Monaloca

It may sound cliche, but three-year-olds say the funniest things. They’re fully verbal yet have a tenuous grasp on reality, time, and the the world beyond what’s in front of them at any given moment. I love watching Melina’s sense of logic unfold as she tries to make sense of her environment.

Not long after she turned three, I started posting some of her funny sayings on Facebook. And then I realized Facebook posts are ephemeral, and I should probably keep these somewhere a little more permanent.

So here we go, Melina at her most Melina for the past seven months, all copied directly from my Facebook status updates.

3.14.11
Melina caught bragging to her classmates: “My baby stands up all by herself!”

Winter 2011
Melina counts to 20 and beyond with ease. But she has a conscious aversion to the number 13, and instead deliberately counts “11, 12, 14, 14, 15…”

2.16.11
Dinnertime lesson in logic and humanity from my preschooler…
Kai: My mom’s neighbor is crazy. She doesn’t know what year it is and knocks and the wrong people’s doors.
Melina: What’s her name?
Kai: (thoughtful pause) I have no idea.
Melina: Why don’t you ask her?

1.15.11
Our latest existential conversation…
M: Where was I [when you were a kid]?
Me: You weren’t born yet.
M: But where are babies before they’re born?
Me: They don’t exist yet.
M: But where *are* they?
Me: Ummmm….

1.8.11
Melina on starting kid-only swim lessons tomorrow: “Who’s going to hold me up? I don’t want to be a mermaid under the sea.”

1.4.11
M: Mama, when can I take Nalani for show and tell?
Me: How about on Monday?
M: Ok. But she’s gonna cry when I put her in my cubby.

1.6.10
We decked our house out with Christmas over the weekend. Now the first thing Melina asks each morning: “Is it Christmas yet?”

(I then explained the difference between Christmas and Christmas time. When Daddy said it was Christmas she promptly corrected him: NO, Daddy, it’s Christmas TIME)

11.25.10
Kai (7): I’m thankful for the earth and two families.
Melina (3): I’m thankful for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and turkey.

11.14.10
Melina two days ago: “Who made me? Who made my fingers, my toes?”
Me: “Mommy and Daddy made you.”
Melina last night: “Why are you my mommy and daddy?”
Can’t wait to see where this leads and when.

10.15.10
Melina, our little fairy princess, had decided to be a pig for Halloween “because piggies are pink and I like pink.”

10.12.10
Joey: Oh shit.
Melina (3): Daddy, don’t say shit.

9.14.10
Melina is learning to write her name one letter at a time. Appropriately, she’s now at “ME”

8.18.10
All three kids are asleep in their single shared room for the first time. I wonder how long it’ll last.
(And ironically we made an offer on our new bigger house less than a week later! Offer accepted 8.23.10.)

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The girls and I had a play group outing to Totland the other day. Nalani was thrilled to be able to join the fun, and has moved far beyond swings and sand when visiting the park!

(If you watch closely you’ll catch Melina’s cameo.)

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My trailblazing stepson turned eight last week. I say trailblazing because as the oldest child in our house he truly is blazing the trail for his younger sisters. Kai being the high-energy, highly-interactive, and dare I say high-maintenance kid that he is, so far he’s cleared a wide path for his siblings to follow. He keeps us on our toes, and also keeps giving us new occasion to look for fun activities that entertain us all.

For his party celebration Kai chose to take his friends to one of my own favorite kid-friendly East Bay spots: Fenton’s Ice Creamery. His party reminded me a little of one of my own childhood birthdays at Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor. It was Kai’s first drop-off party, so his four parents had watch our own four kids plus seven of Kai’s friends.

Kai, Mr. Social, did a fantastic job hosting and helping us keep the party moving, not to mention making sure all his guests had as great a time as he did. Hooray for Kai, and here’s to a great year!

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Last night, Nalani climbed our short flight of stairs between the family room and kitchen in a matter of 60 seconds. Both Joey’s and my backs were turned. She’d never come close to climbing them before so I was shocked when I turned around while doing dishes and there she was!

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Move. When I picked up Melina from preschool today I overheard her bragging to her classmates: “My baby stands up all by herself!” And it’s true: Just this past weekend Nalani figured out how to let go and stand upright – proud, surprised smile on her face – for up to 10 seconds. (Yes, I’ve counted!)

She’s also quite adept at walking while pushing her little walking toy from Grandma and Grandpa. Or pushing anything else that’s the right height and will move – the kitchen barstools and her toddler play table, to name two. She is cruising everywhere, moves easily between pieces of furniture while standing, and has gotten quite fast. Any bets on when she starts walking?

Play. Our little buckaroo is fast becoming a toddler. Melina is excited for the day she graduates to the Waddler room at daycare because then she gets a cubby. Already, big sis is enjoying spending more active playtime with little sis, though tea parties usually end with Nalani sitting in the middle next the the tea pot, gumming a saucer.

