CERT is the Community Emergency Response Team - a volunteer organization meant to help the police and fire departments in the event of a large scale emergency, where the PD and FD would maybe be taxed beyond their ability to get to every neighborhood.  It includes basic medical/triage, fire suppression, search and rescue, etc.  Some fantastic people have done it.  [Edit - Whoops, apparently, there’s more than one fantastic person out there!]

Obviously, beyond training, all involvement is voluntary.  I help my family first, and if and when I can leave them somewhere safe, I help the rest of the neighborhood.

More than that, it’s something interesting to do, and it’ll give me good skills to help the family in the event of a large earthquake or something.  And it gets me out of the house.  Without a baby.  Me.  Yeah!

Oh, and I’ll get my very own hardhat out of the deal.

And this morning, Mina and I are going to go down and sign me up for the CERT class next month.  If there are still spots left over.  That should be interesting!  And I get to play with firemen.  And fire hoses.  *snort*

Happy 11 Months Miss Mina!  Keep up the good work!

What made it an ever BETTER day was that I got a phone call around 2:30 or so, from my friend across the street, Monica…. letting me know that she was at the hospital with a baby on the way!  HOOORAY!  She was at 9cm, and sounded in pretty good spirits.  So GO Monica!  And welcome Isabella!!

We hope you’re here already and didn’t cause your mom (and Dad!) too much grief!  We can’t wait to meet you.  Mina has lots of things to teach you!

She’s fine, but needless to say, weaning day is going to be a big celebration for me involving a bottle of champagne and LOTS of dairy.  Yeah, and burning of nursing bras.  We’ll wait til after her birthday and after the Austin trip - seems to me there’s no need to start making major changes during a weekend away.

Otherwise, birthday planning is coming along soon.  Manhattan Beach has its quarterly sidewalk sale this weekend, so my 39-week pregnant neighbor and I are going to walk around and see if we can find Mina a special birthday dress.  And shoes.  Birthday shoes.  Have I told you how freaking cute baby shoes are?  Wow.  Ouch.

We’ve been test-driving some classes lately. Mostly music classes, but we did go to MyGym (think Gymboree) and she LOVED it. So we’re going to sign up for that. It’s not cheap, either! But hey, I’m sure she gets bored of me playing the same old games with her. So it’ll be class once a week and a free-play session once a week. One of the free-play sessions is at 5:25, so even Mark can come and play!

Tomorrow though we have one more music class to check out. There’s another gym-type class we might check out in the meantime, as MyGym has summer camps next week, so no classes

Otherwise, still working on the birthday details!

Also, Aunt Maureen will be out for a visit in… 2 weeks? Something like that. It’ll be a short visit, but I’m glad they will finally get to meet! It’s gonna be fun!

That’s right. She got from basically hands and feet…. to feet.

I know, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for!

Grammy and Grandpa should be here relatively soon for a weekend of cuddling. Well, except that Mina’s not much of a cuddler. Oh well. Guess I better go make some Guac! Yeah right. Fat chance. I’m gonna sit on my ass til they get here so she has some entertainment. And by sit on my ass, I mean entertain her. Run around the apartment, etc.

In any event, we’re all fine. The apartment is fine. Mina does more damage in a day than the earthquake did!

Right, so Saturday morning she was back to normal. The rest of the trip went pretty smoothly.

We had our usual fun - Minigolf, some snorkeling, eating at new and old places (Joe’s was new, Olaf’s was old,) Botanical Gardens, found a new park to play at, walked around the Casino, hung out at Descanso Beach for a bit, Catalina Island Museum (which we’d never done and it’s quite nice for a quick diversion.)

We learned a few things.

Mina prefers to sleep alone. She slept in a pack and play all weekend. Only once did she fall asleep in the bed with us, and that was after she had been sick. We’re glad we started sleep training when we did. It made the trip SO much more peaceful.

She has her own sign for “no” as in “I don’t want that.” In combination with her being able to point to what she does want, mealtimes are getting much nicer. For no, she’ll take her hand(s) and put them up to her ears. I don’t really know where she got that. Sometimes it’s just one hand, sometimes it’s both.

Anyway, Monday naps didn’t really happen. Morning nap wasn’t working and then after we’d checked out of the hotel, we knew afternoon would be crap. So only sling naps yesterday meant very little quality sleep last night. She’s been napping for an hour now, so I’m hoping she’ll be better rested later today, and tonight she’ll do better.

It was another successful trip! Next year should again be all kinds of new and interesting as she’ll be almost 2 and walking and talking. Holy moly. We’ll have to actually *entertain* her!