The Case of the Runaway Hat

Baby F.'s grandparents, all the way from good ol' Blighty, have come to visit her and Papa-in-Training. We've all been playing tourist with Nanny and Grandpa, showing them places we really like as well as visiting places we've always meant to see, but just haven't had a chance to. 

Last week, we popped on over to Branch Brook Park in Newark, NJ, a wonderful park minutes away by light rail from our penthouse-in-the-sky. This is one of those places that produces a big 'face palm' moment, as in, "why don't we go there more often, i.e. more than once every 20 years"?*
 
I've trekked over many a time to Central Park in Manhattan, while all the time I've had this beauty in my backyard.
Silly really.
So a few weeks back, J., a Brooklyn friend, came over to check out all the cherry blossoms in bloom, the second biggest collection in the US after the ones in Washington, D.C.

Pretty flowers!

Sacred Heart Cathedral Basilica viewed from Branch Brook Park

Lovers' Lane

J. and I had a good time, while Papa-in-Training dealt with a far too fussy Baby F., so when a few weeks later, Nanny and Grandpa showed up at our doorstep, I knew we had to take them to this little jewel in our city.

Teeny tiny flowers - squee!

This time Baby F. was in a better mood, so together with her grandparents, we headed out to the park. It was a lovely day and we encountered much wildlife...well, a couple of waterfowl :o)

Duckies!

I found a friendly goose and shared some saltine crackers with him. It was the best interaction with a goose I've ever had, as they usually have a tendency to chase me while hissing as loudly as possible. Oh, and biting me, or at least trying to.

But this time with this goose, all was different and all was good :o)

My new bestie ;o)

(Little side note: When I approached the goose, there was a gentleman that was on the same path heading towards me and the goose. Upon seeing me feeding the goose - and then having a little photo session with the goose and its' pal (as seen below) - he stopped and sat down on a bench so as to not disturb us. He only got up and continued down the path once he saw that I'd finished and had walked away. He didn't have to do that, so thank you sweet stranger for allowing a silly woman some time with a goose.)

My new bestie's bestie

I should also point out that while all this was going on, Baby F. was in a deep, deep coma ;o) Which is good, 'cause she'd likely try to eat these:

Mushroom, mushroom!

We also popped over to the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart so Baby F.'s grandparents could see that we too have some impressive cathedrals in Jersey. Not very old compared to English ones, but nonetheless impressive.

Big, ain't it?

You might be asking yourself though, what does this all have to do with a hat? And a runaway one to boot?
 
Well, upon our return home, we separated so the grandparents could go and pick up some late afternoon refreshments. I went on ahead to our flat and then waited at our front door, since Baby F.'s other grandparents were going to drop off some supplies. And well, we live on the 4th floor, so must conserve our energies ;o)

Soon enough, the Brit grandparents join us and that's when Grandpa mentions that a man has walked by carrying Baby F.'s hat.
What?!
But she was wearing it!

Somewhere along the last block or so to our building, she'd apparently thrown it off and I hadn't noticed. Meanwhile some enterprising and eagle-eyed soul had picked it up and was now walking speedily away from us with it.

I ran like a banshee after the man, all the while yelling 'Excuse me, excuse me!', which apparently no one pays attention to. I finally catch up with him and tell him in English that he's holding my baby's hat. He proceeds to try to tell me that he'd found it on the street. I spot from his accent that he's Brazilian so I switch to Portuguese and again state that it's my baby's hat and could I please have it back. Possibly operating under the old playground rule of 'finders keepers, losers weepers', he continues to argue with me about having found the hat. I point out again that it's a baby's hat, and he mentions how bacana it is. Yes, I know it's cool, that's why I gave it to the baby. I think from pure possible fear that this crazy lady in front of him might jump him for the hat, he finally handed it over. All the while, I'm just thinking, 'what in the world was he going to do with a small baby hat?'

I then rejoin the first set of grandparents, who have now been joined by the second set, as well as one of my downstairs neighbors, and we all wonder at the strangeness of people and at the case of the runaway hat. :o)

Odds and Ends : Odd monument found in a less traveled area

*Wish i was kidding about that every once 20 years bit. I think the last time I'd visited, outside of going with my friend J. a few weeks back, was in 1986!
Bad Newarker! Bad Newarker! ;o)

The Kitty Whisperer

Baby F. has had lots of adventures lately. The warm weather, or at least the non-rainy, non-frigid weather, has finally arrived in our neck of the woods, so we’ve taken to going out almost every weekend and exploring different new places for her.

