Monaloca

It’s becoming a tradition. We had another extendo-Christmas this year.

We started Christmas early, with two nights in San Jose the weekend before real Christmas to celebrate with my extended family (aka Weiss Christmas). Melina loved playing with her two cousins, and created all sorts of mischief with Lucas. Kai was kind enough to wait until 6:30 to wake up Grandma Nancy on Weiss Christmas morn, and apparently after he went through his own stocking the two of them checked out the other three kids’ loot as well.

We visited the Tilden Winter Wonderland Carousel with Meli’s friend Lily a few nights before Christmas. (Unlike last year, Melina actually rode a wooden goat and liked it.) Then we spent real Christmas feasting on homemade cardamom rolls for breakfast (Aunt Sharon, it’s our own take on a longstanding tradition!), walking through the woods near the Tilden Little Farm, then hanging out with the Lily’s family followed by Max’s family down the street. Phew, a busy day!

What were our kids looking forward to most this Christmas?

Melina was excited about singing “Snowman in the Frosting!” at her preschool holiday singalong. And a few weeks ago I asked her, “What do you want from Santa this year?” Her answer: “Christmas lights in my room. And I want pink hair.” But she was most consistent in asking for “big Swiper and tiny Swiper,” or a stuffed Swiper fox or two from the Dora cartoon she loves. (She got one stuffed Swiper and two printouts to color, one big and one tiny.)

Kai was working on a Santa list from him and Melina since before Thanksgiving. By Christmas day it was six pages long, all of them taped together and hanging from our magnet board. Some highlights: “Tights. Markers (washable/lavable). Glue sticks. Stickers. Kix cereal. Gumball machine. Big Swiper, Little Swiper. Big love, little love. Candy. A house.”

I’d love to have gotten that last one from Santa. We kept things simple this year and new toys to a minimum, but at the very least I wish I’d asked for a half day with a professional organizer to help me figure out how to fit all of us, our stuff, and the baby on the way into our small two-bedroom house. Maybe next year. For now I’m just happy we all got to celebrate together and ecstatic that we’ll soon have a new little one to join the fun!

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Today we celebrate my birthday, Melina’s half-birthday, and a belated YAY for our baby girl on the way. Somehow it seems fitting to post the ultrasound photo of our growing baby on this of all days. We’re all very excited about our new addition come April. Melina and Kai are comfortable in their bunk bed, there’s plenty of room for the crib on the other side of the room, and as a bonus Melina decided to potty train at 27 months. She no longer wears diapers even for nap, and would be pullup-free at night if we let her.

Both Melina and Kai love to kiss the baby and say “hi” to her in my belly. Melina has already told me she will not share her stroller with her little sister, but it’s ok if I put the baby in the Ergo and “push Mina in stroller.”

A few weeks ago Kai told me, “You guys are gonna be really busy when the baby comes.” I laughed, shook my head, and said, “That’s right. And you’ll be able to do a ton to help us out!”

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We had fun celebrating Thanksgiving with the Weiss side this year. We hosted turkey dinner at our home on Friday, since none of us wanted to drive in holiday traffic. It worked out great, because it meant we also had Kai. Melina got all dressed up in her new, pretty pink dress from Auntie Sharon.

She’d been waiting for months to wear it, since it arrived over the summer but we hadn’t had a dress-up occasion until now. Bonus for the adults: The kids are finally all old enough to entertain each other (while making a huge mess, of course), and to sit at their very own kids’ table.

We rounded out the weekend with a visit to Grandma and Grandpa’s house in San Jose so that I could attend my 20-year high school reunion. Yikes! I ended up bringing Stacie instead of Joey as my guest. Excellent call. She had way more fun than he would have had. Amazingly, we both lasted til after midnight without turning into pumpkins. But we arrived back at our parents’ house without a house key and had to knock on Mom’s window to have her wake up and let us in. Oops.

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Last week Kai lost his third tooth in as many months, but the first at our house. He was ecstatic at the thought of the tooth fairy visiting him that night. “She’s going to leave two whole dollars under my pillow!” As he put his tooth in a sandwich bag and tucked it under his pillow, Melina suddenly said “I want tooth fairy too!” She pretended to pull out her top front tooth and handed it to me.

“Here, Mama.” I asked if she wanted to put it under her pillow and she said “I need baggie!” so I went to the kitchen for a bag, plopped in her fake tooth, and helped her tuck the (empty) baggy under her pillow.

Kai woke up to find two dollars under his pillow, and Melina found a folded picture of Dora dressed as a fairy princess. Yup, a princess for our burgeoning princess.

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We had a busy Halloween weekend, and now have a house full of candy to keep us sugar-high for weeks if we so choose.

The fun began Friday morning, with Melina’s preschool Halloween parade. As I dressed her as a ballerina that morning she was already giddy and kept saying “I wanna be ballerina in parade!” She barely sat still for me to do her pony tails, but did insist on adding three pink barrettes. I think she was tired from all her excitement before we even walked out the door.

Joey and I both took her to school that morning and walked with her and 60 other wee ones as they paraded up and down the block, collecting candy from merchants along the way. The two-year-olds held onto a rope the whole way, most of them wide-eyed with all the activity.

Meli’s teachers let her wear her costume all day – she was thrilled! That evening we had neighbors Max and Kendall (and their parents) over for pizza, cookies, and Halloween videos. All the tots wore their costumes, but Kai decided he was just a “student” in his school T-shirt. Kai was also the only kid to pay attention to “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” but they all enjoyed a Dora Halloween special.

