March 2011 - the catch up

So let's see. What happened between August 2010 and March 2011? I spent a couple more months being pregnant and exhausted.

Rosa was the cutest chicken for Halloween, Mommy was an egg, and Daddy was a farmer.

Then Rosa's baby sister Eliza was born the next day!

Then I spent a few months desperately trying to figure out how to be the mom of two kids. At the same time.

I see now that it is impossible for me to just skip to the present. A lot happened in between - a new being came into existence! So here's the catch-up, as concisely as I can do it.

My last bit of commentary - as of now, this blog is officially about Rosa AND Eliza. I didn't have the foresight to name it something that would work if we ever had a second kid. And I'm not going to rename it at this point. So Eliza, my sweet, I apologize for this first, and probably not last, time that you may feel overlooked by being the second child. But know that you're in good company. Just today I asked my mom and dad for a picture of me when I was between 2 and 3 years old, to see if my hair was as blond as Rosa's is. They found one of me at 18 months, but couldn't come up with any photos of me between ages 2 and 3! They said maybe there were some slides...

Anyway, now, without further ado:

Thankfully, Grandma Lois came out and spent a whole month with us! What a godsend she was - it was always great to have that extra pair of loving arms to hold one of the girls when they needed it.

It was a wild ride sometimes!

But there were many, many sweet moments...



Papa Misha came out to spend Thanksgiving with us.

And then they both went back to Ohio. And suddenly real life started. They left on a Tuesday around noon, and then Rosa napped, and then when she got up, there we all sat on the couch, me nursing Eliza and Rosa trying to get onto my lap at the same time. I remember I felt paralyzed - like I should hold this position for as long as I could since I couldn't fathom doing anything else until Jeff got home from work.

But eventually, I learned how to do other things, and life carried on (I can say that now that Eliza is almost 5 months old!), and we actually did a lot of fun and special things in December.

We took Rosa ice skating for the first time at an outdoor rink they put up for the holidays.

We also took Rosa for her first sled ride! They had a "snow day" at City Hall one Saturday in December where they trucked in snow and made a sled run. Rosa LOVED it! I think she was the only kid in snow pants!

After sledding we went into City Hall, which was just beautiful with its glowing white marble and glowing white Christmas tree. I don't think this video does justice to the look of wonder in Rosa's eyes as she took it all in.

Tanti Kira came to visit us from Christmas to just before New Years. Just as she had with baby Rosa, she had a magic way of calming Eliza down and getting her to fall asleep.

Rosa made out like a bandit for Christmas, but probably the best gift was a rocking horse! It was sent to us by a friend of Tanti Kira's whose kids had outgrown it. Rosa is a most enthusiastic rider and has since named the horse "Cinnamon."

Here's a family portrait timer shot.

About a month after Eliza was born, Rosa started refusing naps, which almost killed me (and I almost killed her!). We tried "quiet time" every day for several weeks, with Rosa alone in her room, but she would scream and scream until I would give up. We tried napping all together (Rosa, Eliza, and me), but Rosa wouldn't settle down at first. But eventually, this is what worked - the three of us have been napping together (on a twin bed in Rosa's room!) for several months now. Not sure how long this will last, but at least I get some rest. I often wake up before them though, and sneak out to get s few things done. Here are my sleeping girls!

I'm trying to be good about taking a picture or two of Eliza every now and then!

This perfect line-up deserved a picture.

Rosa swinging with her friend Ember.

In February, we made our first big airplane trip as a family of four. We went to Ohio for Eliza's baptism.

Eliza with her godparents - Auntie Aly and Uncle Dan.

Some pictures just tug at your heartstrings!

It was wonderful to see everyone from both sides of the family despite some pretty rough Ohio winter weather. The kids enjoyed it though!

Grandma Judy holding the sleeping babe.
Eliza gets passed to Papa Chuck!
Nana Anita and Papa Frank
The Pilats
The Clines
Uncle Greg reading to his god-daughter
Everyone in the snow
They built a snowman - Rosa told us she made the ears!

Little angels making snow angels!

So many cousins! I think they're all being monsters in this picture.

Music time with Tanti Kira

Back at home (a month later), here's a great Eliza smile - good job catching it on the camera Daddy!

Here are the girls in their Valentine's Day dresses. Thanks Nana Anita and Papa Frank!