For her part, Nalani loves blocks, her play kitchen, big wooden puzzle pieces, and yes, the wooden crate full of teacups and saucers. She loves swinging at the park and pulling toys off the shelves (and kleenex from the box) in her sister’s room at home. She also loves books, sometimes for crumpling but sometimes for looking at the pictures and hearing the stories. Today I caught her lifting the flap on one of the pages of a board book we read often. I think she’s catching on!

Drink. Turns out our little girl was water deprived for months. I bought her not one but two of her very own sippy cups before Christmas. She never took to either, and would only drink little sips from a big-girl cup. Finally, just a few weeks ago, Joey and I decided she needed to be better hydrated so filled a baby bottle with water. She gulped down four ounces in a single sitting, perhaps even a single breath. Since that day she motions for water all the time, and has even taken to one of Melina’s old sippy cups. But she still doesn’t like the ones bought especially for her.

Breath + Babble. Our poor monkey still has the same chest congestion and cough she’s had since three months. Her regular doc, a pulmonary specialist, and an osteopath have all had little luck clearing it up and it appears simply to be one cold on top of another, for eight months straight. At this point her daycare teacher seems to have the most logical anecdote: Just give it time. Nalani won’t know what to do the day she’s finally congestion-free!

Nalani continues to babble up a storm and seems to be trying to say things. The most recognizable is “hi da” around dada (but sometimes around mama, too). She also does a giddy banana dance for her favorite food and waves to people as they’re coming and going. Best of all, our baby is full of smiles and overall is one super content little girl. Here’s to hoping it keeps up through toddlerhood!

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Here’s what our littlest girl has been up to the past month:

Move. Nalani loves to stand. She pulls up on just about anything – including a lightweight barstool in our kitchen that toppled over last week when Mama wasn’t looking. The barstool landed upside-down and Nalani flat on her back, screaming. Luckily neither one is any worse for wear.

She started cruising the smaller tables at daycare several weeks ago, and our coffee table at home in the past week. She takes small, cautious steps and usually only in the direction of an object (like the remote) she wants.

She’s been a pro crawler for a while, and has gotten curious (and fast) enough for us to put baby gates at the bottom and top of the big flight of stairs. We haven’t yet figured out how best to babyproof the three steps between the kitchen and family room, or even if we really need to.

Eat. Nalani’s big development of the month: She can feed herself finger food! Favorites include turkey and salmon (we have another protein girl) and bananas. She also enjoys pita bread, sliced pear, beans, noodles, and best of all, pizza.

Sleep. Nalani is now a pro night sleeper. Well, except when she’s not. For the past few months she’ll do a full 12-13 hour stretch at night (from around 7:30pm to 8am) over half the nights of the week. But then other nights she wakes up starving at either midnight or 4am, or every so often both.

We’re still thrilled that the majority of nights give all of us real sleep. The flip side is she still doesn’t nap well unless she’s in motion or in the Ergo worn by one of us. With the solid night sleeping, we don’t really care – yet.

Play + Interact. Nalani has reached the age where she needs solid sessions of play time. Or at the very least, floor and face time. She loves blocks (banging them together), books (pulling them off a shelf) and has recently found a passion for boxes of tissue (pulling sheets out one at a time, and most often putting them in her mouth).

She waves bye bye when she sees someone getting ready to leave, and her face lights up when she sees someone she knows. She seems to recognize the word “banana” and even says “ba” when she sees one. It may be standard baby babble — she also says things like “da,” “ma,” and “blar blar,” but never when a banana is near!

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Last weekend we headed to the snow with the Hams for some sledding and snow-person building. With all our wonderfully warm weather the snow was a bit too hard-packed and icy for snow angels and snow-creatures, but we all had a fabulous time sledding and saucering down a small hill at Yuba Gap.

Melina also decided it would be fun to collect snow things along the way – and couldn’t understand why she was having a tough time balancing while walking up an icy hill with an armload of snowballs, pinecones, and sticks. Luckily she left them on the sidelines when she jumped on the sled.

We attempted to have her leave everything behind for good when we left the woods but somehow ended up with a stray pinecone in our bag when we arrived home. Melina’s response? “We can take it back when we go back next year.”

Perfect!

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Move. Our little girl is crawling all over the place, but not very quickly – yet. Already a pragmatist, she’ll play with whatever’s closest and coolest looking, unless there’s something brand new across the room. Favorite no-no’s so far include my laptop and more specifically the power strip, any plastic bag or shiny new package we put in eyesight, and any book her sister happens to be reading, especially an exquisite Reinhart and Sabuda popup book on fairies.

