~monaloca~

Phew! Four months, really? It went by fast with Melina but this feels like super-speed.

Our littlest girl is up to all sorts of new stuff, including wanting to sit up (she does ok for about 10 minutes in a Bumbo chair or against a boppy), smiling at herself in the mirror, grabbing at things and batting at the animals on her play gym (and her favorite toy, the winkel), laughing up a storm (especially when Kai or Melina is involved), and rolling over from belly to back. She can also get to her side from her back depending on her mood and motivation. She’s started to show a small interest in our own meal times, but hasn’t yet started grabbing for our food.

She can be quite loud. She loves expressing her desire to have other people around, and lets us know immediately that she doesn’t like to be left alone in a room, even for just a couple minutes. She squawks loudly when she’s hungry or wants attention or comfort, and I have no doubt she’ll do just fine holding her own with two older siblings. On the flip side, when she’s content she’s pretty quiet and chill, to such an extent that with three kids we sometimes almost forget she’s there. (Sorry, monkey!)

Nalani is on her second cold of her little life – chalk it up to two older siblings and an exceptionally cold summer. This time she also has a cough and we swear it sounds like she’s losing her voice. Since she doesn’t seem to be in pain, it’s a bit funny to hear that scratchy sound in a four-month-old’s coos.

The other big question with four-month-olds is always “sleeping through the night yet?” Well, she still does at least one five-hour stint each night. But where she used to go til 2 or even 3am then wake every hour or so after that, she’s now switched to waking earlier (around midnight or 1am) for a snack, but then will sleep again until 5 or 6am. Or sometimes 4. Ugh. Then again the other night she slept clear through from 7:30pm til nearly 6am. Daddy shoved a binky in her mouth when she woke up around 3, and that was all she needed. So we know she’s capable.

We still spend our days going on morning walks to Elmwood Cafe after dropping Melina at preschool, then running errands, walking around our own ‘hood and visiting friends, and doing baby yoga once a week with Anna and baby Maya. Next week I start working two days/week. Since it’s only two days I feel okay with the change, maybe even ready for it. Nalani has had a couple trial stints at daycare, where the report was “She ate great, she slept, and she smiled a lot.” Outside of being with us, we couldn’t ask for more in the care of our little four-month-old.

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Last week we headed to Capitola for our annual Weiss family beach vacation, a tradition we started when Melina was Nalani’s age. Highlights included daily sand play (Kai), a mosaic mermaid on our walk to the beach (Melina), Grandpa/Grandma/Auntie Stacie holding time (Nalani), daily ice cream, a trip to the candy store, and of course plenty of cousin play with Lucas and Noah.

We also celebrated baby Nalani with a “sprinkle” hosted by the Hindmarshes and a reunion of our two families. It was great fun to see Jess and her family for the first time in two years (yikes!). Then on Tuesday evening we headed to the boardwalk for 1907 night: all rides, hot dogs, and cotton candy just $1 a piece.

Melina had been looking forward to her first taste of cotton candy all afternoon, but was heartbroken when the pink fluff melted to near nothing in her hands before getting to her mouth, and was absolutely traumatized when I plopped a fresh piece right in and she discovered it didn’t taste anything like what she’d hoped. At least that’s what her cries told me she felt.

Lowlights included the two older kids and me fighting a cold the entire time, and Joey’s insane bout of sciatica. It was so bad one morning that Nalani and I had to take him to the ER in Santa Cruz while Kai and Melina held down the fort, so to speak, with their cousins.

Joey felt ridiculous walking through the door with a cup of coffee in his hand, and was more than disappointed when the only treatment given was a terse “you need to stretch and excercise through the pain” from the doc. “Can’t you give me a shot?” Nope. Luckily the doc was right and stretching is helping, just not as quickly as Joey would like.

Needless to say, traveling with three young kids was not exactly a vacation in the relaxing sense of the word. But the kids had a blast, I loved hanging out with my “whole family” as Melina would say, and we all got a kick out of a change of scenery for five days. I’m sure our tradition will become more relaxing as the kids get older… right?

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Right on queue at three months, Nalani rolled from belly to back for the first time the other day. And then she did it a few more times, right in a row, just for kicks. I got several rolls on video but when I set her on her belly that evening to show off for Daddy and Melina, she just looked up at them, smiled, then put her head down as if to say “Sorry, I’m too tired to perform.”

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This afternoon we made chocolate chip cookies for Joey’s birthday. Joey set Nalani on the counter to watch and said, “Are you the boss?” She started busting up. Her laughs are a little hard to hear over her brother and sister’s goading, but they’re definitely full-body bursts of happiness.

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When Melina heard Nalani had her three-month birthday today, she wanted to give her a present to open and cake with candles to blow out. (She would do the opening and blowing out, of course, being the three-YEAR-old!) We didn’t celebrate in such grand style, but have been celebrating the small moments for the past week or two, when our baby girl seemed to fully wake up to the world.

She now smiles incessantly when watching someone else’s face (it’s her favorite passtime) and loves to talk to us, make razzing sounds, and blow bubbles. Just today under her play gym she seemed to notice for the first time that she could bat at something with her own fists. I don’t think she gets the intention yet, but it was fun to watch her notice cause-and-effect right before her eyes.

