When it rains

Well, it's been a heck of a last couple days. Despite my attempts to steer Rosa away from kids with colds in the last few weeks, Rosa got the sniffles, and then a full-blown super-snotty hacking cold last Friday. She slept fine the first night, but then the next two night woke up periodically with coughs and cries. Then in the wee hours of Monday morning, before her usual wake-up time, Jeff and I awoke to a terrifying thud, then screams. Rosa climbed out of her crib for the first time in the pitch dark, and landed on her cheek (as evidenced by the rug burn). She is tall for her age, and apparently, once they reach a certain height, they can get themselves out.

She was absolutely terrified and cried and screamed for a little while until she calmed down against my chest, and we both eventually fell back asleep. I asked friends what they've done to prevent their kids from climbing out of their cribs (I've read that this usually happens closer to age 2, and you transition them to a bed at that point, but I don't think Rosa is ready for a bed). Several said they put their kids in sleepsacks (like a long nightgown sewn shut at the bottom) and they can't hoist their leg up over the rail to get out. So we'll try this, but for now we just have pillows around the bottom of the crib. And every morning I wake up really early, anxiously listening to hear if Rosa is creaking around in her crib. So far, no repeat performances.

Yesterday we went to Rosa's 18-month check up. She's always been a tall thin girl. For the past few check-ups she's been about 40th percentile for weight and 85th or so for height. This time, the weight was about the same, but she's up to 95th for height. I keep telling her she'll have an awkward phase in middle school, but will love being tall once she's an adult!



Anyway, the doctor used to be fine with her weight, but the last two appointments he's been telling me I need to fatten her up. I try SO hard to get her to eat, while trying to keep eating fun and not a power struggle. Sigh. Keep trying I guess. Anyway, he says to try pudding and hummus (both are high calorie foods that kids usually like). Last time she ate a tiny bit of hummus, she had big pukes. I wasn't sure if the hummus was to blame. Today, influenced by the doc who didn't think there was anything in hummus that kids are commonly allergic to, I tried again. She had the tiniest bite (didn't like it), and a couple hours later the puking started. Poor babe - it was bad this time.

By dinner she managed to keep down some saltines. It's been a rough couple days. I think what I want for Christmas is just some regular days with no sickies and no surprises!

Tick tock! tick tock!

Rosa has learned her first song! (In English that is - she's been singing songs in Rosa for a little while.) It goes "Tick tock, tick tock, I'm a little cuckoo clock. Tick tock, tick tock, now I'm striking one o'clock. Bong" and then two o'clock, three, etc. And on the tick tocks, you tilt your head from side to side. I was singing it over and over at lunch today (it seemed to help!) and every time I would stop for a little bit, she would start singing "Tick tock tick tock" so I would start up again. We must have sang it close to 100 times. After lunch then, I would hear her singing "tick tock" to herself as she played before nap. And she even added "I'm a" after the tick tocks, but she couldn't quite get out "little cuckoo clock." I'm sure she will soon though. It totally gave me a little window into the future of Rosa singing songs!

And finally, here are a few pictures to go with the last few posts:

Us in front of the Christmas tree (the picture with Daddy in it will be on your Christmas cards, and I didn't want to give it away!)


Rosa's potty that she now refuses to sit on. Oh well - I had heard this would likely happen. Just need to give it time.

We go to story hour at a local bookstore. Rosa does pretty well paying attention to the songs and stories, but occasionally has to wander off into the wonderland of books.

Rosa and a little boy, enjoying their cheese. It was really cold for a couple weeks there (even had frost several mornings in a row), but now has warmed up a lot.

Rosa and her friend Ember. We had Ember and her mom over for dinner. Ember is also a picky eater. We joked that we could have dinner so our kids could not eat together. It went ok, but I think Ember ate better than Rosa.

We took an adventure this morning to go downtown and see the big Christmas tree in Union Square. Here's descending into the depths of the BART station.


On an empty cable car

The tree!


Rosa enjoyed the cone most of all.

