Monaloca

Melina’s blossomed into a full-blown preschooler in the last few months. She’s still two, to be sure, complete with a two-year-old’s urgency around her own needs and sense of self. But she’s very independent, entertaining herself for long stretches of time and insisting on doing everything from putting on shoes to throwing away her own garbage all by herself. Melina has also blossomed into a true silly ball. I found out she’s already earned the reputation as one of two class clowns in her Wee Ducky room at school, and she constantly refers to herself as “Silly Mina.” A true Rapoza, Joey would say!

She mastered trike riding the moment her legs were long enough for her to reach the peddles. She had a blast riding up and down our street, quite literally, during a block party a few weeks ago, so much that she was glued to her trike for nearly 90 minutes straight. She also likes to ride up and down our side yard strip of concrete, and doesn’t mind “off-roading” on our lawn or the dirt beneath our backyard trees.

Amazingly, Melina loves to clean up. Her preschool teachers noticed this within weeks. She even has a little song she sings: “Clean up, clean up, I like clean up…” The other night I asked her to clean up the Thomas train set in her room before stories. Not surprisingly she responded, “NO!” but less than 10 minutes later she came up to me and said with super huge, super proud grin, “I clean up!” And she had, every last piece.

Finally, she’s a puzzle expert these days. A while ago she moved on from baby board puzzles to simple floor puzzles. We also have one where you put different colored shapes on their appropriate pegs. Melina seems to know instinctively where each piece goes. She looks at its size and the number of holes, and puts it in the correct spot, and in a flash is done. What gets me is at this age Kai had a hard time getting past the first piece, and would immediately get frustrated and want to give up. We had to help him at every step. On the flip side, he could name every piece’s shape and color. Melina could care less what they’re called! She just wants to fit them in their spots, then once complete dump them out and start over.

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