now that the fall semester has begun, bailey has started her new classes! i know, it sounds pretty ridiculous, but the classes allow her (and me) to get out and socialize and hopefully learn a few new skills.
on tuesdays, we have swim class at the YMCA. although the water is freezing (or "fresh" as our instructor likes to say), the babies seem to be just fine. bailey initially didn't love the water. she tolerated the songs, the kicking, and the baby freestyle. last weekend though, matt and i went together to family swim. with both of us in the pool, she really started to enjoy herself. she discovered that she could splash the water with her little hands and get water all over herself and us. by the end of our time in the pool, her eyes were all red from the chlorine, but she was happy as a clam. we will try to get some pictures and video next time we go as a family.
on thursdays, she has baby fingers, a baby sign language class. i've been trying to use the basic signs for "i love you", "milk", "water", "change", etc... the idea is that she will hopefully be able to start communicating with us before she is able to string together sentences.
we also have music class on thursday afternoon. the instructor is from the early ear, but comes to a friend's apartment around the corner from us. it is super convenient and a lot less expensive. every time, our instructor brings her guitar and lets the kids strum. and often, she brings other instruments for the babies to interact with. bailey has her own little music bag. and for now, it seems she has taken to the drums. her favorite song, by far, is "the wheels on the bus."
with our new premium membership to the wildlife conversation society, we decided to head over to the new york aquarium on coney island. after unsucessfully trying to get pizza at totonno's (closed for renovations) and instead stopping off at nathan's for a hot dog and cheese fries, we walked across the abandoned areas of the coney island amusement park (it was like a scene from The Warriors). the cyclone and the wonder wheel, of course, were still running, but everything else looked pretty sad. that is, until we got to the aquarium, which was, i'm afraid to say, even sadder. granted, the new york aquarium was founded in the late 1800's. some of the exhibits didn't look like they had been touched since the 1970s. we didn't feel too bad for the invertebrates, but the sea mammals could use a better facility for sure. lucky for them, we recently read that there is a $100 million renovation of the aquarium in the works right now. it will include one of those state of the art 1 million gallon tanks. bailey really liked the walruses. vina and matt really like the sea otter. there is already one new exhibit, for jellyfish, which is actually quite cool. we strolled up the boardwalk back towards the subway and had a sad glass of lemonade. back on the subway and back to manhattan with a tired out bailey, matt and vina.
it has taken me 5 days to get up the courage to even write about this. so here goes, i'll just spit it out.
today we went to the central park zoo where bailey got to see goats, pigs, sea lions, polar bears, monkeys, a snow leopard, rabbits, a red panda, a peacock, tamarins, and more. though too young to pet any of the animals at the petting zoo, bailey kicked her legs with excitement as she watch me and matt feed the goats.
in other news, she has had 7 poops in 2 days! i think it's the water that's really doing the trick.
b is going to be a bee. get it? haha.
here's a video of bailey being grossed out by bananas. what's funny is that most baby books warn against giving your baby bananas as their first food because they'll love it so much it might give them a sweet tooth! i guess we won't have to worry about that. clearly b isn't a fan.
in other news, bailey is constipated AGAIN. poor girl hasn't made a bowel movement in 6 days. last time, when she first started solids, she went for approximately 10 days. switching from rice to oat cereal and giving her water seemed to do trick that time. we might need to try prune juice tomorrow and will call dr. felix. not sure i'm ready for "the bath and bowel movement technique" described here.