Cromwell and Beatrice

Happy (belated) Birthday, Beatrice!

Apartment Therapy wished Beatrice a happy belated birthday.

Party Inspiration

I'm happy to see I inspired another baby's birthday party! (B's party is mentioned in the caption below.)

Summer Sunday

Today followed our typical routine for a Sunday in the summer. First we got up and took the dogs for a walk before it got too hot (temperatures here have been in the 105-108F range this week). Then we took Beatrice to the farmer's market in Montrose (a neighborhood about five miles northeast of our house).

The farmer's market basically combines all of Beatrice's favorite things in one place: live music, a petting zoo, free fruit samples, and plenty of dogs. But today things got even more exciting when she went on her first ever pony ride. Needless to say, she LOVED it. Like, really, really loved it.

The rides are designated for children one year and older and Beatrice is now 13.5 months, but the pony-keeper (is that what they're called?) was still amused by how tiny Beatrice looked on the pony, as well as by how brave and strong and fierce she was.

Then she listened to some live Dixieland jazz and gorged herself on free fruit samples.

After the farmer's market we take Beatrice to her swimming lessons at the Pasadena Rose Bowl Aquatic Center.

Beatrice loves the swimming teacher, who also seems particularly fond of Beatrice.

Usually after swimming Dev and I look at houses for sale in our part of town, but today it was just too hot so instead we drove to Santa Monica while Beatrice slept in the car, had lunch with Veronika, and then bought Beatrice a new, bigger bathing suit at Baby GAP on the Santa Monica Promenade (where it was about 20 degrees cooler than Glendale).

Lots more adorable baby swimming and pony pictures are available on Facebook.

Summer To-Do List

What is Summer up to these days, you're almost surely thinking? Answer: A lot!

This has been a very busy, very productive summer so far. Here are a few things I've been doing:

1. Writing up a lesson plan for a workshop on parody-writing that I'm teaching this fall.

2. Finding a home for my new short play

3. Editing the novel

4. Relaunching The Foghorn with an all-new site design and a big launch party

5. Helping to produce future Literary Death Match events in Los Angeles

6. Producing a new regular reading series in L.A. at the Echo Park Film Center

7. Finishing my screenplay

8. Expanding and improving Swink, where I'm the Fiction Editor

9. Writing a weekly column for PANK

10. Finishing two new short stories to add to a chapbook manuscript

11. Mentoring several young writers and fellow U. of C. grads

12. Volunteering at 826 L.A.

Plus a few more secret in-the-works things that I don't want to jinx yet...

Happy birthday Miller!

And thank you Amy and Evan for a great party!

Beatrice and Jack

Wonderful photos courtesy of Summer St. Pierre!

826LA Spelling Bee for Cheaters

Dev and I will be participating in the upcoming Spelling Bee for Cheaters to support 826LA, a wonderful non-profit that teaches writing skills to kids 6-18. Go here to donate. And thank you!

Road Trip to the Bay Area

Two weeks ago Beatrice and I took a road trip up to see her grandparents in Oakland while Dev was away on a business trip.

Along with Aunt Gillian, we took Beatrice on a whirlwind tour of activities, including the Little Farm at Tilden Park (a combination educational farm and petting zoo), the Oakland Zoo, and the outstanding Bay Area Discovery Museum.

Happily, even at 13 months old, Beatrice still sleeps pretty much every second of a car trip. I don't know how much longer that will last but we'll enjoy it while we can.

Playing the drums at the Bay Area Discovery Museum

Wearing a smock

Catching a plastic fish from a stream at the museum

Posing with her new and much-beloved stuffed giraffe

Petting goats at the Oakland Zoo

Observing very large chickens at the Little Farm in Tilden Park

Waving at a pig while calling out "Pig! Pig!"

Beatrice Loves Animals

Beatrice really, really likes animals. Her best friends, of course, are the dogs, but she also loved visiting the cats Andromache and Odin at her grandparents' house in Oakland.

Her first word, predictably, was dog, and all of her other words are animal names. She still does not say mama or dada or milk or eat, but she does regularly say dog, cat ("cat-cat"), turtle ("tut-tut"), and goat, and she's said a few more animal words (pig, bird, fish) just once or twice each. We often visit my friend Sarah who has a cat and now even when we're approaching Sarah's house and walking up the front driveway, Beatrice will begin to chant "cat-cat! cat-cat!"

Yesterday we took our visiting friends Sam, Lilli, and Melissa to the Los Angeles Zoo with Beatrice and Beatrice had a wonderful time. Of course she would cry each time we left any one animal enclosure but then she'd cheer up at the next one. It would be hard to pick a favorite, but she did love meerkats, monkeys, flamingos, bears, tigers, and the ocelot ("cat-cat").