Melina is 10 months old!

Today is Melina's 10 month birthday. As listed in the previous post, she is learning new skills rapidly. We are practising how to walk, although she crosses one foot in front of the other. We say she's doing the "model" walk. Today she learned how to stretch her arm and open and close her hand to say "bye-bye" and "ciao-ciao". From what we learned in a communication class for infants, if we want to help her learn sign language, we must always use the action with the word. In this case, we will try to incorporate both English and Spanish. She seemed to understand that "bye" and "ciao" means the same thing.

It is unbelievable that Melina is 10 months old already. The months have passed so fast. In two months, she will already be one year old! We certainly appreciate each day Karen has on maternity leave. She is going to miss her very much when she has to go back to work. But Lucas will get to spend more time with Melina. Day care is still uncertain as we are on numerous waiting lists. Lucas might have to juggle doing his work at home to take care of Melina until we can secure a spot for a day care or home care for her.

Now, we are enjoying our time in Argentina. Not a week has passed and she has met so many people. She is such an entertainer. Always smiling and "dadada" to every person she meets.

Trip to Argentina - Viaje a Argentina

Hi everyone. We're in sunny Argentina visiting Lucas's family for the month. We had kept the date of arrival secret for his mom to surprise her for her birthday. It was planned that Lucas's parents go on a weekend getaway so that we have a chance to arrive in Argentina and get ready for the surprise. When we knew they were at the door, we hid and left Melina to sit in the hallway in front of the door. Can you imagine her expression to open the door and see her first grandchild just waiting for her! It was a happy moment for all.

We have seen many visitors in the past few days wishing Cristina a Happy Birthday and also meeting Melina. Melina has adapted so well to the environment and enjoys seeing and meeting people. She smiles so quickly and even claps in excitement for all the people. Who would've thought that we had such a sociable baby?

She is also learning new things. We had mentioned that she's been crawling, and she can sit on her own. Now she knows how to sit up from a lying down position, she likes to say the words "da-tah" and "Brrrp!". As well, she just learned to wave a little. All these things in a course of a week.

She has adjusted to the different foods here. She started eating finger foods last week and although the vegetables are similar, they do taste a little different. But she is still hungry as ever and growing so much! I don't know. It looks to me that she has grown this past month more than ever before.

It's a good feeling to be here. She has met her grandmother, her great-grandmother, and her great-great-grandmother. Five generations! Unbelievable.

That's all for now. We hope to post more during our stay in Argentina.

Melina and Cupcake

Melina went to her first 1st birthday party. Her friend Jordan had a playdate at Adventures in Wonderland, a big huge playground. For infants under 1, it's free. It was our first time checking it out. There were a lot of people on a Sunday.

Since outside food was not permitted, Jordan's mom gave us some cupcakes when we were leaving. We "hid" them at Melina's feet, and covered them with a blanket. We went next door to Angelo's, a larger version of Paesano's for coffee. It was bitterly cold so we covered Melina in her stroller. We were in the shop for a few minutes browsing around and didn't hear a peep from her. We assumed she was asleep after all the playing. So Lucas went to check on her...

Well, you can see the pictures and figure it out! We didn't even hear her eating the cupcake and the icing was all over her cheeks, her coat, and Senor Rana (Mr. Frog). After a taste of sugar, she had no afternoon nap at all! She finally crashed in the evening. After all we are trying to do to prevent a sugar-laden diet, it was ruined in one fell swoop. :)




Melina y "pirotín"

Melina tuvo su primera fiesta de cumpleaños. Su amiguito Jorgan celebró el acontecimiento en un parque de diversiones para niños de todas las edades. Para bebés menores de un año, la entrada es gratuita y esta fue la primera vez que llevamos a Melina allí. Al ser domingo, había muchísima gente: muchos bebés para jugar!

Traer comida de afuera no está permitido, así es que la mamá de Jordan nos dio unos pirotines que tenía en el momento en que nos íbamos. Los "escondimos" en el asiento de Melina, cerca de sus pies, y los cubrimos con una de las mantitas que usamos en el invierno. De allí, fuimos a un almacén muy pintorezco que está al lado del parque. Ayer hacía muchísimo frío (15 grados bajo cero, con sensación térmica de cerca de los 20 0 25 grados bajo cero) por lo que tuvimos que tapar a Melina y cubrirla lo que más se puede.

Cuando entramos al negocio, caminamos buscando algunas cosas que necesitábamos y de pronto nos damos cuenta que ya Melina estaba muy quietita. Lo que no había dormido la siesta, pensamos que ya estaba en ese asunto... Lo que nos encontramos fue con esto que pueden ver en las fotos. En cuestión de minutos, Melina comenzó a deborar uno de los pirotines, dejando huellas en sus cachetes, el carrito, las mantitas, todo. Hasta el pobre Señor Rana sufrió las consecuencias. ¡Nuestro plan de que se mantenga alejada de alimentos con mucho contenido de azúcar se fue por la borda en cuestión de segundos!

Happy New Year! Melina is 9 months old. This is a late post. We tood this picture on time but we couldn't manage to upload it into our blog until today. Lucas, Karen and Melina all catched a cold during the holidays. Everybody is doing very well now but we all had to fight a nasty cold that left some throat and ear infections on its way.

Melina is doing very well now. She now has two (bottom) teeth. She seems to like using them when she has her "mum-mums" (rice crackers for babies). Her crawling improved tremendously since our last posting. She can crawl so much faster now we can hardly keep up! She is clapping constantly since she found in this another way for making sounds.

Happy New Year to all!

¡Feliz Año Nuevo! Melina cumple 9 meses. Finalmente nos hemos hecho un tiempo para subir esta foto de los 9 meses de Melina. Es que durante estas fiestas todos (Karen, Lucas y Melina) estuvimos enfermos, con un resfrío que dejó en su camino algunas infecciones de garganta y oído. Ahora ya estamos todos bien, pero por unos días estuvimos sin mucha energía para hacer otras cosas.

Melina ya está muy bien y ha vuelto a su rutina que se había visto afectada por el resfrío. Las novedades son que ya tiene un segundo diente abajo que parece disfrutar cuando le damos unas galletitas de harina de arroz para bebés. Esta última semana empezó a gatear bastante más rápido que de costumbre así es que si nos distraemos un ratito, Melina ya está del otro lado de la habitación. Además, le encanta aplaudir todo el día, ya que encontró en este pequeño juego una forma novedosa de hacer ruido.

¡Feliz 2008 para todos!