Monaloca

I think our flight from Portugal touched down at SFO exactly a month ago today. What better time to post our full trip albums to the blog? To put these four albums in perspective, we took over 1,300 photos in total. Wow. Welcome to the digital SLR age.

And enjoy!

• Lisbon
• Evora & Coimbra
• Porto
• Sintra & Lisbon, round 2

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Kids graduate younger and younger these days. Today Kai “graduated” from preschool. I put the word in quotes mainly because the poor guy, along with the majority of his classmates, will be back at school on Monday and for the rest of the summer til kindergarten starts. We think he gets this. Nonetheless, the pre-K class of 2008 put on a great show: They sang “We will rock you” with inflatable guitars and picked up their diplomas one by one from Mr. Tom. They also had all painted pictures of what they want to be when they grow up. Kai’s career ambition? Since he was two, to become a chef. Congrats, Kai!

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With our trip and Meli’s first birthday in the past, I’m trying to re-focus and re-energize around my writing. It’s tough, especially when I have a blog to distract me. But today I re-started a story that’s been brewing for five years. Here’s to making that story grow.

For her part, so far being one has been rough for the Jelly Bean. Last week was all turmoil. Luckily she’s been on the upswing the past few days. But look at all the changes in her little life:

• New room at daycare. The Waddlers were fun to visit but now that she’s there full time, Meli sometimes cries for her infant-care teachers when she sees them.
• Daytime weaning. Now that she’s one, I refuse to pump. She literally threw her sippy cup of whole milk at her teacher last week.
• Shots. Oh those nasty shots. I swear she was a different, constantly cranky person for the first five days after she got the MMR vaccine.
• Headcold. Ick. I have it too. So does Kai.
• Teething. Those two top teeth are certainly taking their time, but little by little we see white emerging.

We’ve still been having fun. On Monday we headed to Stinson Beach with Sapna and Suli. Amazingly, as a 30+ year resident of the Bay Area I’d never been to one of its most famous north county beaches. We soaked up the sun (I got a little too much), and Meli dipped her toes in the cold waves and enjoyed eating fistfuls of sand – until I batted the sand away.

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Ok, I wouldn’t say she’s fully walking yet, but Melina is definitely taking some steps!

Take a look.

(Sorry it’s sideways.)

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It’s birthday season in our part of the world, and we owe it to Melina and all the little friends she’s made – or I’ve made for her – in the past year. Her own celebration on Sunday included a house overflowing with 40-plus guests: Grandma and Grandpa Weiss showed up early with Aunt Sharon and Uncle Ray (my mom and Kai decorated the butterfly cakes my dad had made), then we were joined by my sis and her twins, family friends, at least 10 one-year-olds and their parents, and a few of our own brave, childless friends (thanks Kitt and MD!)

Meli had a blast though was at first a bit confused by the huge ladybug cake set in front of her. Didn’t take her long to figure out it was food and within minutes she and her high chair wore stripes of neon pink. I have to give a hats-off to my super social stepson. According to my mom, he took it upon himself to serve every single person in the room once the candle was blown out (by him, no less). All those years serving up wooden burgers and pretend cups of coffee have paid off.

The next day we headed to one of Melina’s friend’s parties, and she chose this occasion to make her first real attempt at a very real little step. Yay Jelly Bean! She let go of Joey’s hands and took two or three tiny strides towards me then fell into my arms. Twice. Wow. I can’t believe how fast she’s gone from cruising just a couple weeks ago to attempting real steps. We’ll see how long it takes her to perfect this skill – or when she even tries it again. She uses her tongue, sticking straight out, for balance along with her two arms.

In other Melina milestone news, she officially graduated to the Waddler room at daycare this week. She unofficially graduated herself last week, when after a short trial period in the “big” kid room she refused to go back to the baby side of the gate. The teachers let her hang out in her new routine: walks outside, time in the big play gym, and group snacks. Meli was in heaven, I’m sure. I for one am relieved she’s enjoying the transition.

