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")