Milestones aren't just for the baby, baby!

I hate driving. I always have. Driving around town in high school nearly always flooded me waves of panic, fearing that I'd do something wrong, piss someone off, or just get into an accident. Oh, the stress!

Eventually, I did get over that. But I never enjoyed driving.

Upon moving to Mexico, I was really excited about the thought of living somewhere that has a reliable, cheap, and fairly efficient public transportation system. Wherever I have lived in Mexico, I have taken full advantage of the buses, combis, and taxis and gloried in the fact that I had absolutely no need to maneuver a car in the midst of Mexico's freakish traffic.

However, Saltillo's traffic follows fairly standard rules. Turning left from the right lane is actually discouraged here and the traffic police here really do have some clout. For example, taxi drivers insist that passengers in the front seat buckle up because they know that otherwise they'll get fined. Again, I was shocked and charmed by the level of civilization here.

This also means that I ran out of excuses for why I could procrastinate my mastery of the standard transmission vehicle that Mario owns. Reason #2: the heavier that Clara gets the less fun it is to strap her to my back while we ride the bus. Reason #3: while I'm beginning to find friends, they all live on the OTHER side of town. Boo.

So after months (OK, years) of touch-and-go "how to drive a standard transmission car" lessons, I finally traversed town by myself, with Clara shouting encouragement from the backseat, a few days ago. I feel like a real grown-up again.

Despite the fact that I'm back to the whole knotted-stomach, driving-induced stress that I experienced in high school, I know I can do it. The stress will pass eventually.

This made me think of Clara and her "quest" for increased mobility. I put quest in quotation marks, as she has made it clear that creeping and rolling around on the floor is as mobile as she wants to be, thank you very much. Quite like me and my satisfaction with the buses and taxis. It doesn't matter that she is over a year old and most other kids her age are at least experimenting with walking. I was over the age of thirty and had no desire to drive a car, like a "normal" adult.

Like me, she just needs some real incentive coming from deep within to make it worth all the effort of getting her legs under herself. She almost had it this morning when she really, really wanted a cup that was on top of the coffee table. But, like me driving the car, it will just take a lot of practice to get it.

She'll get there.

The Torquelich

My parents were just asking if I had any new photos of Clara. Nope. We haven't done much that's interesting recently, and all the pictures that I get of her playing look the same, because she generally does the same thing all the time. She's really hooked on the Container Game. She finds something that fits well into a container and then takes it out. Puts it in, takes it out. Ad nauseum. I made this even more exciting for her the other day when I gave her an old baby bottle, some diaper pins, and the sticks for her bottle-dryer. Hoo-nelly! What fun! She plays with these for about a half hour at a stretch. The bottle is particularly challenging as she can't jam her chubby little fist inside to get the pins back out. While she's figuring out physics, I get the dishes washed. Oh, boy.

However, I did take this video recently. Enjoy!

For those of you from camp, do you remember the Torquelich skit? I love that Clara makes the same noise that the Torquelich makes when it's hungry. And she came up with that all on her own. Isn't she so smart?

And if anyone knows how to turn these videos vertically, please fill me in (they're opened with Windows Photo Gallery).

She's Getting Bigger and Better

In typical Clara fashion, last week she reached a major movement milestone (sitting up on her own) and then promptly forgot about it. Or just doesn't care. Except that she really likes to sit up, so I'm thinking that she just can't remember how it was that she got herself up to a sitting position last week. Two months from now, she'll no doubt remember, once again giving me hope that she just may become mobile.

Now that she's gotten really good at getting a loaded spoon to her mouth, I thought I'd see what she would do with a full banana.

It took awhile, but she figured it out!

This evening she also asked for a napkin so she could wipe her mouth off. What a little lady!

That, or she just really likes playing with napkins.

Hoarding the Videos

I realize that nearly all my posts lately have been about the girlie. However, it's cold and rainy outside, so we're not getting out much, and therefore about the only source of inspiration I've got!

I've been meaning to post these videos for awhile now, as I know my parents will enjoy seeing them. And if anyone else wants to join them in this shameless Clara-fest, be my guest!

I apologize that the first two are sideways. If anyone can help me straighten them out, using QuickTime or Windows Picture Manager, I'd appreciate it. These were taken maybe a month or two ago.

The last two videos were taken in August, when Clara was really into making monster noises. The makes better noises on the first video, but we didn't have the lights on in the room. So the first video is audio, the second is visual (because I guess she got tired of being a monster five seconds into that video).

Happy Valentine's Day!

Most holidays in the Rodriguez Douglas household don't get the attention that other families give to special days. For example, last Easter, the only means by which we celebrated Easter was to go to mass (much like all the other 51 Sundays in the year). However, that was the only Sunday Clara cried through mass and had to be escorted out. Besides me baking a lemon merangue pie, it was just another Sunday. Had Mario's parents not visited us for Christmas, I have a feeling that Christmas would have come and gone in much the same manner. Rather sad. But Mario just doesn't seem to get excited about holidays and the dates tend to creep up on me and catch me unawares, leaving me completely unprepared to celebrate anything.

So I had no expectations for Valentine's Day. When we were dating, we used to count Valentine's Day as our anniversary, because we knew that we began dating sometime between the end of January and the end of February. Every once in awhile, Mario even went out of his way to make the day special, giving me flowers in 2003, wine and chocolate in 2007.

