Monaloca

After a brief spout of April rain I think (or hope) that spring has arrived for good. Meli loves her new sundresses, even though Mama makes her wear stretch pants underneath when she’s running around the yard or a park. And I’m sure the dresses won’t stay springtime clean for long.

Kai and Meli both had fun seeing what the Easter bunny brought, though Kai more than Melina. He was convinced the Easter bunny had arrived after he woke up and was watching cartoons in the living room. “He snuck in so quietly I didn’t even hear him!” Melina was more interested in putting her blankie in her basket than looking at the little toys and Teddy Grahams she’d gotten.

Last week we had our last (for now) in a series of wine tasting adventures. This time we headed over two hours northeast to Amador County with our friends the Zarlings. Peter’s a big fan of Amador zins, and belongs the Vino Noceto wine club. Wine tasting with four kids (ages almost 1, almost 2, 4, and 6) was definitely a challenge, but the bigger ones had fun running around the various picnic grounds and feasting on pizza in small town Plymouth before we headed home.

Finally, Melina can count to 10! She got a kick out of counting “1, 2, 3” before jumping into the warm pool when we swam on Friday. This morning she made it all the way to 10.

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At 22 months we have regular conversations with Melina, and her memory’s growing deeper.

She still asks to go swimming every time we pass by the Berkeley High warm pool (until last week we hadn’t swam since October!) only now she actually says “I wanna swim” instead of just saying “Mama, uh oh!” as we drive by on the way to Kai’s school.

The other day we had plans to babysit our neighbor Max, who’s the same age as Meli. I told Melina first thing in the morning, and until Max arrived two hours later she asked for him by name at least once every ten minutes. At one point she even said patiently and politely, “Mama I want Max please.” Two days later she picked up a computer mouse, put it to her ear, and said “Allo? Mats ome?” (Hello, Max home?) Her first crush?

Other fun communication tidbits:

• “Mama, ALL DONE!” screamed incessantly after just 10 min of “napping.”
• “Mama, see flowers/bus/doggy/people” as she looks out the car window.
• “Thor pop balloon” when she saw the cat a full two days after he popped a balloon.
• “Bachie” for her blankie.
• “Uppie down” for upside down.
• “Cockydoo” for cock-a-doodle-doo.
• Joey’s favorite: “machine” for the grill, which daddy affectionately labeled the meat machine.

Daddy also taught her a cool new trick! Watch the video below.

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Melina is just two months away from her second birthday. I keep thinking I’ll stop writing her monthly updates, but they’re such a fun way to reflect on and archive her growth. I’m going to divide this month’s update into two loose themes that have taken hold: imitation and communication (separate post). Enjoy!

Like most toddlers, Melina copies everything we do and say. Even moreso, she loves to copy everything her big bro does. A few weeks ago we pulled Kai’s old tricycle from the basement for Meli to ride. She got really excited, then ran to grab Kai’s helmet from a shelf and insisted on strapping it to her head as she played with the trike (still a little too big for her to reach the peddles) around the yard. Then she took the helmet inside and wore it half the afternoon. Unfortunately, she’s not as keen on wearing her own helmet, which I bought so I can tote her around town on my bike.

Melina and I pick up Kai from school several days a week. One day the kids were playing in the yard, and Kai asked if he could lift up Meli to hang from one of the monkey bars. I hesitated so he lifted her anyway. She grabbed hold and hung there for a good 15 seconds, then fell to the bark and said “more, more!” Kai lifted her at least four times and made sure to show off his sister’s strength to anyone nearby, including another mom who said to me, “You wouldn’t have thought to try that on your own, would you?”

Melina LOVES to read, at home and at daycare, and has even started reading books to us. She doesn’t have full lines down, but can tell us the page-by-page abbreviated version of her favorite stories (“Hot” for a page where “It’s hot out today,” “Empty” when Charlie’s refrigerator is empty, or “Hooray!” when Maisy and Charlie get to eat their lunch. Yup, these are all Maisy books.) One night Kai even tried to teach her to read by sounding out letters. Maybe in a year or two, Kai. Watch video of Meli reading to us.

Melina only watches Maisy DVDs a couple times a week and only for the past month, but she already knows how to stop the player, push the button to eject the disk, put in a new one, and close the tray – with the button like she’s supposed to, not by pushing the tray. The kicker is she then picks up the remote and points it at the TV like a magic wand that will suddenly make the video start. Then she gets mad when nothing happens. Lucky for us, she still needs adult help to get her small share of screen time.

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