Monaloca

I haven’t done an overall Melina update since her birthday in June. We’ve been busy, and monthly updates started to seem like overkill. But our little girl’s as active and full of personality as ever – and still changing quite a bit – so here goes.

Since mid-June….

When we ask Melina to do something she doesn’t want to, instead of screaming or even stating a firm “no,” she politely says “No thank you (mama/dada).” “Melina, please clean up your toys.” “No thank you, Mama.”

Her favorite phrase is “What doing?” or “What doing (mama, dada)?” She’s also started asking “why?” fairly consistently. Kai never went through this phase, though with him I distinctly remember a “then what?” phase around age three.

She’s developed a minor princess leaning. She sometimes insists on wearing “big dress,” a birthday gift from Grandma and Grandpa Weiss, and loves the book “Pinkalicious,” a birthday gift from Auntie Cyndie and Uncle Rich. Daddy bought her “Goldilicious,” which isn’t nearly as good in our minds but features a unicorn, so Meli loves it.

Since mid-July….

She’s learned how to whisper and loves to practice, with the added flair of hand gestures a la Kai, whenever the mood strikes. She also loves walking backwards. Not quite sure when she picked this up (maybe it’s been months?) but recently she’s been having fun with it.

Melina made her first preschool friend! Juliette, a three-year-old little blond girl. She also talks about Sophia and “Banana” who I finally figured out is Hannah. She seems to like hanging out with the “big kid” three-year-olds at school, and also loves playing with three-year-old Kendall down the street and four-year-old Zoe Zarling (whose little sister Melina dubbed “Other Zoe.” Poor little sis!) She asks to play with cousins Noah and Lucas frequently. Luckily, we’ll see them in Capitola next weekend.

More recently…

Melina can take off her own clothes and diaper but sometimes gets stuck on her shirt. She can also get her pants back on mostly by herself, but often asks for help getting her legs in two separate holes. Of course half the time they end up backwards. She still likes to do absolutely everything herself, including grabbing onto monkey bars that are two feet out of reach. She’ll usually ask for help on her own when she realizes she needs it, but will throw a fit if we offer before she asks.

For the past two months, she’s been asking to use the potty at home and about town at least three times a day. Until recently she refused to use the pint-sized potty at school (ironic – it’s just her size!) but was inspired when some fellow two-year-olds took to it. She now wears her beloved Elmo panties to school and last week came home dry four out of five days. Not quite sure what led to multiple “uh ohs” on Thursday. She’s also been doing pretty well at home and around town, though is most definitely still “in training.” I’m thrilled and slightly surprised. Kai was 3 1/4 by the time he made it this far, not 2 1/4. Yay Jelly Bean!

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We’ve had a super warm spell in Berkeley this past week. On Wednesday my childhood friend, Sarah, and her gang were driving from Portland for a visit with us, so I picked up Melina early from preschool. All the kids were suited up for water play when I arrived. I don’t think Melina wanted to leave!

It turned out Sarah and the girls were running late, so when we got home I pulled a storage bin from the basement and Melina and I filled it with water and toys. Perfect for two-year-old play.

She played with and sat in the tub for over an hour, and was still sitting in it when Sarah, Kari, Linnea, and Joy arrived. We pried her out with the promise of Zachary’s pizza, and the arrival of bro bro Kai from summer camp.

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“Who do you want to put you to bed, Mommy or Daddy?” we often ask Melina after the last good-night story. Inevitably she’ll say, “Mina,” herself. When she started trying to climb into her crib on her own, we asked if she wanted the railing off. (Funny, most kids end up in a toddler bed because they start climbing out, not in.)

Last night Joey, screwdriver in hand, took action. Bye bye crib, hello toddler bed! Melina was ecstatic. After her last story on the couch, we said, “Ok Melina, give Mama and Dada a kiss good night then put yourself to bed.” As she walked towards her room, Joey yelled from the couch, “Don’t forget to close your door.”

Seconds later we heard the door shut, then not a single peep. I was insanely curious but knew if we went to check the whole thing would backfire. She didn’t sing one song, barely said one word, and didn’t get out of bed til we walked in the next morning. She did call out twice in the middle of the night – once because her water was “broken” (she was tilting the straw cup) then later because “pillow fall down” and she wanted me to pick it up. I don’t think she realized she could have gotten out to get it herself! I’m sure it won’t take long.