This year, after trying to fix the shower all day on Saturday, Mario was faced with three months' worth of receipts to enter into the computer for his personal accounting. I knew it would take all day, so did not have any plans to do anything special. However, on Friday he had mentioned that it had been awhile since he cooked and he kind of missed it. To which I responded, "hey--knock yourself out!" I requested pork chops, as the man makes magic with pork chops. As 4pm rolled around, Mario was still in front of the computer, knee-high in receipts, denying being the least big hungry, and announcing that he would not be able to cook after all. Given the amount of work he did all weekend, I completely understood. As Clara and I attacked a liter of yogurt, Mario was apparently doing to reconsidering and decided that he would be able to cook after all, as long as I could wait until 5. No problem.

I poked my head in the kitchen a bit after 5 and noticed that he had buttered and basiled some of the sourdough bread, which was toasting in the oven. A pot of macaroni was on the stove for a first course, and he was preparing the chops as he ordered me out, claiming that the meal was to be special.

So, in the end, we broke Rodriguez Douglas tradition and celebrated Valentine's Day after all with a lovely, delicious, candelit dinner, a bottle of Casa Madero's Merlot (a winner), and dessert of chocolates that we had been hoarding since Christmas. Clara, reinforcing the idea that she is just a little woman, LOVED the chocolate.

Things are rather slow this week, with Clara fighting a cold. However, there is an upside to having the constant stream of snot wiped all over her face--she's taking two-hour naps! I might have expose her to more children and their germs. It's not all bad.

Since she's zonked out and I can't play with her, here's a list of some of the Clara's more recent accomplishments or other ways she keeps herself entertained.

• She has discovered how to insert her index finger into her nostril. No real surprise that Jill is raising a nose-picker. Fortunately, she has not yet realized how to get anything out. Thank goodness I keep her fingernails short.
  

• She has decided that every 2-liter bottle or empty gallon of milk is her toy, whether she actually plays with them or not. I found this out the hard way last week as I was taking out the trash. Clara was happily playing on her blanket with her stuffed animals and measuring cups when, scavenging around the kitchen for more trash to throw out, I callously squashed an empty plastic quart of milk. Immediately, broken-hearted cries issued from the adjoining living room, making it clear that I was throwing away a most treasured companion. I had no idea.
  

I now squash plastic bottles in the dark of the night.

• She is trying really hard to sit up on her own. That is, she tries really hard whenever she feels like it, and two days can pass before she remembers that it might just be useful to be able to push herself up to a sitting position when she gets tired of laying down. So most of the time whenever she falls over, she's content to just roll around on the floor. No doubt she already knows that if she happily rolls around for long enough and then protests, I'll come and rescue her. However, whenever I do offer my hand as an anchor, she can pull herself up the rest of the way. Unfortunately though, that's probably not really helping her figure out how to do it on her own. She'll get there. And I really do try not to interfere.
  

• A spoon loaded with food and propelled by the girlie now makes it into her mouth! This is brand-new as of this week. I still load up the spoon for her, but now that she's having some success maybe next week I'll see what she does if I put a bowl of oatmeal in front of her. Then again, maybe I'll wait until it gets warmer, so we can eat outside and I can hose her off afterward.
  

• And, despite the very cool set of plastic pots and pans that Mario's mom gave her for her birthday (and are a hit), her favorite toys are still the box of baby wipes, the box of eyedrops, and the nail clippers. Really, why is there such a market out there for infant/toddler toys? Despite the amazing selection of "real" toys laying around our house, she still prefers those everyday, useful little tools. No surprise. However, those which pose an element of danger are exceptionally appealing.
  

Thank goodness she can't get around on her own yet.

Happy Birthday, Clara!

Today we celebrated one year that Clara has been making her mark on the world. Being a weekday, we couldn't do anything super-special (Mario had to work, of course). However, I invited my friend Sheila and her daughter to spend the day with us.

After the girls had breakfast, we walked to the playground in the Alameda. For the first time in weeks, Clara's swing was free (the only piece of play equipment she is able to enjoy). We hung out by the swings, watching Katya and Sheila try out all the other stairs and slides.

Clara was just about finished with the swing when a class of second-graders came to the park for recess. They started flirting with us from a distance with shouts of "Hello!" "Hello!" What's you name?" "Hello!" A few kids got a big more adventurous and asked a number of questions, especially about Clara. Once they found out it was her first birthday, they got really excited and sang her both "Las Mananitas" and the Happy Birthday song. After that, they got really friendly and Clara decided she was a bit overwhelmed. I thought it was pretty cute.

On the way home, both girls zonked out and continued to sleep for an hour once we were home. Awesome. When they woke up, we had macaroni and cheese for lunch (Clara's new favorite) and then we went to the patio to play until both Katya's and Clara's dads came home.

Once Mario came home, we sang her Happy Birthday again, I tried to teach her how to blow out a candle (but she didn't catch on at all), and we attacked the cherry cake. Despite all the sugar, she was more than ready for bed and out by 7:30.

But before she crashed, she did want to share with her admirers her thoughts on the significance of being able to count her age in years, instead of just weeks for months.