O Christmas Tree

We put up a Christmas tree on Sunday. Seeing the pure wonder on Rosa's face when I plugged in the lights was (as Jeff always says) something I wish I could bottle and keep. We didn't get it on camera, but if we had, I think in some ways we would have missed some of the real experience, since one of us would have been seeing it from behind a camera. Or at least that's my excuse. I think I'm in a mode right now where I just want to experience and not always be trying to catch things on film (so to speak). Back to the tree - there was more wonder as Jeff or I slowly and suspensefully unwrapped each ornament. The little mouth was wide open and the eyes were glued on whatever beautiful sparkly treasure was about to be revealed. And she's doing great with the tree. She takes off and examines all the ornaments she can reach (unbreakable ones), but hasn't ever tried to pull on the lights or branches - much better than I expected.

We're also really beginning to enjoy and feel comfortable in our house and neighborhood. We're going to lots of activities (storytimes, etc.) and playgroups. There is a well-established play group
here that we've joined that actually gets together a lot (unlike other's I've joined) because it's neighborhood-based, so it's easy to meet up. I love having it be so much easier for Rosa to get to play with other little kids. Of course, she's now seen kids biting and saying "mine!" but so far doesn't seem to have picked up these new tricks!

And she's very at home here in the house too. I tell her it's time for bath, and she runs to the bathroom. I even tell her we're going to change her diaper (she's still fascinated with saying poo poo, whether there's poo poo there or not), and she runs to her bedroom. It's really cool to see her awareness growing each day!

A couple little Rosa stories:

Rosa is still a pretty fussy and messy eater. Lots of playing, dumping, buckling, getting mad, etc... occasionally some eating. And she still doesn't particularly like to drink milk either. And she really wants to do EVERYTHING herself. In an effort to make drinking milk more novel and agreeable, I've been putting a little bit in a plastic cup and letting her just go for it. She drinks a little, but usually ends up dumping some on herself. Then she whines and points at the wipey cloth, wanting to be cleaned up. Tonight at dinner, she wanted the wipey cloth for every tiny spill or crumb ... which as you can imagine, given her eating skills, was pretty much constantly. It cracked me up that my messy eater was suddenly so disturbed by spills.

Another cool thing I've discovered this week - we have an "I Spy" book, where there are 2 pictures on white background on the left side of each page (say a rabbit and a spoon) and then these objects are set in a scene on the right and the kid is supposed to find them. To my surprise, Rosa started pointing at the object on the left, followed by the one in the scene on the right, without me even asking her. And she's a pro! Pretty cool, especially since she started doing this on her own.

And finally, new words (that I can remember): book, potty, straw straw (strawberry), orange, grapes, eggie (egg), tree (Christmas tree!), and last but not least, please! When she would whine and point at what she wanted, I first tried teaching her "help," but it didn't really catch on. So then I tried "please," and she got it the first time.

Potty time

I ordered a little potty for Rosa and it came Wednesday night. I put it out in the bathroom this morning. Rosa has taken a huge interest in Jeff and my potty time in the last week or two (supposedly one of the signs that they might be receptive to potty training), so sure enough when I had to go before her nap, she was in there with me and very eager to see what was going on. After I went, I took her to her potty, took her pants down and diaper off, and waited to see what she would do. (Apparently I forgot that I promised Jeff I would wait until he was home for the first time on the potty - oops! It was just such a perfect opportunity!)

She sat right down and kept shifting around to look in every couple seconds. I looked too, and there was nothing in there. After a couple minutes of this, I told her that potty was all done and say bye bye to the potty, and picked her up to go into her bedroom for nap. She cried and screamed and struggled. She didn't calm down after a few seconds in her room, so I asked her if she wanted to go back to the potty. She nodded and immediately calmed down.

I took her back to the potty, and she sat down. I could see her tensing up her stomach muscles. After a little while, we looked in, and there was a little puddle of pee-pee! I was so excited that I kind of startled her with my praise. Then we both clapped, and she happily went into her room for nap! She was mad at me before because I didn't let her accomplish her pottying when I took her away too early, and then was happy after she got to "finish."

So Rosa's new words in the last couple days, perhaps obviously, are poo poo (which she says ALL the time now!) and pee pee. She also now says "straw straw" for strawberry, and soucio (dirty in spanish).