(8/10 update: Railing’s back up. Melina refused to nap in her big girl bed – or anywhere – yesterday. After an hour-long power struggle Joey said “If you don’t go to sleep I’ll put the railing back up.” “Ok Daddy.” Railing up! We’ll try again later.)

On a related big-girl note, take a look at Melina brushing her teeth with extended commentary.

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Last weekend we watched our neighbor friend Max while his parents went to a birthday party. Max and Meli, nearly the same age, are always excited to see each other, but like most early two-year-olds, play alongside instead of with each other. In fact both are so independent that they entertained themselves, with only minimal help on our parts, for nearly four hours. At one point I looked at Joey and said, “These two two-year-olds are easier than one six-year-old Kai!”

While we love Mr. Intensity to pieces, it’s fun to see Ms. Smiles ease her way through life, even at such an early age. Of course she’s also full of energy, boundless curiosity, and a distinct mischievous side. Her teacher Ms. L says she’s a textbook two-year-old, testing just enough to find hard limits then (most the time) moving on to the next thing.

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We returned from our long-awaited Alaskan cruise on Friday. We traveled with my parents, my sister and her family, and some long-time family friends through perfect weather (sunny nearly the whole time!) and some crazy kid (and adult) moments.

We took loads of photos. I’ve posted some here, but be sure to see our full album of favorites.

Our Favorite Trip Memories, Verbatim

Kai – The plane ride. (Really?? It took us over 12 hours to get from San Jose to the ship in Seward!) The “moving” dining room. Getting dessert every day. (Big surprise.) Spending time with my family. (Yay!) Oh, and the glacier was pretty cool.

Melina – Big ship. Big ice. Play. Cows. (Me: But we didn’t see cows in Alaska.) Oh, no cows. (Pause) Why not?

Joey & Me – (It was so cool we’d be hard-pressed to find a different highlight.) Kayaking near Hoonah alongside a baby humpback that literally played peek-a-boo with our whole kayaking crew for over 90 minutes. At one point he slapped his flippers on the water, over and over, for a good 10 minutes. Even our Hoonah-native guide said she’d never seen such a show.

He also got as close as 50ish feet from us and burst his huge open mouth out of the water, straight towards the sky. Watch the video. (And yes, we were a little nervous that he might accidently hit one of the kayaks.) Another whale moment: A few days later we, along with my sis, German, and Melina, saw 2 orcas jumping gracefully in the waters just below our balcony. Our parents were jealous.

Some Funny Moments

After we put the kids to bed in our teensy cabin each night, Joey and I would usually hop the balcony railing to my parents’ room, where we hung out with Stacie and German, and usually a bottle of wine and extra desserts. On one of the first nights, Kai saw us head out to the balcony after he was in bed. 30 minutes later he decided he “needed” something from us so went outside, and we weren’t there! We heard him crying in the hallway from two doors down. As usual, he hadn’t listened when we said where we were going. He thought we’d fallen overboard.

One night our parents offered to keep an ear on the kids so all four of us could go “out” on the ship. After a few cocktails Joey and I headed back to the room, where the kids were sound asleep. But when Joey leaned down to cover Melina with a blanket, he saw her bare naked butt staring up at him. Apparently she’d decided it was a bottoms-free night. We did wake her to diaper and jammie her up again. She just looked at us blankly and didn’t say a word.

All in All

Alaska itself was fantastic. Spending time with my extended family and the Hindmarshes – and getting to see Uncle Bob for a full day in Juneau – was loads of fun. Traveling with two little kids in such tight quarters, and without a ton to entertain them (especially Melina, who didn’t have a little ocean camp she could attend) was tough.

And cruising wasn’t really for us. It’s probably one of the most reasonable ways to see Alaska, which has a ridiculous amount of land but very little road system. But I felt like we spent the majority of our vacation on a big floating hotel (because, well, we did) and not immersing ourselves in and amongst the land and people we had come to visit.

