Monaloca

Who says wineries aren’t fun for kids?

We’ve visited several, in both Livermore and Napa, in the past few weeks, and Meli and Kai both found plenty to entertain themselves – including a number of things we don’t get to see every day in urban Berkeley.

Mid-month we visited two Livermore wineries with our friends Jenny and Pat and baby Kanoa. Kitt also came along for the ride, and, based on some great Yelp reviews, pointed us in the direction of a more back-country than usual Livermore winery called Boa Ventura. Turns out they’re only open one weekend each month, so we got lucky. The grounds were rural and funky, with a sign to “Watch for dogs: One old, one young, one stupid.”

Meli immediately spotted two of the dogs (turns out the third was hit by a truck earlier in the week), but was then side-tracked by all the chickens running around the yard. She spent a good 20 minutes following them, saying “chee-ten, chee-ten, ‘ere chee-ten.” The proprieter, who had a three-month-old strapped to his chest, even showed us a freshly-laid egg. Melina was fully underwhelmed by what to her looked like something she’d find in our own fridge.

Last weekend we made a quick trip to Napa to pick up some wine from a club we joined last fall. This time we also had Kai in tow. He and Melina both loved the majestic Artesa grounds, especially the cows and sheep on the roadside as we neared the winery and the long series of fountains flowing down the front hill.

The rest of the winery wasn’t quite as toddler-friendly as Boa Ventura (though they did have crayons and a coloring book for Kai), so we soon headed off for lunch at a nearby, uber-yuppy deli and picnic grounds. It was a gray and gloomy day, so we had nearly the whole picnic area to ourselves, including the two bocce ball courts. Kai learned to play a real game, while Meli took over the other court to knock the balls off the ledge then pick and line them up, over and over and over again.

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Today’s the real deal, but Kai’s been busy celebrating his big six ever since last Sunday. We co-hosted a pajama party at his mom’s house, where some of his classmates, my parents, and a few other friends helped him munch on pizza and Spider-Man cake. When they weren’t eating, the kids played Candyland, blew up balloons for air-puffed sword fights, and played “hide from all the adults!” in Kai’s closet.

This morning, Joey, Melina, and I joined Kai at reading time at school then passed out blueberry muffins for all his classmates to enjoy. Kai wondered where the frosting was. We told him it wouldn’t have gone well with muffins or the 9am snack time. And once they started eating, no one seemed to care.

Happy birthday, Kai!

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More Tahoe photos to share, plus what Melina’s up to at 21 months. She’s lost all semblance of a baby and seems to have entered the two’s a few months early!

Our girl still LOVES animals. Her favorite books are the ones featuring animals, especially cats and dogs. (Though she’s also suddenly a big fan of Elmo and Maisy, in books and videos, and adores the book “Goodnight Gorilla.”) She’s by far the biggest fan of Thor in our household. She sometimes picks out her own clothes and especially likes a T-shirt with birdies. She’s asked me not to button the top buttons of her coat so she can look down and see the birds.

The other day Melina pee’d in her potty for the first time, just before bath. It feels like a fluke. Joey and I both remember the first time Kai used the very same potty around the very same age. We clapped and got super excited… only to be faced with another year and a half before a truly potty-trained Kai emerged.

She’s now extremely proficient with stairs, as evidenced by her ability to navigate them, over and over and over again and just for fun along with her cousins, at the cabin in Tahoe. She’s also developed a knack for picking up the tiniest piece of anything (a crumb on her placemat, one of Thor’s hairs on the couch) and handing it to me.

Every now and then Meli will spontaneously count to 10 (more or less) when stacking blocks. If I happen to say “seven” (as in, “It’s almost seven!”) she’ll say “eight, nine.” Colors aren’t quite there yet. When we ask her “What color is this?” she nearly always says “blue.”

At a friend’s house the other day Melina had her hands wrist-deep in a big bowl of birdseed meant to sprinkle on peanut butter-coated pine cones. She suddenly stopped playing with the seeds to look at me, a huge grin across her face, and say “appy.” I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly so asked again, then said “Are you happy?” She widened her smile even more and said, “Yeah. Appy.”

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