lion from eating the giraffe...

This morning we walked up Bank street to Tamara's work and said hello to all her friends at work. Kiyomi as usual was very happy to meet people and did her best to draw smiles from her new friends. This afternoon Jan and Alex popped by for a walk out to the ice cream store and tonight we're off to Kiyomi's fourth ultimate game. Unfortunately she has yet to see us actually win a game, so hopefully tonight we'll show her that there's more to the sport than showing that we can be gracious losers!

We're hoping to make it out to the Dovercourt pool tomorrow for her first swim. Hmmmm...one-piece or bikini?