She is also keenly interested in following us around, even when she’s not yet able to. The three steps between the family room (her main play area) and the kitchen are a particular challenge. So far she’s only able to crawl up to the bottom step and start banging on it, or try to pull up. Luckily it’s such an open space that she can keep eye contact with us from below, but usually that’s not enough and she’s pretty loud about how she wants to be one of the big kids upstairs.

Outside that single step, Nalani doesn’t exert a whole lot of effort trying to pull up on furniture. Instead, she tries to stand, all by herself, in the middle of the room. Better yet, she loves pulling up on a person – usually mama or dada – who’s seated next to her in the middle of a room. She also likes doing a sort of push-up excercise with the base of our desk chair, or on the rod iron of the desk itself. I’d feel much better if she was over at the coffee table and not surrounded by really hard metal, but hey, whatever works.

Schmooze. She loves watching bro and sis take a bath but doesn’t love getting in the tub with them. Could it be that they’re just a wee bit too crazy and loud? Her siblings still make her laugh more than anyone (include dada, shhhhh….) but for the past few weeks her face has really started to light up for mama. (I may be biased, but I swear there’s been a visible shift.) She crawls straight to me when I pick her up at daycare, and turns immediately to me whenever she hears my voice across a room. Yay Nalipop!

She’s been saying the mamamama and dadadadada sounds for over a month now. Twice now she’s looked at me and yelped out “MOM!” and “MAMA!” She also loves her friends at daycare, and her little buddy Maya (baby sis of Melina’s friend Emma). At our New Year’s Eve party, she literally tackled Maya over and over again for a good five minutes straight.

Play. As much as people, our littlest girl loves to play. And play, play, play. Whenever either of us drops her off at daycare, she immediately goes to work on whatever toy we set her in front of. And she barely looks up (ok, she usually doesn’t look up) when we say good-bye. She’s often equally engrossed at pick-up time.

At home, her absolute favorite toy right now is Melina’s wooden block puzzle, or a sheet of 16 colorful wooden cubes with partial pictures on each side. She loves to pull the pieces apart, put them in her mouth, bang them together, and knock over little towers we build with them. She also loves a small play kitchen Grandma Rapoza got Kai way back when he was a tot. She’s definitely grown bored of “old” toys and loves anything new best.

Eat. Nalani loves food, but not the same way Melina did from such an early age. She’s happy to be fed just about anything (especially bananas!) but still hasn’t figured out how to get finger food into her mouth. Her newest favorite is salmon. She can’t get enough. This officially makes salmon the one meal every single person in our family – even the cat – loves.

Chill. I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but Nalani is one super chill little girl. (This has us wondering about how she may shift in toddlerhood, or more likely, her teenage years.) Teachers at daycare call her a model baby – she only fusses when she’s hungry or tired. I know it’s true because she’s the same with us.

Funny thing is, she’s LOUD about these two things when they hit her, and they sometimes come on very suddenly, almost as if she’s so super chill that she doesn’t realize how tired or hungry she is until it’s really intense and feels too late. She’ll learn to read her own cues better soon enough. For now, we’re just happy that she’s sleeping so well at night, most often straight through from 7:30 to 5:30, then again til 8 after a quick snack. She’s clearly not an early morning person. Phew and yay for the rest of us non-early morning peeps.

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This’ll be great to show Melina when she goes through her vegetarian phase in about 15 years!

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Thanks to my sis and her family, we had a fabulously relaxing Christmas in Roseville. For the first year in many, we celebrated with extended family on real Christmas day, as opposed to whatever December weekend was most convenient for us all to get together, and us to have Kai for the whole spell. Celebrating on real Christmas this year meant we didn’t get Kai at all – but as we told Kai, that only means he should get to be with us for the whole time next.

Fun Christmas moments:

– Upside-down Christmas morn: All the grown-ups besides Joey and me were up, staring at stockings from Santa, a half hour before any of the kids! They needed Kai to be their 5:30am wake-up call. They still beat Nalani and me by long enough that Melina had already gotten to the bottom of her stocking… twice.

– Festive dressing down: Stacie had wanted us all to dress up for Christmas Eve dinner. It sounded great in theory, but when on Friday night we realized it would only be “us,” it suddenly seemed silly. Nalani dined in her jammies, and the rest of us in our comfy clothes. We almost dressed up for the open house on Christmas afternoon, then thought better of it yet again.

– Cousin love: Melina and Lucas LOVED playing together, and did so – making tea parties, running a train set, and just being silly – continuously almost our entire stay. Noah, for his part, adores baby Nalani. We’ll see if it keeps up as she grows, and also if that adoration translates to his toddler sister arriving from China this spring.

We’re now ready to move on to the new year, and will kick it off by hosting a pajama and breakfast food potluck (complete with mimosas and red wine) at our place for the moms group and families. We’re all looking forward to staying in but with the excitement of going out, and this time Kai will be with us!

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