Saturday, October 22, 2011

Eliza walking - pretty much!

There's a lot going on in the Luszcz household these days! There are also lots of good pictures and videos, but it's late and it takes SO long to upload them, so they will have to wait for another day (soon). Sorry Grandma!

I remember when Rosa started to walk, we were not quite sure when to officially call it walking. And it has been the same with Eliza. I remember with Rosa, she would take a step or two, then drop to knees and crawl. And then when it hit about 10 steps in a row, I think we said, "Now we have to call it walking." We hit that point with Eliza about 5 days ago I think, this is the official announcement that Eliza is walking! Now we just have to catch it on video.

And in Rosa news, 5 nights ago, Rosa told Jeff that she wanted to sleep in panties, not a pull-up. I was at one of my many meetings for Rosa's school that night. But I got home before she went to bed and got to witness her going to bed in panties for the first time, and hope for a dry morning. And dry it was! At this point, 4 out of 5 nights have been totally dry. One night, actually at 7:00 in the morning, literally a minute or two before I was about to go in and wake her up, I heard her wake up crying because she peed. But she's had two more dry nights since then, so it doesn't seem to have made her scared to try again. This is very exciting and such a milestone!

And I just have to share one more little Rosa anecdote. Rosa's preschool does a lot of awesome field trips. This past Wednesday, I knew they visited a Buddhist temple near her school, and I was so curious to hear what she would have to say about it. When I asked her what they did on their field trip that day, she told me they went to a place that had lots of poodles, and that lots of things were made of glass and belonged to someone else (read: not allowed to touch!). Oh, and that they had cookies in their backyard at the end. So sweet and interesting, to get a glimpse of the world through the filter of a 3-year old!

I will do my darnedest to get the next batch of pictures and videos up tomorrow!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

REALLY big girl bed

This past May, we took the 4th wall down off of Rosa's crib and called that her "big girl bed." Now that we are hoping to move Eliza into Rosa's room sometime soon (read: anywhere from 1 week to 3 months), we started the process by transitioning Rosa to a twin bed - this is a REALLY big girl bed. Our friends got a great bed frame from Ikea that had railings on it, and we thought this would be perfect for Rosa too. And she loves it. I wondered if she might resist and want to sleep in her old bed, but she loves having this new REALLY big girl bed.


And now, here are a bunch of random pictures from the past - mostly of Rosa since Eliza wasn't born yet for most of them! I finally figured out how to download pictures off of my phone, and looking through them was a fun trip down (recent) memory lane. So I thought I'd share a few!

Rosa made an aluminum foil hat, June 2010.

Rosa had a fantastic time on the kiddie rides at Kiddie Playland (is that the name, Dad?) in Cleveland in summer 2010.

Rosa with double harmonicas going - when one is just not enough!

Rosa and her buddy Mateus on the bus - too cute!


Getting a little more recent, Rosa and one of her rocketship creations.

We went to a magic show and Rosa got chosen to assist the magician!

Rosa and Mateus get a new perspective on the playground!

Daddy and Eliza on Long Beach in Long Island, summer 2011

Rosa and her preschool class, enjoying "ice pops" on a hot fall day.

Forgot if I already posted this... Rosa's first haircut at a real beauty salon!

Two cute nudies on a hot fall day.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Preschool

Here we are, leaving home for Rosa's first day of preschool. It was an exciting day - Rosa had been looking forward to "going to school" for weeks! It's a co-op, so I work one afternoon a week, and my day happened to be Rosa's first day, so I just stayed all day. She had a ball (I was exhausted!) and has loved it ever since. I think she's proud to have a school that she goes to!


One day after school, we went to a playground (what a surprise!). I looked up at Rosa, who had climbed to the top of the climbing dome. One day, they are holding on to stand themselves up at the bottom, the next, they are at the top!

And now follows the series of cute pictures, for all the grandmas out there!

We had some hot weather recently , unusual for San Francisco. There are only 2 parks (that I know of) that have sprinklers, so we went to one of them. Rosa got soaked!

Eliza chose to stay dry.

We saw lots of friends there, and one of the moms brought popsicles.

Here's Rosa in one of her new dresses from Tanti Kira. Thanks Tanti Kira!

Here's Eliza in her ladybug dress from Murray - everyone loved it!

Rosa loves to help. She always asks me if she can help me cook, or make the bed (she made my bed one day!), or anything else that looks grown up and interesting. Here she's helping Jeff fix his bike tire.

Eliza is (somewhat inconsistently) repeating or saying about 6 words now - Mama, Dada, Elala (Eliza?), uh-oh, bye-bye, meow. Wow! She's also playing peekaboo (really helps keep her occupied to get her diaper changed), which I almost caught in the beginning of the video below.

Eliza is also standing on her own now... look out world - she'll be walking soon!

Jeff walked into the playroom and said "Holy ****!" I came running from the kitchen... didn't expect to see this! I have now put child locks on all the windows!

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Eliza slept until 7am!

Just had to record this first! She has also been saying the cutest "uh-oh" in the world for several weeks (usually either before or after throwing something on the floor from her high chair) and has been napping for 2.5-3 hrs in her crib for her morning nap! Life is good! I need to discover an easier way to post pictures. The whole process (from camera to computer to blog) takes a long time and is a big deterrent to me posting pictures. Sorry Grandma Lois - too tired to do all this tonight!