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A guest post by Joey

We had a wonderful fourth of July, marking the 233rd year of this wonderful country. Kai went camping with his mom so the three of us were on our own. Melina met her 2-year old friend Lily at Memorial Park in Albany where other patriotic citizens partook in bouncy castles, rock climbing walls, Polish sausages (sorry hot dogs), and pony rides.

Melina, excited to ride the ponies, waited patiently in line for about twenty minutes, only to change her mind when daddy tried to hoist her onto the dwarven beast. However, that didn’t stop Lily from enjoying several, 1-mile per hour, 360-degree travel. For some reason, the pony-keeper wouldn’t allow me or James to ride the ponies; something about weight restrictions. Maybe next year?

Later that day, after Melina met with the sandman for her day-time slumber, we treked back to Albany to Lily’s house for a good ‘ole American fourth of July BBQ party. James and Tracy get gold medals for their BBQ-hosting skills. James smoked a pork-butt and it was ono (delicious in Hawaiian)! Very reminiscent of Hawaiian-style kalua pig that made me a wee bit homesick. For libations he had about four different homemade beers including a black IPA, which tasted like a bitter Guinness, only better.

The kids played, the adults talked, and America is still awesome. We hope your fourth was as awesome as ours.

Connor, Ron, and Meghan, we missed you guys.

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The first half of 2009 has been absolutely ridiculous for our family. It started with Joey’s job loss on his first day back in January, and ended with my pregnancy loss just last week. In between we had an insanely expensive pipe break under our house (it was made in 1914 of terra cotta – tree roots finally broke through); a jumbled re-fi (lucky for us, it ended up working to our advantage); Joey’s four-month stint working for a narcissistic madman and his ensuing second job hunt in the worst economy in two generations; uncertainty about my own job; intermittent violence in our neighborhood (at least it’s brought us closer to our neighbors); and lots of little everyday craziness to fill in the gaps.

I’m still dealing with emotions surrounding the miscarriage, and those are either for another post or another medium altogether. But I can guarantee this: The feelings would be infinitely harder to deal with if Joey and I hadn’t both found job stability (and dare I say happiness) in the last month. I realized this over-arching need for security – of both finances and routine – when talking to a friend right around the time our pipe broke and the dishwasher failed. Things break, especially when you own a home. It’s an inconvenience on many levels, but you deal and move on. When you don’t have day-to-day job security (or are miserable in the one you have, or at worst don’t have one at all) everything feels exponentially worse.

Overall, things have started to go right for us again. It’s a trend I hope to continue. New (good) jobs, a trip to Alaska in just one week, happiness at preschool, and a more solid conviction that we do want to expand our family (and as a result, likely our house too). To a certain extent, all this is to the future to decide. As long as we’ve found our grounding again, we’ll be fine. And we have. The timing couldn’t be more perfect: The second half of 2009 begins today. Because I’m a firm believer in new beginnings and am slightly superstitious with marks on a calendar, I hereby declare this a special day.

Happy new half-year, to all of us who need to start anew.

The photos have little to do directly with this post, other than our children, bio and step, are always new beginnings. One relates a little more directly to special starts. Melina recently received a late birthday present from Linnea and Joy: the dresses they wore as flower girls at our wedding. Melina felt that instead of pink cowboy boots or sparkle shoes (which Joy and Linnea used to accessorize on the big day) she needed Mama’s new hiking hat. Just look at my lovely little girl.

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Melina hates having anyone mess with her hair. (This is why she has bangs.) But I put my own hair in pigtails over the weekend, and this prompted her to want the same. Obviously I could use a little practice making them straight on my little girl, though she didn’t mind. Kai decided it would be fun to add some color to Meli’s new ‘do – and to his own hair. Crazy kids!

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Graduations. Things are officially on the move at the Rapoza household. Last Friday Kai celebrated his last day of kindergarten and Melina her last day of baby/toddler daycare. Bright and early Saturday morning we packed ourselves and loads of snacks into the car for a six-hour trek down to South Pasadena to visit with Auntie Cyndie and Uncle Rich, and later that evening drove another hour to Rancho Cucamonga to celebrate cousin Kyle’s high school graduation.

So Cal. We stayed down south for three nights and also got to catch up with Grandma Rapoza, visiting from Hawaii and celebrating her 80th birthday. We were even able to work in a visit with my cousins Joel and Dianna and their three kids. My favorite Kai moment of the trip: As we left their house Kai asked, “You’ll remember where they live, right?” Sure, why? “I want to have another playdate with them.” He’d conveniently forgotten the six-hour car ride the previous day.