Nalani has had full neck control for a week or two now, and she’s started rolling to her side from either her belly or her back – but hasn’t made it all the way over in either direction quite yet. She’s started rejecting mama’s sling and even facing inward in the Baby Bjorn unless she’s ready for a nap. She loves facing outward, though, and has started taking in the rustling leaves and passing world as we go on daily walks with her stroller.

She sleeps “through the night” consistently by the technical definition of five straight hours. But sometimes those hours are from 7:30pm to 12:30am. More often she’ll sleep til 2am, and sometimes all the way til 4 or 5am without waking. Looking forward to that becoming the norm.

My favorite Nalani development of the last month is her absolute insistence on telling us when she’s ready for jammies, swaddle, milk, and bed each night. She literally requests bedtime with her squawks around 7pm, so consistently we have to laugh. While I hate to compare, it’s a sharp contrast to Melina, who eases into each night (or more recently, fights bedtime til she’s good and wound down). I don’t think we’re going to be able to push Nalani with evenings out and about the way we’ve been able to push Melina. But on the plus side I’m guessing we’ll know exactly what she needs, and when.

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Last month we had another family photo shoot, this one to highlight our newest family member. By the end Kai made it very clear that he wouldn’t be interested in doing another shoot anytime in the near future, but he and Melina were both good enough sports to get some great shots.

For her part, Nalani went through a fairly normal infant cycle during the two hours Myron was with us. She started off a little fussy, hot, and hungry, then after I nursed her she fell asleep. By the end she was wide awake and all smiles. You can see the progression in the photos.

Of course we’re now three weeks out from the photo shoot and Nalani has woken up more completely to the world. She has full neck control and long spurts of awake time. Her favorite activity is to look at people’s faces, and we like to think she prefers mama and dada’s.

Kai has discovered the joy of reading with the “Captain Underpants” series and the Berkeley public library’s summer reading challenge. Whatever it takes to get him reading, I’ll take it! Melina is getting ready to move to the transition room at preschool, where potty-trained 3-year-olds get ready for a wee bit more learning structure.

She’s also starting to get a stronger grasp of her family structure, taking it at face value that sometimes Kai’s with us and sometimes he’s with Jen. The other day she got super excited when she found out “all our family” was going to be together after school. Then she said “But Jen won’t have all of her family.” True… but we’re still a complete family in our own way even when Kai’s not with us. Strange concept to take in for an adult let alone a three-year-old, but it’s important to feel complete no matter who’s physically in what house on any given night.

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Melina got to play hooky from preschool again today, this time to visit Children’s Fairyland with Grandma, Grandpa, Auntie Stacie, and cousins Lucas and Noah. “No daddies except for Grandpa” she reminded me on the way out the door. Everyone had a blast except for possibly Nalani, who would have been more content lying on a blanket and staring at people’s faces all morning. Sorry, little girl!

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Long before Nalani was born, our friends the Yamadas gave us a couple free passes to the SF Zoo. They expired at the end of June but with at least eight months to spare we figured we had plenty of time. As human nature usually dictates, we waited until the last minute to finally trek over the bridge and to the coastal, wind-blown corner of my favorite city.

Melina’s highlights from our visit included two ant eaters as big as her and a polar bear – neither of which we have at the Oakland Zoo – and the flamingos, probably because they’re pink. I always love to see penguins, also something we don’t have in Oakland.

Nalani slept through most of the outing. One day soon she’ll start to enjoy zoo visits, too!

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This month’s theme at Melina’s preschool is transportation, which seems all too appropriate given how much biking we’ve been doing. Mina got her first two-wheeler for her third birthday. It has no pedals and no training wheels, which is supposed to help her learn to balance. Look at the video to see how well she’s doing after just one week!

I’ve also started to pick her up from school one day a week on my bike, just like I did last summer. When I ask if she remembers she says, “I’m sorry Mama, I don’t remember.” No matter, it’s fun exercise for mama and fresh air for the little girl as we journey across town.

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This month is all about smiles… and more sleeping, eating, and spitting up like a fountain. Nalani’s favorite time to give big grins is on the changing table, probably because the distance to our own smiles is perfect for her to take them in. She’s also started to make little conversational cooing sounds. Daddy claims she said “I love you” (as in “i-la” followed by “ooo”) and Kai swears she said his name. I believe that one, since she makes the “i” sound quite a bit.

I recently re-read that the technical definition of “sleeping through the night” is five hours. In that case, Nalani has been sleeping through the night consistently since five or six weeks old. Of course those hours – which are often up to six or seven – typically fall from around 8 or 9pm til 2 or 3am, and then she wakes up to eat every two hours til the sun comes up.

But she did sleep nine (yes, nine!) hours straight once, the night after Melina’s bday party. And at two months she’s definitely settled into a routine where she goes to bed not long after the other kids and wakes up for some active time around 7 or 8am, just like Melina. Fingers crossed we don’t have another super early bird like Kai, since the rest of us like to sleep in.

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