Monaloca

Melina’s got some new obsessions these days, and is also getting ready for her little sister to arrive in three short months.

Since right around Halloween, she’s taken ownership of the color pink. She feels any pink bowl, item of clothing, piece of paper, pen, or toy she finds must be hers. It took me 10 minutes at preschool the other day to convince her that the pink Dora umbrella in the basket was someone else’s, and not hers to take. (“But I *like* it, mama. But I WANT it!”) She also prefers dresses and tights over pants, though I was able to talk her out of dresses in the rain until a classmate’s mom showed up in a skirt one day. (“But Maya’s mommy wears a dress in the rain.” Yes, she does.)

Melina is also seeing the reality of my growing belly (er, baby) and has taken ownership of her, too. (“That MY baby!”) Last week we asked what she wanted to name the baby. Without missing a beat, she said “Pink,” and since then has been calling her little sister “Baby Pink.” She’s already told me that the baby will wear a pink shirt and pink hat, and asks repeatedly if the baby herself will be pink. Well, kinda…

She’s also suddenly attached to only one of her six security blankies (which she still calls batchies). Amazingly, it’s not pink but dark brown and green. Melina, though, calls it “purple batchie.” Our super sleeper has finally succumbed to her playful stubbornness (I blame it on the Rapoza side!) It takes us at least 45 minutes to get her down for bed each night. She especially likes to “play” with Daddy, getting out of bed repeatedly, and when he chooses to ignore her, following him around the house saying “Daddy, I outta bed. Daddy, I outta bed…” until he finally pays attention and carries her back to bed. She’s also getting up earlier (sometimes before 7) but mostly because she needs to pee. That’s the odd downside of potty training.

Finally, our little girl has started real swim lessons! Ok, it’s still mama-and-me swimming, at least til she hits age three. She hadn’t been in a pool since summer, so I was a little worried she’d need a few weeks to warm up her comfort level. Nope, not my girl. At the end of the very first lesson I turned to grab our towels, and when I looked back to where Meli had been standing she was back IN the pool, holding diligently to the edge. When I said she needed to wait for me to tell her it was ok to get in she only said “Mama, I wanna go swimming again.” At our last lesson the instructor asked us to practice using a trigger word for her to jump in the pool so she wouldn’t whenever she felt like it. So along with bubbles and kicking, we’ve been practicing “1, 2, 3, GO!”

(Swim pictures are a little blurry cuz Kai had to take them through glass.)

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We had a pretty mellow week off between Christmas and New Years. Joey had to work most of it, so Melina and I spent our time on play dates, triking around the neighborhood, and heading to story time at the library. On New Year’s Eve we had dinner with Raycer and his family, then headed to a grown-up house party near our home. Melina lasted til almost 11pm but was begging for her bed by then. What a rare thing! We also checked out the Lawrence Hall of Science last weekend and stopped for ice cream in Elmwood on the way home. Melina got strawberry pink to match the pink in her dress.

Big sister moments: Melina’s expectedly ambivalent about Mama’s belly growing with her little sis. She still says “hi” to baby and gives her kisses more often than anyone. But she’s now taken one of Grandma and Grandpa’s baby gifts as her own. She found the fleece ducky sleepsack in the baby’s drawer and first wanted to use it on her dolls, then decided “it’s soft, it has duckies” and carries it around like a second security blanket. She sometimes takes it to bed with her, and other times she lifts up my shirt and places it on my bare belly saying “baby’s cold.” What a caring big sis! We’ll see what happens when baby arrives.

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Happy new year from the Rapozas! Our friend Roy took some holiday photos of our family at the Berkeley Rose Garden, just before sunset, last November. If you look closely at Melina’s hands, she’s holding two small lollipops used to reward the kids for cooperating during the shoot.

Melina still wasn’t too keen on smiling for the camera, but at least she did better than with her school pictures. She was really excited about those until she saw the photographer and the whole setup. She even watched a bunch of her classmates laughing as the camera snapped, but refused to to participate until a teacher sat with her. We ended up with a single pose: A big frown. I had to purchase one small sheet for comic value alone!

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Melina and Lucas at Weiss Christmas dinner…

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