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.