Leslie's Education Part III

Now that the sun shines warmly on this planet, Mommy and Daddy and my babysitting friends take me outside all the time. I'm learning all about things green (my new favorite color!). Sometimes I sit with Mommy in the grass and feel it between my toes and fingers. I've also recently started a leaf collection -- well, I mean I try to start a leaf collection. I tell Mommy which trees and plants I want to see, and she takes me to them and holds me close up to the branches so I can pick the pretty leaves. Some are hard and crunch inside my fist, and others are tough and rubbery, and some are soft and delicate. Mommy is always trying to show me the flowers, but I keep telling her, "You can't forget about the leaves, though! They're so important!"

There's still plenty to learn inside the house, too. About six weeks ago (about the same time I lost all the hair on the sides of my head!) I still had a hard time playing with my toys because if I wasn't in somebody's lap or in the baby transat chair, I was on my back! It's no fun to be on my stomach because I can't do or see much. So Mommy started propping me up on a pillow so I could have my hands free to play with my toys! It made it much easier to have good conversations with my toy-friends, like with Pegelo the duck. Simon's always interested in what I'm doing when I'm on the floor.

Recently I realized that the cats actually live with us and could potentially make good friends, so I've been trying to learn more about them. Gigi usually stays too far away for me to touch her (for now!), but Simon and I are becoming buddies. I love to feel his fur; it's so slick and soft. I think I could just touch it for hours, but then I love it so much, I've just got to have it and so I grab it! Simon doesn't like that, though, and Mommy's always telling me, "Not like that, baby; watch Mommy stroking him gently like that. He likes that." It's true, he does, so I try to pet him like that too. I especially like his ears! They're so different from mine and Mommy's and Daddy's!

I'm also learning a lot about music these days. My three babysitter friends are all musicians. Momoko and Yukimi are singers, and Mariko plays the flute. One evening Mommy and Daddy took me to Momoko's concert in the northern part of Paris. She sang so wonderfully. I was so in awe of her that I couldn't stop staring at her up on that stage in her pretty red dress with her beautiful voice. The only problem was that she stopped singing between songs! I yelled at her from the audience to keep going, and I guess she heard me because she would start again and then I would be quiet so I could hear her and enjoy her music. I was so happy to hear her. After the concert she came up to me and held me. I felt like a star.

I try to sing like Momoko at home, but I'm not very good at it yet. Mommy and Daddy got me a new chair that puts me up really high, and I love to sing from there! I can even bang blocks and rattles against it for fantastic accompaniment and percussion! I've also learned from Mommy that it's very important to keep your cordless phone close by in case you get an important call. Most of the time it's my friend Max calling me to invite me to a party or one of my toy-friends telling me some news about toy-life. My phone has four buttons that make great sounds, so when I'm tired of singing and talking, I like to just push the buttons to hear the different noises. And when I get tired of that I just push everything aside and think about good things for a little while.