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Oh Lordie... (everyone is ok)

I got the call from Jeff (home with both girls) tonight that started, "First, everyone is ok. We're going to the hospital because..." Because Rosa was hanging from Eliza's clip-on high chair and pulled the table over on her head. With Eliza in the chair. Yes - all true. And everyone is fine. Eliza walked away without a scratch, and Rosa has a bruise and lump on her cheek. After pulling a table over, some piece of which landed on her head. And none of the glasses that were on the table broke. Amazing. All while I was driving to band. I of course turned around and drove to the hospital where everyone was in high spirits. I think Rosa is trying to tie my record of 4 sets of stitches - in the head - before age 5. Sorry, didn't manage to snap any pictures of tonight's events. The girls looked cute in the matching hospital bracelets. Oh, and we will evaluate the effects of these events on Rosa's ability to refrain from future hanging on the clip-on chair. If she seems like she might possibly be tempted to do it again, yes, we will get Eliza a different high chair.

What else... I'm backlogged on reporting Eliza milestones because I still don't know how to get pictures of my phone. And here's why. I had mastitis this weekend. Ugh. Severe shaking and fever spikes, seriously painful breast, and now unknown future of milk supply. Not fun.

But back to Eliza. In the past week, she has started clapping, then inch-worming, then pulling up to standing, then crawling, as of today. I think the clapping started in earnest last Thursday (will see date if I can ever get that video off my phone). Now she claps any time I clap and say "yay!" She claps when she eats. She claps when she wakes up. She claps when I close the door and say "night night." She claps when Rosa gets her all excited. It seems to be the go-to reaction to everything these days. Very cute.

Then the next day, we noticed she was definitely making forward locomotion. Not gracefully, but undeniably. She would get up on her hands and feet, lunge forward, sit up, and repeat. Then yesterday, I had the computer open on the couch, and boy did she want it, so with all her might, she grabbed the piping on the couch cushion and pulllllllled herself up, and voila! She was standing, all by herself. Then today, she finally found her knees, and is doing real crawling. Lots going on in that little noggin these days!

And on that note, I sign off. I promise some pictures soon

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Rosa's 3rd birthday and July 4th

The last month or so has had some big events, most importantly Rosa's 3rd birthday! As usual, I'll let the pictures do the talking:

Some random (and cute) harmonica playing.


The night before Rosa's birthday.


We had all of Rosa's presents (from us and the relatives) waiting for her when she woke up. She knows what presents are all about!


Rosa and some friends playing in the sand after a Bernal Bambinos event on Rosa's birthday morning... just a cute picture.

Eliza was there too.

On Rosa's birthday, we had pizza for lunch in a restaurant with Ember and Paxton and their families. After this birthday pizza lunch ended, Rosa informed us that the dress she was wearing was called a Pizza Dress. Indeed it was!

Here are two more portraits from the Rosa portrait gallery:
Her rocking horse, Cinnamon
and her baby sister, Eliza.

Here's Rosa's birthday party, which was actually the day after her birthday. This is the kids doing a bean bag toss. They made the "bean bags" earlier in the day by filling socks with sand. I think this was more fun than the actual bean bag toss!

The Happy Birthday song. It was so windy at that point we didn't even try to light candles.


Eliza and Baby Macy were born 1 day apart!

Lin, Lyla and Lander. They've gotten so big!

Eliza is now spinning in all directions and scooting backwards. She wasn't so happy when she got herself stuck under Rosa's crib. And as is usually the case when Eliza does something that gets attention from Jeff and I, Rosa had to follow suit and do what Eliza did.

Right before our camping trip, Eliza was covered in baby food and I think Rosa had gotten pretty dirty and sticky that day, so I decided they needed a bath. The quickest way of course was to do them together, so they took their first sisters-together bath!

We went camping in a wonderful county park called Memorial Park. We were taking a little hike to the swimming hole that turned out to be more adventurous than Yvette and I expected! Thankfully Eliza (under the polka-dot blanket) slept through it all (and I didn't slip!).

Here's our beautiful campsite. I love this park!



Jeff made a spiral in the sand and Rosa and Paxton walked it like a meditation labyrinth.

When we got back from camping, we took the girls to their first July 4th fireworks show. The city fireworks were pretty far away, but there were volunteer fireworks all over the place! We had let her nap that day from 4-6pm (a very late nap!) so she could stay up for the fireworks. I guess we sort of overshot, because she didn't go to sleep until midnight that night. Sigh. Tired Mommy and Daddy, excited girl!

Monday, June 27, 2011

More brushing

Rosa loves to get her hair brushed. I use a really soft brush they gave us from the hospital when Eliza was born to get the tangles out, then my regular brush, just for the feel of it. Rosa sits very still with her head tipped a little bit back, her mouth a little bit open, and her eyes a little bit closed. When I stop, she says "More brushing!" I know exactly how she feels. I love getting my hair brushed too.

In other news, as of early June, Eliza is waving. I credit it to Papa Misha who was out visiting with Grandma Lois, and did some nice slow waving with Eliza. That was the first wave I saw from her, and now she's doing it more and more. In fact, she and I wave at each other every night when I put her down in her crib and am saying "Night night." I've found that if I keep a big smile on my face as I turn off the light and close the door, she usually doesn't cry. (Hope I'm not jinxing myself!)

And finally, we had an absolutely lovely 3rd birthday party for Rosa yesterday. At a playground (as requested), with lots of nice friends, and a beautiful day. What more could you ask. Pictures coming soon (it's too late to do all the downloading, selecting, uploading, captioning, etc. tonight).