Not surprisingly, by Saturday Melina seemed a little Halloweened-out until Kai started talking up trick-or-treat and all the candy. We double dipped on Halloween night, first stopping by Max’s house for a party with popcorn and cider, and then going to friend Lily’s house in the hills for a potluck party and trick-or-treating with play group friends. The kids all collected so much candy their pumpkins were almost too heavy for them to carry.

Melina spent the latter part of the party emptying all her loot from her pumpkin into a bag then back again, at least 20 times. She did ask to have a tangerine she’d collected, but didn’t try to eat a single candy until Sunday morning. I don’t think she knew exactly what it was.

We polished off our Halloween weekend with a Sunday Dia de los Muertos celebration at a neighbor’s house. And now, on to Thanksgiving!

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We’ve been gearing up for Halloween for weeks now, starting with reading nightly Halloween stories (somehow, we own close to 10!) and deciding on costumes. Melina knew right away she wanted to be a “ballerina like Isa” in her Dora Halloween book. After I bought her pink leotard and tutu she decided she wanted to be the green princess ballerina from another book, but then got excited about pink all over again when she got to try on her costume.

Last weekend Grandma Weiss brought her annual Halloween cookies to decorate. Melina ate frosting and shook sprinkles on the counter while Kai decorated. They both had fun. We also took Grandma and Grandpa with us to the pumpkin patch, where Meli and Kai decided to pick several baby pumpkins each instead of one bigger one.

This weekend we attended two jack-o-lantern carving parties, one after an impromptu invite from one of Melina’s friends at preschool, and the other at her friend Lily’s house. Mom and Dad did all the carving while the kids had fun playing. Maybe in a few years they’ll chip in. After all the carving fun at Lily’s house, Meli and Lily took turns snapping pictures of each other with Lily’s camera (aka her mom’s old camera, now thoroughly dented). I wonder if any turned out?

Finally, not to leave Halloween in the dust, but we’re already gearing up for Christmas too! The other day Melina insisted on wearing her snowman jammies for nap. Joey told her “That’s fine, snowmen and Santa are coming soon!” She woke up from her nap asking “Where Santa Claus? Daddy said snowman jammies Santa…” I had to explain that Santa comes after Halloween…. and Thanksgiving… and Mommy’s birthday… I’m sure she was thoroughly confused.

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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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I’m playing catch-up on blog posts these days. For the past month or two I’ve been noting some silly words and phrases of Melina’s. Sometimes she goes out of her way to speak her own language, just to confirm her silly-monster status! Here are a few that aren’t quite so intentional, but equally fun.

• Mina Poza! = Melina Rapoza, or what Meli says when you ask her for her name
• brorella = umbrella
• oatmilk = oatmeal
• yogit = yogurt
• breakfast = cereal (she’ll sometimes ask for “breakfast with milk” and other times will get mad when we ask what she wants for breakfast: “I don’t want breakfast!! I want yogit!!”)
• pack pack = backpack
• baa baa white sheep = any sheep, regardless of its color, is a baa baa white sheep
• “I too heavy” when she wants to walk on her own and not be carried (of course when we want her to walk and tell her the same thing, she doesn’t buy it)
• “Lisa” when I ask her what school she goes to (or who her teacher is, of course). On the other hand, she knows immediately that Kai goes to “Washington!” and tells me as much whenever we happen to drive by the school.

In the car a few weeks ago I was listening to President Obama’s eloquent speech on health care reform. Melina intuitively agreed to the the rhythmical eloquence of his voice, saying: “I like this song.” Beaming, I responded, “This is our president, Obama.” She thought about it and said, “I like Bama.” Yay!!

At age six and a half, Kai’s on pretty solid ground with his words. Though there’s one slip-of-the-tongue he refuses to admit: Life Saver candies are “lightsabers” to him.

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We now have an official big kid room, complete with bunk beds. I don’t know that we (mom and dad) were quite ready, but a friend’s neighbor was rearranging her own house and gave us a good deal on top quality beds that match the room perfectly.

Melina’s initial reaction: “That Kai’s bed” (points to bottom bunk) “That Mina’s bed” (points to top). Um, sorry babe. She quickly got over it and loves her large cave, full of her favorite stuffed animals and dolls.

Kai’s initial reaction: “Awesome!” (climbs up and starts bouncing around on top bunk). Us: “Kai, here’s the rule: You’re only allowed on the top bunk at night, when you’re sleeping. You’ll have to play down here.” Kai: “Whaaaat?” He’s a little less thrilled now.

Sleeping in it: The first night, Meli asked to go back into her crib after trying to settle down for an hour. But she’s now made it three full nights in the bottom bunk, without so much as a peep. The problem comes in the morning, when she inevitably stumbles and bonks her head when climbing down in her super-groggy morning state. She’ll learn.

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Last Sunday we headed down to Capitola to spend the day with Grandma and Grandpa plus cousins Lucas and Noah and family. (The Hams were spending a few nights in a condo, but unfortunately we had to get back to work. Next year we’ll plan to stay a few nights.)

Though only one day, it was a glorious getaway. The weather was absolutely perfect, with a bright blue sky and light breeze. We got to sit on the beach and play in the sand during the early afternoon. A thick mass of stinky, fly-filled seaweed along the surf made water play a little daunting, but we did walk the kids up to watch the waves. Only Noah chose to dip his toes in.

Then we headed to our favorite ice cream spot on the corner of Capitola’s main drag. All three kids got mini cones w/ chocolate, and I tried yet another cinnamon variation: coconut cinnamon. YUM! We topped off the evening with pizza from Pizza My Heart and a little more play with Lucas and Noah, then jammied up the little girl and drove back to Berkeley. As a side note, Melina had huge potty success: Dry panties and a dry swimsuit (sans swim diaper) all weekend long!

The cousins all had fun together. Just watch all the silliness.

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