Until next time! (I'll try to take a tasteful potty picture too!)

what does the piggy say?

Rosa's new words in the past 2 or 3 days: Eink eink (for oink oink), toes, and two. She even said (with some prompting from me) "two shoes." I think this is her first phrase. Language is so exciting for all involved!

Another new little dinner time game: Yesterday at dinner somehow Jeff interpreted some of her gestures to mean she wanted him to take his shirt off. It was a little cold, but Jeff did it to make her happy and hope to get another couple bites in. Rosa thought this was a riot and squealed with delight. Then Jeff started pantomiming a bodybuilder and making muscles. More delight. I told Jeff I didn't think this was the greatest idea unless he wanted to do it every night, but she was enjoying it so much he went ahead anyway. Guess what Rosa wanted tonight - yes more shirtless muscle-making. I can just see us being out to lunch or dinner somewhere and her throwing a fit waiting for Daddy to take his shirt off. How do we get ourselves into these situations?!?

Today's new words

Neeeeee (neigh, for horse - by the way, thanks Grandma Lois for the little purse with the horsey in it!), feet, eentny (Rosa's pronounciaton of eentsy, for Eentsy Weentsy Spider), done (as in "I'm done with dinner")

29 words and counting (and much more!)

Just like everyone says, things sneak up on you with a baby/toddler. Rosa is talking a lot now, and I wish I had kept better track of how her language skills developed. I remember a while ago she could only say Dow (meow) and Oof Oof (woof woof). Now her words are spilling out. Not always repeatable or on command, but spilling out in little bursts of repetition. And this week has been the week that it has really turned on.

I decided I would try to make a list of all the words says (to some extent in order of frequency):
Mama, Dada, No (usually nononononono), eye (look out for the the finger poking you in the eye!), nuuu (nose), maaaa (mouth), shoes, hat, tsocks, daw (dog), bow (bow-wow), dow (meow, for kitty), keys, BABY (she says this so clearly), ball, jusss (juice), cheese (can be sliced, cream, cottage, etc.), nyeeens (beans), esshhh (fish), apple (again, perfect enunciation), ava (avacado), baaa (bath), cheeef (teeth), agua, moo (cow), moon, up, turtle, outside

The other thing she's been doing lately is requesting (demanding!) the Eency-Weency Spider song. She'll be eating lunch, and all of a sudden she refuses to eat for some reason and starts grabbing my hands. I've gotten to know what she wants now, but at first I couldn't figure it out right away, and she would put my index fingers together over and over until I would finally figure it out. Then I sing the song and we do all the motions together. We do this a couple times, then she can continue eating.

Ok - enough talk talk talk - now time for cute Rosa pictures.

Big girl with her own seat riding the Muni bus (24-Divisadero!)

The above picture on the bus was on the way to the Eureka Valley Rec Center. We played in the gym with the balls. At this age, they are easily distracted!

At Golden Gate Bridge with Dada and Mama

Cousin Steve came down from Portland for the weekend.

Looking cool in Dada's engineer hat

After Golden Gate Bridge, we went to the Exploratorium. Outside, they had a bubble exhibit!

There is nothing cuter than kids chasing bubbles!

That evening, we went up to the top of Twin Peaks

Rosa liked hanging out with Uncle Steve!

My old roommate Maddy and her daughter Caroline were in town, visiting Maddy's mom. Caroline is 3 months older than Rosa and actually first met Rosa when she was 4 days old! She was SO much bigger than Rosa then. Now 3 months isn't much difference. They were too cute together.

Big girls sitting on the couch

Not sure what's happening in this picture, but it kind of typifies the toddler energy!

We just got back from a whirlwing 3-day trip to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving. Thanks to Peter and Terri for hosting us all again!

Rosa got to meet the family dog River!

Frank and Vicki gave this little Reindeer to Rosa that plays the Benny Hill song - I think I STILL have it stuck in my head.

Cara and Amanda were so wonderful to have around to watch / play with Rosa - I think I am going to adopt them so they can come live with us!

Back at home in SF - here's that kitchen table I wrote about last time.

