Stairs

We were at our friends' Lenny and Lin's garage sale on Saturday, hanging out with them on a sunny day, and I put Rosa down in front of their stoop to see what she would do with the 3 stairs. She climbed right up them! Later that day, I thought - let's see if she can do a whole flight! So with constant supervision, she intrepidly made her way to the top. It was easy!

Rosa has entered the "yank the hat off her head" phase (a girl after my own heart)...

And here's a little video showing Lenny, Lin, and the growing twins!

This was the first time we tried using the Ergo carrier on the back. She did OK, with it, but I think she and I both still prefer the front where we can see each other.
The teeth are growing taller and taller every day!
And finally, here's Rosa's first attempt at filming a movie - I think she's got promise!

Teeth!

I remembered what I forgot to include in the last posting - Rosa's new teeth! In the middle of the new language sounds and various maladies, Rosa got her first two teeth at the same time, beginning this past Sunday. I thought the fever and even some of the other tummy symptoms were part of teething, until the advice nurse and later the doctor said the fever was much too high to be associated with teething.

Anyway, she's no longer toothless! And in Rosa's style, she did it big - two at once! Here's some pix and video:

I'm being coy, not showing my gums:

Grrrrr, they're about to show:
If you look closely at the bottom gum, you can almost make them out: (I'll take more pix when they come in further)

Mmmmm, cheerios...

Dada

No pictures this time, but I want to record a memory of a milestone. Rosa said "Dada" on Sunday for the first time! It was pretty much accidental syllables coming together, but we were so excited and have said it back to her enough that she has said it multiple times since. Even though Dada was out of town on a business trip, yesterday when I was wiping down Rosa's face after dinner (which all kids seem to hate), she called out "Dada!" with perfect diction, as in, "Dada, come save me from the wipey monster!" 

So now she says both Mama and Dada... we'll just have to keep reinforcing who those words refer to! It seems like her little mouth has discovered lots of new sounds all at once. For the longest time the only consonant she was doing was M, but now she's doing D sounds along with Gs, Ks, Ns, and Ys. She's started to sound like she's really carrying on a conversation, but in her own language.

Along with language development, Rosa is working on immune system development. She's had two snotty colds this month, and now she's got some kind of bug which gave her a high fever yesterday and tummy problems and a sore throat today. Poor thing. The infant Tylenol seems to work well for her (and she even seems to like it), so we've got the temperature under control. Now if I can just get her to eat and drink. Hopefully she'll get her appetite back when she's feeling better.

Adam & Seiko got married!

Last Saturday we went to the wedding reception of our friends Adam and Seiko! They actually got married in December at City Hall, but just had their reception. Seiko was stunning in her kimono, Adam was handsome in his suit, and Rosa wore her 60s heart and flower dress complete with heart tights from Tanti Kira. This was also the first time we put her in a high chair, rather than rolling her stroller up to the table, and what a difference it made! By being the same height at the rest of us, Rosa was truly part of the dinner conversation and she loved it. It was like she suddenly became a little person instead of being a baby.

Here's Rosa hanging out with Uncle Ging! She's got her cell phone in case she gets a call.


I'm also posting this little video because there's just such a sweet quality to it... kind of like it's old-fashioned. I'm not sure when Jeff took it, but I think it must have been some morning when Rosa woke up in the wee hours (long before 7:00) and Jeff took her out into the living room.

Finally some crawling videos!

Finally I have some videos of Rosa crawling - and she's gotten really good at it in the couple weeks since she first started doing it. Here are her 2 styles of crawling: regular (which she does most of the time), and crab-crawling (3-legged crawling).

This past weekend was our last swimming lessons class for the term. We had missed the previous 2 classes since Rosa had a cold, and were very excited to go. We signed up for a Zipcar, but when Jeff went to pick it up, it wasn't in the parking lot where it was supposed to be. We tried calling the Zipcar number over and over for like 20 minutes, but something must have been down in their phone system, because we couldn't get through. Finally, 20 minutes later I got through to someone, only to find out that the car was accidentally parked in another lot nearby. But the 30-minute swim class was basically over at that point - we missed it. Very disappointing. So we decided to go to a playground and rec center outside of our neighborhood, just to get a change of scenery. And we met up with our friend Diana, who had never met Rosa before. It was super fun! It was cold outside, so we went into the indoor play area, where they have lots of cool stuff Rosa had never seen before. So despite the swim lesson disappointment, we had a really nice afternoon.

Unfortunately, Rosa has now gotten her second cold, just about a week after getting over the first one (which thankfully was pretty mild!). This morning, Rosa woke up an hour earlier than usual - I think her stuffed up little nose woke her up. I took her into the steamy shower, as Jeff's mom recommended (great idea!), and afterwards, poor sleepy Daddy fell asleep with Rosa's ducky hooded towel on his head... almost as cute as Rosa is with the towel on!

Pbbblllgghhhh

Today Rosa learned that if she blows out her mouth with her lips flapping just after I put a spoonful of food in her mouth, that the food will spray all over me. Kinda like this, only more so...

Maybe it's 'cause it's peas...

Sunny weekend

After a week of rain, we had a nice sunny weekend. And weekends are always especially nice since Jeff is home with us! On Saturday, while I continued my babyproofing quest and worked on installing a new gate, our little budding architect discovered the joys of crinkly tracing paper.

 

Once the gate was installed, we went to our usual playground and ate sand, swung in the swing, and slid on the slide.

Today I put Rosa in her new Cleveland Cavaliers cheerleader outfit (a present from Tanti Kira!)

and we had a rare breakfast out, at Mission Pie Shop. I had a great quiche and a side of root vegetable salad, and a piece of lemon pie for dessert, all for breakfast! After a very late morning nap (we didn't see the time change coming), we went to Dolores Park, where it was sunny and glorious!

All in all, it was a really nice weekend!

Babyproofing

Rosa is teaching me what I have to do to make the apartment safe for her. And for now it involves a lot of bubble wrap, duct tape, zip-ties, and gates. 

Her obsession is to pull herself up on every possible thing she can use to stand up. She's not on the floor (or any horizontal surface) for a second before she's eyeing and then moving toward the nearest pull-up prop. She is getting better at a slightly more controlled release, although there are still plenty of bonks. I noticed her first bruise on her little knee! (Granted, it's pretty faint.)

Still no video of the crawling; when I pull out the camera, she stops crawling and sits up to look at me. But I haven't seen the hand-slapping commando in a while, so I'm glad I captured that when she was doing it!