Yesterday we went to the petting farm near our house. Charlie was super excited to see the ponies and immediately said she wanted to ride one. And I thought to myself, this is fantastic, I’ll snap a cool picture for the blog. So they put her on a nice black pony named Becky. Charlie was diggin’ it, holding on to the saddle and looking at the nice pony. Then the pony did a horrible thing. It walked. Slowly. Tears start flowing, Charlie looks around asking where I am, I run in to walk along side her and hold her hand and she cries even more. She’s hysterical at that point, her face was so sad. She says, “out the pony!” So they stopped for her and I took her off. We went straight away to see the less scary goats. I did not get the picture I was hoping for.

We got some goat food in an ice cream cone and Charlie happily fed the goats, one pellet at a time. Which was great for me because while the other kids were feeding them handfuls and spilling everywhere, Charlie was able to stay at that fence a really long time on one cone of pellets. When we ran out of pellets, I told her she could feed the cone to the goat. She seemed excited doing it, but then she said, “don’t yike the goat.” The goat ate half her cone. Either she thought the cone was a cup and not goat food, or she wanted it for herself. Hard to say.

After the lengthy goat feeding, we went to look at the ponies again and the man working there asked her if she’d like to ride again. She said no, so he asked her if she’d like to pet one. She nodded and we went into the riding area and pet the tiniest, nicest pony they had. He was very soft. Charlie pet him for a little while and then wanted to leave. The man was very encouraging and told us not to give up on the ponies. He gave us a free ticket for a future pony ride, which I thought was very nice. It was also nice to have a place like that so close to us (it is also an equestrian center). I remember growing up in San Jose there was a tiny farm right next to our neighborhood, which was weird. But my friends and I used to go there all the time and look at the pigs. I think they had other animals, but for some reason I remember being fascinated by the pigs. So maybe Charlie will grow up having fond memories of extremely hungry (acting) goats and vicious walking ponies.

Petting farm photos are here.

The farm was at the Lakewood Equestrian Center’s Pony Adventures Petting Farm.

We went to San Francisco for the Pride parade and festival the weekend before last.  It was Charlie’s first time at Pride and our first time back in about 8 years (and our tenth anniversary!).   Charlie loved looking at all the people (especially the very colorfully costumed people), playing in the kids area and listening to music.  But her favorite thing about Pride was the “man-beads.”  Charlie was listening to some drumming and dancing to the beat when one of the guys giving out plastic beads gave her a couple strands in appreciation of her dancing.  Later in BART, another Pride goer gave Charlie her third string of beads.  Thus began Charlie’s affection for, and fascination with, the “man-beads.”

Charlie didn’t start calling them “man-beads” right away. At first they were just beads. But then out of the blue she starts using the word “man” and identifying men on the street. Like the “nice man with the sticks” who directed our plane out of the gate. A couple days after we got back from SF, Charlie decides to give a shout-out to the men who gave her her lovely shiny beads by calling them “man-beads.” Yes, she did tell us that is why they are man-beads.

She likes to wear the man-beads on her wrists. For about an hour each day, the man-bead wearing goes like this:

Charlie: Where’s the man-beads?
Me (or Papi): They’re over here, i’ll get them for you.
Charlie: Wanna wear them.
Me (or Papi): O.k. i’ll put them on you

I then wrap the beads on her wrist one strand at a time. I now have an exact method and location for each strand, because if they are not wrapped correctly and are too loose and dangly:
Charlie: (crying) No, no! I don’t yike it, I don’t yike it! Mama, fix the man-beads! Mama, fix it!

I then fix the man-beads, she wears them around for a while and then:
Charlie: Wanna take them off.
Mama (or Papi): O.k. I’ll take them off. (takes off the man-beads)
Charlie: Wanna put the man-beads back on.

And the whole thing starts over again.

Thanks, Man.

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Click here for new pics of Charlie eating her new favorite, grilled corn on the cob, playing with her ponies (and doggie) and walking in our shoes.

Technical note: I am trying to better organize the flickr photos. To that end, I am grouping uploads by subject and then dropping those into a collection organized by month. I welcome feedback on whether this is easier to use/find the photos you want to see. You will only see collections on the main page but can click on “sets” at the top of the page (right under the words “lifeofcharlie’s photostream”) to see all of the old sets.

It’s her favorite thing to do… and her favorite thing to say she wants to do. When we ask her, “Charlie, what do you want to do today?” “Class with the babies!” At the end of the day when we call Papi at work, before she can even ask a question, “Class with the babies!”

We just had our semester-end final classes in music, tumbling and side-by-side (a pseudo-preschool class where the parents go too). Charlie will still do tumbling on Saturdays with Papi, but we are taking a little summer break right now and they are missed.

For more class photos click here.

The Corpse Flower started to open Wednesday afternoon, so Thursday morning we trekked back up to the Huntington to see it. By the time we saw it, it had already started to close up a little, so the best spot to see the purple coloring was from the balcony above it. The stench reached us where we were on the balcony and kept getting stronger as we wound our way down to the bottom of the conservatory. I asked Charlie if she could smell it and she stuck her nose up and toward the flower and made a sniffing sound, but I couldn’t tell if she was inhaling or exhaling. She nodded that she smelled it though. It smelled like a mix of stinky feet and rotten eggs.

There was a crowd of people standing in front of the flower, all trying to capture their perfect shot. I just wanted a picture of Charlie in front of it, so we could see the 6′9″ flower tower over her. But she’s so tiny and I couldn’t let go of her because she would have either gotten lost in a see of flower obsessed people or fallen in the mud. So I took what I could get.

After the stinky flower, we went to the children’s garden again. This time, Charlie was mostly focused on the stone fish pots where water shoots up out of the ground and into the pot. Although she did take a couple detours to the tunnel and the water fountains. And then fell asleep in the stroller on our way back to the car.

Click here for all the pics from our Huntington visit.

Today Charlie and I went to the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens with Lola and Lourdes! Aunt Julia sent us a message about the Huntington’s “Corpse Flower” and with a name like that, we had to check it out. Luckily, Lourdes happened to be up visiting Lola. When I told Charlie what we were doing, she ran to the door screaming happily. She said several times on the way there that we were going to see the “big flower” or the “stinky flower.”

The flower, unfortunately, has not bloomed yet. They thought it might be today but as the guide told me, it’s being shy. At any rate, it’s still amazing. It is over 6 feet 7 inches tall! When it opens it can be up to 4 feet wide. It towered over pint-sized Charlie. We got a wiff of what it smells like at the exhibit: Lourdes and I decided it was kind of like stinky feet…really rotten stinky feet. It is originally from Sumatra and is extremely rare. So we may just have to go back in a couple days when it blooms because who knows when another one will come along.

After we saw the Corpse Flower (what the people in Sumatra call it), we went through the rest of the rainforest exhibit, a bog and onto the Children’s Garden. Lourdes and Charlie had tons of fun running through a tunnel and playing in the water fountains. Charlie loved the water and would have stayed there all day I think. On our way out we saw a giant fountain/waterfall and Lourdes pointed it out. From then on Charlie was talking about seeing the “water-hall.”

Charlie had a fantastic time. She loves flowers, she loves water and she loves running around. And she got to do a lot of everything.

Click here for more pics at the Huntington.