~monaloca~

Joey and I finally had kids-free getaway weekend! It’s only the second since Melina was born, and will likely be the last for at least another year, til I’m ready to leave baby with my parents overnight. But it was fantastic.

We dropped Melina off at my parents’ on our way down to Carmel. She was somewhat prepped for what was going to happen, having known for a few days we were going to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, and even having understood from our conversations with Kai that Mommy and Daddy were going “to the beach” and without them. (It’s always questionable how much to reveal directly to a two-year-old.)

But earlier that morning she’d told me “I’m going to GrampaGrammas with Kai Kai” and I’d had to say “Ummm, noooo… Kai’s going to Jen’s. And you’re going to Grandma and Grandpa’s.” Her face dropped and she screamed “No! I don’t want to go!” Luckily, she was fine when we got there, and did great all weekend.

For our part, Joey and I stayed at a little inn right in Carmel, dined in style for two nights and two mornings in a row, and lucked out with fantastic, sunny weather smack in the middle of weeks of rain. Besides strolling in and out of fancy village shops, we took in a few new sites. Point Lobos was the perfect spot for light trail walking along the coast, and in driving out to Carmel Valley I got to live vicariously through Joey while he did a bit of wine tasting. He claimed it wasn’t that good, but I wouldn’t have minded joining him. Something for the next getaway!

No Comments »

Melina’s got some new obsessions these days, and is also getting ready for her little sister to arrive in three short months.

Since right around Halloween, she’s taken ownership of the color pink. She feels any pink bowl, item of clothing, piece of paper, pen, or toy she finds must be hers. It took me 10 minutes at preschool the other day to convince her that the pink Dora umbrella in the basket was someone else’s, and not hers to take. (”But I *like* it, mama. But I WANT it!”) She also prefers dresses and tights over pants, though I was able to talk her out of dresses in the rain until a classmate’s mom showed up in a skirt one day. (”But Maya’s mommy wears a dress in the rain.” Yes, she does.)

Melina is also seeing the reality of my growing belly (er, baby) and has taken ownership of her, too. (”That MY baby!”) Last week we asked what she wanted to name the baby. Without missing a beat, she said “Pink,” and since then has been calling her little sister “Baby Pink.” She’s already told me that the baby will wear a pink shirt and pink hat, and asks repeatedly if the baby herself will be pink. Well, kinda…

She’s also suddenly attached to only one of her six security blankies (which she still calls batchies). Amazingly, it’s not pink but dark brown and green. Melina, though, calls it “purple batchie.” Our super sleeper has finally succumbed to her playful stubbornness (I blame it on the Rapoza side!) It takes us at least 45 minutes to get her down for bed each night. She especially likes to “play” with Daddy, getting out of bed repeatedly, and when he chooses to ignore her, following him around the house saying “Daddy, I outta bed. Daddy, I outta bed…” until he finally pays attention and carries her back to bed. She’s also getting up earlier (sometimes before 7) but mostly because she needs to pee. That’s the odd downside of potty training.

Finally, our little girl has started real swim lessons! Ok, it’s still mama-and-me swimming, at least til she hits age three. She hadn’t been in a pool since summer, so I was a little worried she’d need a few weeks to warm up her comfort level. Nope, not my girl. At the end of the very first lesson I turned to grab our towels, and when I looked back to where Meli had been standing she was back IN the pool, holding diligently to the edge. When I said she needed to wait for me to tell her it was ok to get in she only said “Mama, I wanna go swimming again.” At our last lesson the instructor asked us to practice using a trigger word for her to jump in the pool so she wouldn’t whenever she felt like it. So along with bubbles and kicking, we’ve been practicing “1, 2, 3, GO!”

(Swim pictures are a little blurry cuz Kai had to take them through glass.)

No Comments »

We had a pretty mellow week off between Christmas and New Years. Joey had to work most of it, so Melina and I spent our time on play dates, triking around the neighborhood, and heading to story time at the library. On New Year’s Eve we had dinner with Raycer and his family, then headed to a grown-up house party near our home. Melina lasted til almost 11pm but was begging for her bed by then. What a rare thing! We also checked out the Lawrence Hall of Science last weekend and stopped for ice cream in Elmwood on the way home. Melina got strawberry pink to match the pink in her dress.

Big sister moments: Melina’s expectedly ambivalent about Mama’s belly growing with her little sis. She still says “hi” to baby and gives her kisses more often than anyone. But she’s now taken one of Grandma and Grandpa’s baby gifts as her own. She found the fleece ducky sleepsack in the baby’s drawer and first wanted to use it on her dolls, then decided “it’s soft, it has duckies” and carries it around like a second security blanket. She sometimes takes it to bed with her, and other times she lifts up my shirt and places it on my bare belly saying “baby’s cold.” What a caring big sis! We’ll see what happens when baby arrives.

No Comments »

Happy new year from the Rapozas! Our friend Roy took some holiday photos of our family at the Berkeley Rose Garden, just before sunset, last November. If you look closely at Melina’s hands, she’s holding two small lollipops used to reward the kids for cooperating during the shoot.

Melina still wasn’t too keen on smiling for the camera, but at least she did better than with her school pictures. She was really excited about those until she saw the photographer and the whole setup. She even watched a bunch of her classmates laughing as the camera snapped, but refused to to participate until a teacher sat with her. We ended up with a single pose: A big frown. I had to purchase one small sheet for comic value alone!

No Comments »

Melina and Lucas at Weiss Christmas dinner…

No Comments »

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!

No Comments »

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!”

No Comments »

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.

No Comments »

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.

No Comments »

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!

No Comments »