Potty Time! Big Melina moment on the trip: She used the big potty at Auntie Cyndie’s house! She’d asked to use the one at Joel’s earlier in the day, then asked again right after bath. This time it actually worked. She was thrilled and Kai, watching along with Joey and me, couldn’t stop clapping and screaming with pride for his little sis. She’s now asked consistently to use the potty every evening, and has been largely successful. I’m not holding my breath yet, but what a great milestone in the making!

New Job. Things didn’t stop with our return to Berkeley. Joey started a new job mid-week, and so far loves it. (Ok, who doesn’t love a first week? Hoping it sticks!) Melina also officially started at Kai’s old preschool. On her first day I’d planned to pick her up right before nap, but her teacher said to call at lunchtime to see how she was doing. I did, and she was fine, so I let her stay through her nap. (According to Miss L she talked herself to sleep saying “Mama come soon, Mama come soon…” Oooooh my baby! I did come soon after!)

New School. When I picked her up mid-afternoon the teachers couldn’t believe how well she did, and Miss C had a funny story to tell: Apparently a little boy grabbed a toy from her hand while she was playing. Melina didn’t scream or cry or bop the little kid on the head. She firmly grabbed the toy back, gave him an ever-so-slight nudge on the shoulder along with a look of death, like “don’t you DARE do that again, this was MINE!” and then walked away. Miss C’s commentary? “That’s my kinda girl!”

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A week after her second birthday, what’s our little girl up to?

Over the past month, Melina has burst into song. She sings herself to sleep most nights (and sometimes tries to pull in Kai but this is the only time he completely ignores her), and often sings as she plays, bathes, or rides in the car. Her favorites refrains include: “baa baa black sheep,” (she gets through the whole song on her own) “ee-i-ee-i-o,” “happy… to you,” “little bunny foo foo,” “ashes, ashes, all fall DOWN!,” “itty bitty spider,” and “twinkle twinkle star.”

After I weaned Melina, I would recite “Goodnight Moon” as I put her down to sleep each night. Now she’s asking for something different: “Maisy Bus!” I sing several verses of “The Wheels on the Bus…” ending with “The mama on the bus says good night Melina.” Kai’s also learned to join in, so the Jelly Bean gets a whole chorus. For a while Joey had no idea we did this, and now knows why Meli threw a fit on the rare occasions Daddy put her to bed. He’d simply put her down with a quick “Good night” – but has now changed his ways.

Melina’s favorite toys are anything she can put into and pull out of containers and move around the house, in a purse, bag, wagon, or mini-stroller. She also loves pocket-sized items, especially Burt’s Bees apricot oil in a little plastic bottle and a small pink penguin she got from the doc’s office. Her favorite birthday “present” from Grandma and Grandpa is a little bear full of honey to use on her yogurt. She carries “honey bear” all over the house, and puts him to sleep in the little plastic baggie he arrived in. Needless to say, we haven’t broken the honey seal just yet.

Melina still loves animals (stuffed and real) and putting on shows, with or without Kai. About a month ago she had fun naming her animals in front of the video camera. She also loves puzzles, stringing beads, opening and closing drawers a hundred times over, and trying to figure things out. She’s obsessed with buckles, on her booster seat, car seat, and stroller, plus my backpack and any others she can find. She’s really good at buckling them but doesn’t have the strength (yet) to open one.

I’ve been picking Melina up from daycare on my bike once a week and she usually loves it. Every so often she’ll get antsy and ask for “hat off,” but if I help her look for dogs or cats on the street she gets distracted right away. If she sees one and I ask her what color it is, she now says “white!” instead of “blue.” It’s like she has a single favorite color word each month. I wonder when she’ll start catching on for real. Maybe in preschool?

That’s our next big transition: Melina starts at Kai’s old preschool later this month! I’ve been taking her for weekly visits since mid-May and she’s already a fan of Miss Lisa, the slide, and the great new garden the kids helped plant. But I think her favorite things are the tot-sized sinks throughout the school. A whole world of water within her easy grasp!

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