Here's the view from our living room. The cool thing is that the tall building on the right is St. Luke's Hospital where Rosa was born.

Our own personal Sears photo background! (Yes, we're lying down in this picture)

Rosa in the cool vest from Grandma Judy

Back to the present

So I think I'm caught up. The next main topic will be to post pictures of our new apartment, but even though it finally feels like we're making progress, I think I'll wait until we get a few more boxes put away, and maybe get a little more of the furniture that we are planning to get. We did make a trip to Ikea last weekend and after eating meals on our chopping block (too small and too high!) for 2 days short of a month, we are now eating at our new kitchen table! It feels so civilized! And I think Rosa really enjoys being at the table with us instead of marooned on her little high chair island. I'll get some family meal pictures soon.

Rosa has been doing so much imitating lately, both in actions and verbally - it's super fun to see what she'll come up with next! She has been feeding baby, giving baby a bottle of milk, changing baby's diaper, washing baby's face, and of course she's been pushing baby in the stroller for months. It's all so sweet to watch. Jeff took this video of Rosa just before we got the new table, on one of her last nights in the high chair with the tray.

And finally, I shouldn't post this picture, but it was just so funny and cute that I can't help myself. Whenever I do laundry, Rosa loves to get in there while I'm folding and steal my underwear and her bibs. She had at least 5 pairs of my underwear and probably 3 or 4 bibs around her neck in this picture! I think it's her way of accessorizing. She seems to be turning out to be a bit of a girly-girl... loves carrying a purse and wearing any sort of jewelery or scarf-like thing (as you can see!) around her neck. My girl's got style!

Rhode Island and Ohio extras

We just discovered that we never downloaded pictures from Jeff's camera from the Rhode Island and Ohio trip in September. Here's a few pictures and a video that I would have included in the posting from the trip.

3 generations of beachcombers



Building sand castles
Rosa and Grandpa, holding hands!

Mommy was there too!

Mmm, salty rocks...

Picking wildflowers in Grandpa Misha and Grandma Lois's backyard

Swinging on the swing built by Great-Grandpa!

Devorah and Spencer's wedding

The day after Halloween, Devorah (one of the ladies of Making Dinner), married her beau, Spencer. This was the second Jewish wedding I have ever been to (the first being Eva and Hudi's wedding in August), and I have to say, based on these two data points, Jewish weddings are a blast! They have a lot of tradition and ritual, but they also have a humorous side. There is a part where the bride and groom read from the Torah and people are supposed to interrupt them and heckle them. Since I did not know this tradition, when Hudi told me to run up to Dev and interrupt her reading by asking her to hold Rosa while I went to the bathroom, I didn't believe him. So I went and asked Dev's mom permission first. She said to go for for it, so I did, and it was a hit! Rosa hammed it up and had a huge smile on her face during the commotion. There is also a portion of the reception where people entertain the bride and groom with everything from juggling to dancing around the bride and groom in chicken suits. And of course there's the part where everyone hoists the bride and groom up into the air on their chairs. Of course both Dev and Eva are exceptional people, so I wouldn't expect their weddings to be anything less than exceptional!

The wedding was at the Fairmont Hotel, one of San Francisco's very classiest and historic hotels. The ceremony was outside and it was a gorgeous day. The chuppah was made from a sail, and there were fall leaves up and down the poles that supported the chuppah.


Jeff caught this video of Rosa dancing to the singing during the ceremony. I think it's the only video we have so far of Rosa's dancing :-)

Weddings are fun for parents of little girls because they are a built-in excuse for dressing them up in dresses of gratuitous cuteness! This dress was given to Rosa when she was less than a week old by Grandma Anita and Grandpa Frank. 16 months later it fits! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

This picture was taken during the part of the reception where everyone entertains the bride and groom. All the ladies from the Fairy bachelorette party donned their fairy wings and danced around the happy couple.

The view from the Crown Room where the reception was held was phenomenal!

A slightly closer shot of Rosa's little dress.

Rosa discovered the joy of swinging on a banister at Dev's wedding. Daddy tries to rein her in, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Of course Making Dinner played a song at the wedding...