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wow, a year ago i was mid-way through labor and about to meet my little girl for the first time. i used to think that not much happened in a child’s first year. needless to say, i was wrong. i’m still in absolute awe at how much i’ve enjoyed every second (ok, nearly every second) of life with melina and our family. the magic and the milestone of her first birthday mean so much to us and so little to her, though it’s fun to think how this day will grow in significance for her in just a few short years.

on the morning of her very first birthday, my monthly “what’s melina doing now?” update.

move. meli’s on the move more than ever. her latest trick is standing hands-free for up to 20 or so seconds. this morning i saw her let go briefly to sorta slide to another piece of furniture. first steps towards taking a step, i suppose! the other day i caught her flipping through a board book next to her toy chest, completely hands-free. when she saw me looking she smiled, realized what she was doing, and promptly fell to her butt.

in portugal she started cruising (walking while holding onto furniture) and learned to use her stroller as a walker. back at home she pushes kai’s toy shopping cart all over the house every chance she gets. she can even turn corners with it now, and can manoeuvre it around so that she can walk back and forth over and over and over again. on our return we’ve also had to bring a whole new level of baby-proofing to our house. she is very curious and even more determined. she yanked open our baby-proofed door to the kitchen trash our first day back – so much for baby latches. she crawls incredibly fast and follows us all over the house. if i want her to come into a different room i just call her name and she does – sometimes with a stuffed animal or stray shoe in tow.

play. everything is a game these days, including newfound skills like following simple directions or mimicking what we do. her favorite trick is to put her lid back on her sippy cup, after which she expects applauds. she’ll guess which closed hand holds a treasure if she sees you put it in. she tries to comb her own hair and put her shoes on her feet. doesn’t get close to succeeding with either but the attempt is insanely cute. when she hears music of any sort – even her daddy’s iphone ring – she starts to dance. not sure if this is mimicking or just her natural inclination to boogie down.

my favorite development is that she no longer immediately puts everything in her mouth, but is now more interested in playing (or ripping or crumpling it, if “it” is paper) first. she likes putting things in and out of containers and loves anything that rattles or makes noise. she still loves her little blankies but now has added stuffed animals to her entourage. her favorite seems to be the only that kai ever liked, a little lamb he aptly named “chopeater” when he was three. (not sure he gets the irony even now.) luckily he doesn’t mind sharing with his little sis.

talk. melina now has a vocabulary of about a half dozen distinct words, most within the last couple weeks. cat was her first a few months back, along with ba ba (bye bye). she’s now added dog (hmmm, we don’t even have one), up, down, ball, and once repeated ni ni (night night) back to my dad. still working on distinct mama and dada calls, but she says hi da quite a bit. it’s kinda like her happy, look at this! sound. of course she babbles incessently, but apparently not at daycare. too busy exploring, her teachers say.

eat. in portugal pretty much all limits went out the window. meli feasted in stewed kid, grilled ham and cheese (“tosta mista”), sampled custard pies and enjoyed fish or pork on a nightly basis. by the time we got back joey was feeding her his beloved portuguese sausage, and she loved it, spice and all. can’t say we’ll make this a habit. she’ll be able to eat even more efficiently very soon: at least two top teeth broke through just days ago. we’re waiting to see if four arrive at once!

she’s still a lover of protein and fruit above all else, along with yogurt. not a big fan of green veggies or green fruit (kiwi at least, haven’t tried green melon). i’m sure this will change. we’re starting on cow’s milk this week and i’m dumping the pump for daytime bottles at daycare. weekend and night weaning will come later, probably in that order. wish us luck. i’m honestly not sure which of us will miss breastfeeding more, it’s such a wonderful, intimate bonding experience and i’ll be sad to see it go. and in portugal meli stepped up her feedings quite a bit – she does love her food, in all forms. it might take a while to cut that final, semi-literal cord between this mama and what little is left of the baby in her little girl.

happy birthday, jelly bean!

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