Melina a la table

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The chicks

Here are the chicks. It's hard to tell the difference in the photos, but Maisy is slightly darker. She's the one standing on my hand. The other chick is Sue's.

A hike with Melina

We went on a little "hike" today in Forest Park with Melina. It was the first time she's actually walked most of the way herself. It was very muddy, but she was wearing her ladybug rubber boots and maneuvered through the mud like an expert - until she tripped and fell full-length and we had to carry her back to the car. She didn't complain, though. Her main interest was in finding "baby snakes" (earthworms). We found one at the beginning of the hike, and she was pretty intent on finding another one, but we never did. Oh well; there should be no shortage of baby snakes on the sidewalk after the rain we're having. By the way, she also calls shaved carrots "snakes."

Our first chicken!

I've been thinking about getting chickens since I was in grad school, and today I finally took the plunge. For the past month or so I've been researching them and feeling Jeff out to see if he would put up with a chicken coop in the backyard. Finally my friend Sue decided to go get a chicken of her own today (she already has two) and I went with her. I got one! It's a fuzzy, yellow, one-ounce buff Orpington. I'm also planning to get a barred Plymouth Rock and a golden-laced Wyandotte, but the feed store wasn't selling them today. I'm ordering my chicken coop online (I realized I would never get around to actually building one)... it's all very exciting. The chick I bought today will be named Maisy, assuming that she actually IS a hen and not a rooster (it's hard to tell at this stage, but she should be a hen.) She's staying at Sue's now with her co-chick (unnamed as of yet). In a week or two we'll bring them over to my house. After 5 weeks they can go outside, but first they will stay at Sue's so they can cuddle up with her chickens for warmth. Eventually when the weather is a little warmer they will be permanent residents here.

Jeff and Melina came over to admire the chicks at Sue's. Melina laughed at them at first and touched them very gently, but I think she actually got jealous of the attention we were paying them. But I think she will enjoy watching the chickens grow up. Buff orpingtons (and the other breeds I'm getting) are all supposed to be calm, affectionate and gentle birds. (Although I did notice Maisy was pecking Sue's chick in the head. Sue assures me this is normal chicken behavior, but I'm afraid I somehow picked out an exceptionally aggressive chicken.) Will post photos soon.

What do you love?

I thought this video was kind of charming.

The Pukes

Melina has had a bad case of the pukes lately. About four days ago she threw up once; I didn't think much about it. The next day she drank about a gallon of orange juice, ran around screaming for a while, then barfed it all up in the Fred Meyer parking lot. I really didn't think that much about that either, since the huge amount of OJ seemed to be the culprit. Well, the next day she threw up three times in the morning while I was at work, and actually fell asleep on the stairs, which is unheard of. I came home and spent the rest of the day with her alternately sleeping on my chest and throwing up. We went to the doctor yesterday and she seemed a lot better, only tossing it twice in the morning. That was the last time she puked... until this evening. We decided to go out to dinner - luckily to a loud, dark pub. Melina was happily sucking down milk and french fries when suddenly she seemed to get something stuck in her throat. She looked surprised for a second and then launched a white tide of barf onto me, the table, and the floor. Miraculously, only two people at the bar seemed to notice, and smiled at me sympathetically. Jeff ran to get wet towels and did most of the cleaning while I sat there in great discomfort.

Ten minutes later Melina was running around outside playing hide and seek with daddy. I don't get it. The doctor did say that she might seem OK for a few days and then throw up again. I think the choice of meals was probably too rich for her, and partially choking on a french fry didn't help. Let's hope that's the last we see of the contents of her stomach for a while.

Potty training foreshadowed?

I thought it was worth noting that yesterday, for the first time, Melina asked to be changed. She looked at me and said, "Change? Change Mina?" and let me to the foot of the stairs and up to the changing table. This is the first time she has ever seemed to actually notice or care that she was wet. Good news on the potty-training front. (Not that I've even given that much thought yet).

Timba-tim

"Tim" is Melina's word for "some." In the past several months she's used several variations on it, like Tim? Tim? Tim? and then Timba-tim? Timba tim-tim? Tim timba-tim?

I just wanted to record this before she gives it up. It happens fast. Now instead of saying "oatie" she says "horsie," which really just isn't as cute.

Putting words together

Melina has learned so many new words lately that I can't even keep track. Now she's begun putting them together. Her very first sentence was "Old bobble." As in, "this milk tastes sour and I think it's been sitting around a lot time. How could you let me drink this?" Other memorable sentences include "kitty night-night," "daddy broken" (not sure exactly what that one means), "more quesadilla" and "play toys? Play wadu (water)?"

Her two great obsessions right now are playing with water in the sink (standing on a chair topped with a phone book - good thing she's coordinated) - and drawing on things, preferably with a felt pen. She seems very disappointed when she opens up the can of crayons and doesn't see any pens. She will write on ANYTHING and likes to try writing on different textures - Tupperware, walls, cat fur, wooden toys, etc. Luckily, they make washable ink felt pens these days. They *usually* come off.

She has also started learning words about concepts. The first one was "scary." She thought the pumpkin face on her old Halloween candy basket was scary. She also thought that my friend's poster of Jake the Alligator Man was scary, which it is. Then came "funny" (lots of things are funny) and today she's using "broken." Pretty much anything that doesn't work exactly the way she wants it to is broken, like a yellow crayon drawing on brown cardboard. You can't see much, so it must be broken. Or a pen that doesn't come apart like pens are supposed to do. Broken.

Preschools!

The other day someone asked me if I had started thinking about preschools yet. Uh, preschools? Isn't it a little early? No. The very next day, our nanny (part-time) announced that she was taking a job with Google, and I was thrust into a new nanny search and a quick education on daycares and preschools.

Turns out there are a lot of cool preschools in Portland. Some of them are co-ops, where parents work one day a month or so doing various odd jobs. Some of these charge very little and some of them charge a whole lot ($750 a month for three days a week of care). There are also lots of private preschools. Some have gardens, some have chickens, some teach your kids new languages, some focus on science, some are organic, some seem to be completely unstructured. Others have lots of rules. Most of them won't take kids under three, which was a problem since Melina is only 21 months now.

After a lot of research, I found both a nanny who I like, who will begin working with us in February, and a preschool that Melina can enter next fall. (I had to sign up this week to get a spot!). They have a garden, and organic food, and a guinea pig, and an emphasis on arts and reading and playacting and child-led activity (apparently this is the Emilio Reggia approach - or something like that. It was new to me last month and I haven't quite figured it out. Emilio Reggia is a town, not a man named Emilio.)

Anyway, it looks like Little M's environment will be changing quite a bit in the next year. I'm going to miss Youngsoon and Norah, her 2-year-old, and I'm sure Melina will too. I think our new nanny is going to work out great, though, and I think that she will really enjoy the preschool when she gets there. She seemed right at home when we went to visit, and spent most of the time threading beads onto pieces of wire, and pretending to pour tea.

A new adventure!