In the last week or two, I really feel like life has gotten a bit lighter and easier. We've all grown more accustomed to the new ways things work and are finally developing some routines. But also, Rosa and Eliza have really been interacting more and more. Eliza's eyes just light up and follow Rosa around the room, and in addition to entertaining Eliza, Rosa has finally started understanding that it's good to be quiet when Eliza is sleeping, and that she can entertain herself for a little while when Eliza needs to nurse, etc. I know there are many more stages of growing up with a sibling to tackle (Mom! Eliza took my dolly!), but it felt good to notice that things are feeling easier. One night at dinner when the two of them were making each other giggle and giggle, I saw my first little glimpse into a lifetime of sisterly shenanigans!

August 2010

I know I just said I wasn't going to go back in time and try to cover all the months between July 2010 and March 2011. But I already had these pictures and videos picked out, which is the hardest part, so I'm going to do another retro-post here of August 2010 - covering our trip to Ohio and Rhode Island, then jump to March 2011.

Here's our daredevil on the rocking horse Papa Misha bought at the church rummage sale.

Rosa and Papa Misha in the Miata ("car with no roof" to Rosa) during trip to Ohio. Too bad I don't have any more pictures from this part of the trip!

The cool lifeguards on the beach in Rhode Island.

Three Luszcz men.

Nana Anita got Rosa a lobster cupcake! (just frosting!)

Rosa and Daddy on Papa Frank's boat

Rosa got to drive!

Rosa's first experience in the ball maze at the neighboring town's seafood festival.

Rosa's first time watching fireworks!


Rosa and Papa Frank at lunch. She now knows how to keep her feet off the table!

The mosquitos were wicked to Rosa. And she reacts so strongly to them - she had like 20 of these welts by the time we got home - yikes! Had to put cortizone cream on them to make the swelling go down.

Polka is in Rosa's genes.

2 years old! (June - July 2010)

It's now March 2011. I started this post a long time ago (apparently September 2010 according to the date it's posted as), covering the months of June and July 2010 - including Rosa's second birthday. Since this is ready to go, I'll post it. But after this I think I need to just jump to the present. If I try to go back and cover all that time, I'll never get back on this horse!

June and July were pretty cold months... sure, we had a few days warm enough for beach trips, as you'll see below, but I love that our June 25 birthday girl is wearing long-john jammies and a sweater while playingwith her new choo choo trains on her birthday morning... looks like Christmas!

For birthday dinner, we got Rosa her long-time favorite - burrito (of course)! Can't go wrong!

And here's her happy birthday cake! Although she was a little tentative here, Rosa has been singing happy birthday to herself ever since. Sorry about the crazy videography.

Here's a silly picture of opening presesnts after dinner.


Rosa on the drums at Erika's Tech-Free Day (and freezing cold!) picnic. This is the day after Rosa's bday - June 26 and I mean FREEZING cold.

Just before her birthday party.

On one of the huge slides at Pump It Up!

Pizza after all the sliding and jumping. They were all so tired that they looked like well-behaved kids!

Making pizza with Daddy.

Rosa and Daddy on the beach

May 2010

May was a busy month, with a visit from Grandma Lois and Papa Misha, a tour of our local fire station, and our first family camping trip!

Here's a neat shot of Rosa in her Ikea tunnel (one of best purchases ever!), taken by Papa Misha.

Grandma Lois got to pick Rosa up after naptime and get some cuddles while Rosa was still drowsy.

Rosa has loved building towers for a long time now. She had Papa Misha working hard too - here's one of his creations.

Grandma Lois spent some quality time at the playground with Rosa

We took Grandma and Papa to an art class. Rosa's favorite thing to paint was always her hands!

But she did some painting on the paper too.

Here is the final product of that class - what a cool hat! Mommy glued the flower and ribbon on.

Rosa loved brushing the goats at the zoo.

A little music session with Grandma and Papa!

One of the neighborhood moms organized a tour of the local fire station - what a treat! All 2-year-olds, whether boy or girl, are obsessed with fire trucks it seems!

Rosa got to sit in the fire truck and ring the bell!

She and daddy are the new fire truck mascots.

Rosa got to slide down the pole. She talked about the man sliding down the pole literally for months (she still asks for songs about this).

The same neighborhood mom who organized the fire station tour organized a 4-family camping trip (she's organized!). What a blast! It was so nice to be there with 3 other families - it was actually relaxing! And the kids loved having their buddies there.

