Girl in a box, part deux

Here's Rosa getting box rides - her new treat:

There are so many ways to play with a box!

To make up for the last post that had no pictures, here is some more Rosa eye-candy.

Rosa and Mommy at Lenny and Lin's twins' baby shower. Rosa is wearing her stripey outfit from Grandma Lois and Grandpa Misha, complete with matching dolly. Everyone at the party was AMAZED by the cuteness!
Lin and her twins-to-be...Birds-eye view of Rosa playing with two big girls

The next day was Mother's Day - my first! - and we spent it with my mom's group having a picnic at a park. While I was getting Rosa's carseat in the car, Rosa was showing Daddy how to drive. (Wearing her cute stripey outfit again!)

At the park...
Uncle Jason had an ESPN trip to San Francisco and stopped in to see his favorite niece!

The next weekend rolled around and it was HOT!

Mama's girl

I had been waiting around to write up this post until I had pictures to go with it, but Rosa is now so aware of the camera that I can't really catch her doing anything candid unless she's super distracted. So no pictures this time - just stories.

I think it was this past Tuesday, Jeff got home while I was feeding Rosa her dinner. She had a good dinner (this is starting to be true more and more of the time ... for now at least!) and Jeff and I were clapping for her. She got so excited and she finally started clapping - really clapping! She had sort of accidentally put her hands together before, but this was sustained, gleeful clapping. Hooray! She got so excited clapping that she started doing her other new trick - vigorously shaking her head NO - at the same time. Now I think she associates the two together. The next day when she was headed for the kitchen garbage and I emphatically said NO and dramatically shook my head NO, she started shaking her head NO and clapping with glee! So cute and funny, except for that she kept heading for the garbage. Eventually she'll get it all straightened out.

The other thing that turned on this week is putting things into boxes, buckets, bags, or even pockets! She had been taking things OUT of containers for a while, but never putting them in. Now, with the same manic determination as she uses for pretty much everything else she does, she puts her cloth birds INTO and OUT OF her birdhouse; she puts her blocks INTO and OUT OF her bucket; she puts her rubber duckies INTO and OUT OF her bath cup; she even put some of her blocks INTO and OUT OF my jacket pocket after I showed her how. It is so cool to see this happening because I remember a time when I was trying to show her how to take birds out of her birdhouse, and all she wanted to do was chew on the birdhouse. It just shows you that everything happens in its own time.

And finally, as the title of this post indicates, within the past week or two, Rosa has really started to want to be with Mama. Daddy's pretty good sometimes, but if Mama's around, he's only good for a few seconds. And even when I'm the only one home with Rosa, often times if I leave the room even for a few seconds, the little corners of the mouth turn down and the tears and panic start. I know this is a very normal phase... just one I was hoping maybe Rosa would skip. But I'm sure she'll grow out of it, and then someday I'll miss it!

I really hope we can get a video of the clapping and head-shaking together - it's just so much excitement!

Eveningwear...

We have been so lucky to get so many beautiful little outfits for Rosa from family and friends. Thank you all! Here are a collection of pictures of Rosa in her little dresses. You'll notice that she often wears dresses over pants... a very San Francisco look to keep warm in the fog!

Bee in mouth (turned out ok)

This morning Rosa and I were at the playground. She was like 15 feet away from me and I was trying to get her to crawl to me. Lately, we have also been practicing having her respond to my words (and tone), such as an emphatic "Nooooo," to keep her out of the garbage, rather than me physically keeping her away from it. This actually seems to be starting to work. Back to the playground - So this morning, she's like 15 feet from me and picks up something small and dark from the ground. It's going toward the mouth and I say, "Rosa, Noooooo. Not in the mouth." It goes right in and I'm too far away to stop it. I run over and fish it out... it's a slightly alive bee. For real. It took about a half hour for me to stop dwelling on that and having little internal freakouts.

But there were no tears. It didn't sting her and she had no clue that it wasn't just a dark wiggly cheerio.

Piano, dropping stuff

Moooommmm - let me hold the camera!
I have been wanting to get Rosa a toy piano for ages now. I have been watching craigslist to no avail, and always keeping an eye out at garage sales, but it's always easier to come upon something great by accident than when you're making a concerted effort to find something.

In the end I broke down and bought a new one. I just wanted to get one for her (and me!) so badly! I hadn't originally planned to get pink, but they were out of white and red, and there it was... so enticing, and so pink! So I got it! I love having this toy piano in the house. Rosa loves banging on it (and climbing on it... look out!), I like to plunk out songs from our Music Together class on it, and Jeff is teaching himself piano from the little book that came with it - he is an expert at Pop Goes the Weasel now! I guess you can tell by all the exclamation points in this paragraph how happy I am to have the piano. Sometimes it's worth it to give in to instant gratification.

And the other thing. Rosa has now entered the not so adorable phase of dropping things off of her high chair. Oh boy is that fun. I used to give her extra spoons to occupy her while she ate, but now they, and everything else, go crashing down to the floor. And then she leans way over the edge of the tray and looks at what she's done. If I catch something on the way down, I'm sure she feels cheated. It sort of seems like the dropping things over the edge phase coincided with beginning to give her more finger food. I guess that makes sense. Eating is becoming more and more challenging, not only because of throwing stuff onto the floor, but she seems to be in a fussy, feisty phase right now. I hope this one passes quickly. She seems like she may have quite a temper - strong-willed is the nice way to say it. When she's eating and decides that she will no longer wear her bib, she grabs it and pulls so hard that her little face turns purple, and there's nothing I can do to keep it on. Jeff says she's our little Incredible Hulk. But as all the books say, I'm doing my very best not to turn mealtime into a power struggle. Tonight, she just wasn't going to eat any turkey and vegetables. All she was going to eat was avocado, but at least she ate lots of it. That's better than some nights. I read somewhere that avocado is one of the best foods for babies, so I guess if she's in an avocado-only phase for a while, she'll survive. Oh Rosa!

And finally, here's my new haircut:

Rosa and Judd

Ways Rosa and Judd are the same:

* both like to chew paper
* both like to chew my buttons
* both like to chew cables
* both would like to meet with (and eat) Daddy's glasses
* both can't bear to leave a tag unattacked
* both know their name
* both know the word No

Ways Rosa and Judd are different:

* we do not have to worry about choking hazards for Judd
* we do not have to put Judd in diapers
* Judd can eat independently
* Rosa can giggle
* we do not have to give Judd a daily bath

Starlet

As most everybody knows, I'm in a band with a bunch of other ladies called "Making Dinner." We play just for fun, but we do manage to play shows in local bars. Our lead singer, Eva, has a friend who has an interview show on local cable here in San Francisco, and he's had the band play on his show, plus he's interviewed various subsets of the band a couple times.

So last night, we had another opportunity to be interviewed, and even though it bumped into Rosa's bedtime, just this once I kept her up a little later than usual, and she had her first chance to be on TV!

Glenn (the host) asked Devorah and me lots of questions about what the band is up to these days, and how our own life stories played into what the band was doing. Rosa sat on my lap and reached out for the bright lights and looked right at the camera most of the time. It was super fun! She was her usual happy but squirmy self!

Daddy was at the studio too, taking pictures of us through the window of the studio door:
Once we get the recording of the show digitized, I'll put a few highlights up on the blog.