Not that she needs to go outside to have any adventures though.

Seeing as she has her own little urban jungle right inside our apartment. Well, maybe she doesn’t have that many gigantic canopied trees to swing from, but she does have a bunch of jungle cats.

Oscar trying to nuzzle a bunny

We have three kitties. In descending order of well, size, there’s Oscar, the orange fatty, Franny, the black and white neurotic, and Polly, the tortoiseshell pygmy of the family.  They all have very distinctive personalities but they all love the heck out of us including Baby F.

They were fascinated by her from the day she came into our apartment, sneaking into her room to look at her, timidly going up to her to smell her and running to her room whenever she’d cry. Yep, they’d run into the room, not out. One might say they were checking on her, if one was feeling so inclined :o)

She for the most part, mostly ignored them at first. I swear it seemed as if they were somehow transparent during her first few months. Even after she could focus her eyes well enough to recognize Mama and Papa-in-Training and certainly Vóvó and Vôvô, still there was no sign of awareness that there were three curious furry creatures running about nearby.

But that’s all changed now.

She knows they’re there.
She knows... and she stalks them.

She’s taken to chasing them around when the mood strikes her, like when they’re just walking by, or trying to nap, or trying to eat, you know, constantly.

I might have touched upon her first word being ‘gato’ or cat in Portuguese. She also says ‘cat’, so is now fully bilingual ;o) What I haven’t mentioned is how she’ll use it as a mantra: ‘gato, gato, gato, gato, gato’. Which I’m sure is not at all disconcerting for the cats – to suddenly look up and see a very fast crawling miniature human coming at them while shrieking ‘GATO!!!’ at them.

She’s also come to be quite boorish when it comes to the kitties, I mean, besides the whole charging them at full speed while screaming like a banshee thing. She’s taken to watching them eat. And then afterwards tries to eat their food. Yep, doesn’t want to eat her own food, but stale leftover cat food? Yum!

Franny catching some zzzzz's in Baby F.'s rocking chair

This past week we had this great little happening:

Scene: Kitchen floor, box of recyclables full of folded up cardboard boxes and paper odds and ends.  Amongst them is a folded up ‘empty’ bag of kitty vittles.

      Baby F: [grabs folded bag and takes it out of the box]

      Papa-in-Training: [casually grabs bag out of hand of baby, but succeeds in upturning it, emptying
      its’ ‘empty’ contents] Crap!
      Baby F: [proceeds to start grabbing various bits of dry cat food from floor]
      Papa: Don’t eat that! [as he removes small tidbit from her hand]
      Mama-in-Training: She’s chewing on something!
      Papa: [removes vittles from inside baby’s mouth]
      Baby F.: [immediately puts another one in mouth]

      [Repeat infinitum until all tidbits have been quickly swept up]

She’s also come in very handy in cleaning up after them.

We just purchased a vacuum cleaner after much research and advice – we thought we could keep the place clean with only a broom and mop (we have laminate flooring and tiles), but 3 cats and a baby have proved to be our undoing. But if we had a couple more babies around like F. we probably wouldn’t have needed to buy one. 
Because she will pick up everything from the floor! The tiniest, most microscopic thing, like for example, a bit of clean litter left behind, will be expertly and minutely picked up by her very precise finger movements. Sigh.

She’s also somehow managed to develop perfect timing and will scare the begeesus out of the cats…on purpose. Earlier in the month, while sitting on my lap on the living room couch, she waited until Polly was walking right next to my legs, underneath her, to let out a big YELP! thereby making the poor cat jump out of her skin and take off running.

Polly checking out her new crib

Yet somehow they love her and watch out for her, with Oscar offering up his belly for a cuddle and nuzzling her with his head, while Polly tries to entice her into playing with her. Franny…well, he’s a bit wearier – I chuck that up to him having been a street cat in his early life. But given the right circumstances, i.e. he didn’t notice ;o) , he’ll let her pet him. Of course, the whole petting thing is still a bit of a struggle, as Baby F. thinks it entails pulling on their fur really hard…but then again, that’s what she does to us as well, so at least we’re all on equal footing ;o)

It’s great to see them with her though, just a couple more members of our family :o)