Rosa liked climbing on the logs and is totally fearless about bugs (wants to pick them all up). Paxton takes a more scientific approach with his magnifying glass.

The kids mostly played nicely!

This was Rosa's first experience with tents. When we arrived at the campground she looked around her with wonder and pointed out all the umbrellas in the trees. We told her those were called "tents." When we set up our tent, she was so excited to get in it with us, but got all freaked out whenever I tried to zip up the door. This could be a problem! But eventually I just held her back from scrambling out and zipped it quick, and after that, she magically got over it. Phew! The first night she didn't sleep so well (lots of squirming and early waking), but the second night she slept until something like 7:30 the next morning!

Paxton's mom and dad brought a little inflatable boat, which was super relaxing and fun to take out for spins on the lake.
One of the other families brought their two doggies (and you think your car is crowded going camping, you should have seen theirs with a car seat and two decent-sized dogs in the back seat!). Rosa loved hugging them!

More cute videos - Daddy introduced Rosa to the joys of building forts and tents out the couch pillows and blankets.

April 2010

And now for some long overdue (yet again) catch-up work. I've been so remiss in my blogging because I've been completely exhausted since about March. In the beginning, I wondered what the heck was wrong with me, but then eventually when smells started to bother me and I started gagging at weird times, I took a test and learned that Rosa's little brother or sister had started growing in mommy's belly. Like I said, I've been exhausted ever since, but generally am doing just fine. The baby is due in November, and we are keeping the gender a surprise. Rosa is pretty sure it's a baby boy. So this blog will be incorrectly titled in a few months since someone else will be keeping Rosa company on her adventures soon!

But for now, back to Rosa. Since I didn't do any blogging for several months, I've missed capturing all the day-to-day changes she's had, especially in language ability, which has been growing like crazy over the past few months. But by going back through all the videos in the last few days, it's just amazing how her abilities have exploded in that time. In the videos from April, she's saying a couple words together. I kind of remember when she would say, "I mommy" to mean something like "I want mommy to come here." Now she orders me around with perfect grammar!

So her language definitely continues to be so fascinating to watch develop. And now, without further ado, on to cute toddler pictures!

One of many merry-go-round pictures. Giraffes are unquestionably Rosa's favorite animal, so here's a shot of her riding one.

A late afternoon in Dolores Park, having a picnic with our friends Bill and Angela.

In March of this year, we started doing a share-care (one nanny watches two kids) with another girl in our neighborhood - it has been so great for Rosa to have a buddy to share days with when I'm at work! Rosa and Lina do all sorts of fun things together, but really love pretending to go night-night together in the pack-n-play.


In early April, Papa Frank and Nana Anita came to visit!

We had all sorts of adventures, including going to the zoo, doing the parachute (Rosa's favorite!) at the Rec Center,

doing many visits to playgrounds,

getting together with cousins Loretta and Norman,

and going to the beach, among other things!

Here's a picture of Rosa and some of her buddies, taking a popsicle break at the playground! Lucky kids!

Rosa and Mommy taking a rest break at a hike in Glen Canyon

All sorts of cuteness in this video - I won't even bother with any explanation.

Cousin Norman's excellent rendition of the classic, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear."

Rosa hugging Mr. Judd.

One of Rosa's friends had his 2nd birthday party at a place called Pump It Up, which is big party rooms filled with inflatable jumpy castles and 3-story giant slides. I had a conflict and couldn't go, but Jeff took Rosa to the party. He came home filled with stories of how she loved it so much that she was dripping with sweat by the end. Here's a video of fearless Rosa, 2 months shy of 2 years old, shoving the other kids out of the way to throw herself down the slide!

Finally!

Finally, this morning for the first time, Rosa made a poopoo in the potty! There were many congratulations and big smiles. This has been an elusive accomplishment for Rosa, since she really likes her privacy when making poopoo; usually she goes behind a chair or into the laundry room with the door shut and loudly says "bye bye mommy" or "bye bye daddy" if one of us comes too close. So today, when she headed for the laundry room at her usual time, I finally managed to get her potty to her and take her diaper off in time, then let her shut the door and have her privacy. I was so good - I didn't even peek while she was in there working. And after a few minutes she came to the door and I heard her little voice say, "I made poopoo in the potty!" We called daddy in to look and there were lots of high fives. Potty training ain't over yet (by a long shot from what I've heard!), but this was a great breakthrough!