Evel Alec!

Alec had a blast riding my old big wheel on Friday. Not content with just riding it, but doing wheelies and other tricks.

Kids - don't try this at home...

Alceste

I started learning French in fifth grade with the Madame Miller and her high-heeled sneakers. Our main text book was "Petit Nicolas" - a little blue cloth-bound book containing the adventures of le petit Nicolas and his friends written by Goscinny and illustrated by Sempe. The series started in March 1959, so this month marks its 50th anniversary, which is being feted in France.

Nicolas' best friend was Alceste, whose main passtime was eating. In the English translation, republished beginning in 2005 by Phaedon Press, Alceste has morphed into Alec.

Like Alceste, our Alec likes croissants, but he seems to like his papa (le grand Nicolas') ollalieberry pie even better. Here he is digging in on Pie Day '09.


Unlike Alceste, Alec's main passtime isn't eating, in fact, he is pretty skinny. Perhaps because he eats his bananas with a fork...


This weekend we also had a surprise visit from Uncle Dan - who got all of Alec's attention. Here Alec showed him that his lego pyramid was like the pyramid in his book.


Last week, he did a similar stunt with the tiger on Auntie Rai's tshirt and the tigrrrr in one of his favorite books.

Playing indoors, and outdoors

The winter weather is challenging for our California boy, especially since he has been fighting a cold and serial ear infections for the past few weeks. To cheer him up, N. got him some Duplo blocks (extra large Legos). A big hit, but he's still getting the hang of them. However, after trying the Duplos, the larger Megablocks are a cinch.


In addition to blocks, Alec loves reading. Here he is getting a bedtime story read by one of my librarian friends. She read him Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel and, below, The Very Lonely Firefly. Not her usual reading material.


Finally we've been able to play outside, since the rain finally is giving us a break. On Saturday, we went to Crissy Field with Auntie Rai for a walk.

Lots of exploration, including a close observation of this great blue heron.

Our little birdwatcher

Very big fish story

On Saturday we decided to go to Golden Gate Park to see the exhibits at the De Young Museum, and perhaps check out the California Academy of Sciences finally. We zipped through the YSL and Warhol exhibits at the museum, since Alec wasn't very interested, and was just waking up. I had already seen the Yves Saint Laurent show in Montreal in August at the Musee des Beaux Arts, and actually liked the flow of their exhibit better.

Since the lines didn't seem too long at the Academy, we made our maiden voyage there. N had bought a membership before it opened, but we had kept putting of our visit until the crowds thinned out. Since that seems like it won't happen anytime soon, we felt like we were postponing for nothing.

It is very cool - brought back memories of my childhood visits. They even have the old seahorse fence around the alligator swamp, although the Benny Bufano seal sculptures that used to be in the entryway are no longer there, and the guard didn't know that they were in the side garden with the Maya Lin sculpture. So photos of Alec riding a seal will be for a future date.

Alec loved the aquarium - we saw the alligator, turtles, gars, and some very cool sea dragons. Much better than the Monterey Aquarium, I thought.

We took the photo above next to one of the tanks of fish from the tropics, everything was moving too much for the iPhone, so it is sort of atmospheric.

After the trip, a very happy and very tired little one.