Not So Serious (whew!)

When Clara was a baby, whenever people met her, they'd inevitably comment, "what a serious baby." They were no doubt saying this as baby Clara was giving them the Evil Eye. She was very, very good at that. Thank heavens, she's gotten friendlier.

The other day, I was given yet another clue that The Boy will be a whole different ball of wax. We were at the checkout at the OXXO and as the cashiers were oohing and ahhing over him, he busted out his award-winning grin. Not once, but at least twice.

I was a little taken aback. I'm just not used to my babies smiling at strangers.

I kind of like it!

The Little Liberated Woman

Clara's Tia Patty and Abuela have a tendency to tease Clara.

And she takes the bait every time.

They like to call her, "Clara Bella!" "Clara Hermosa!" "Clara Preciosa!"

And Clara's ornery, two-year-old self retorts back, "No. No 'mosa. No pe-ciosa. Clara."

And I thought to myself, "Wow--what a liberated little woman I'm raising! She refuses to be called nicknames based on her looks! Way to go, girl!"

This phase lasted for a month or so. However, it has mutated a little within the last week or two. Now when Patty and Mago call her Clara Bella or Clara Preciosa, she's got a different retort.

"No. Clara Hermosa." [toothy grin] [Translation: Beautiful Clara]

The other day when we were asking her to tell a friend her brother's full name, we then asked her to say her full name. Apparently we need to change her birth certificate, because she's still insisting that she's Clara Hermosa.


I'm glad to know that she's got no shortage of self-confidence.

The Boy in Action

OK, I know he's only a month old (two weeks in the video), so there's not really much action going on. But check out those turtle eyes! And wait around for 40 seconds--he smiles! He really does!

Random Observations at 2 Weeks

A lot of random things have crossed my mind the last two weeks that I've wanted to blog about, but I haven't gotten it together. Until now.

The difference between boys and girls:

• One night I had gotten the baby undressed and ready for his bath when I picked him up with my hand under his butt. Immediately I felt something suspicious. Panicked, I turned to Mario, asking, "Did he just poop on my hand?"

Nope. It was just his boy parts. Whew!

• I always thought people exaggerated when they talked about their boy babies peeing on the changing table. After all, Clara's done this once or twice. It's just more dramatic with boys, right?

No. Boys really do pee All. The. Time. While Clara has peed on the changing table once
or twice in two and a half years, The Boy pees on the changing table once or twice A DAY.

Now I know--it's no exaggeration.

Sibling Rivalry

My biggest worry about having a second child was Clara's reaction to him. Fortunately--so far--all my worries were for naught.

• They both wake up a little earlier than we had been accustomed to, but early morning with both kids is one of the best times of day. The Boy is alert, wide-eyed and wondering, and Clara just loves to get in his face and stare back at him. On these occasions, The Boy seems to enjoy her as much as she enjoys him.

• However, she does get upset when he spits up. He spat up in the car seat the other day (which was Clara's until 2 weeks ago). For the rest of the week, whenever she saw him it was an endless litany of, "Baby? Spit? Carseat?" with an ever-increasing note of panic in her voice.

• She already protects him, too. Patty and Mario's mom were teasing The Boy at breakfast about whether he wanted to eat bananas with us. Having been warned that the baby can't eat anything besides boobie and bottles (in case she had the bright idea of feeding him a banana), Clara piped up, "No! Baby eat boobie!"

Way to lay down the law, kid.


For my mom:

Echoing a constant refrain from my own mother, Mario's mom needed my opinion the other day. "Doesn't Mario speak really fast when he speaks in English?"

Mario does have a tendency to speak really fast. In any language. But I can't say that it's much faster than average conversation.

So it's not just you, Mom. ;)

Am I Jinxing Her By Saying This?

I think I can stop holding my breath and finally announce out loud that Clara may just be mostly potty-trained!

July 6th, I wrote on the calendar, "Clara went pipi on the potty!" It hadn't happened for a few weeks, so worth documenting. Then she did it again the next day. And the next. And even some times in those days she'd feel the urge, run to the potty, and sit there before realizing it was a false alarm.

But she knew what was going on.

The last couple of days, she's even gone poo in the potty, so I think we're really onto something. And now she'll go two or even three times a day (although wetting the diapers while sleeping seems to be an automatic reflex . . . I get it). But she generally runs around naked all day and hasn't had an accident for . . . I can't remember how long!

Of course, I realize that she's likely to take a BIG backslide in the next week/month, given the imminent upheaval in our lives. However, since she's come this far, I'm sure she'll hop back on that horse, once she's OK with relinquishing her spot as "the baby" (I'm just hoping that won't take the better part of the rest of this year).

I am really nervous to take her any farther than the butcher's across the street without diapers on. But, these days, we don't go much farther than the butcher's, so it's really not an issue.

But, for experienced parents out there, when do you know that she's ready to go out in public without diapers? (Like, long enough for a drive to the grocery store?) I have a feeling that Clara is pretty far from that point, but maybe I'm just being too cautious.

Two-Year-Old Chores

I've heard that it's never too early to involve kids in chores. And, with Clara, it's often more work to try to keep her from "helping" than from just letting her help in her own way.

• She loves sweeping. She's no good at it, but she LOVES it. We'll have to go to the market and get her a child-sized broom.
  

• I schedule laundry time around the times she's awake, as she loves loading the washer, closing the soap drawer, turning on the machine, unloading the washer, and bringing me clean clothes from the hamper to hang on the line. She really is pretty helpful with laundry. Particularly when we do her clothes, and I don't have to worry about her dragging shirts that are way too big for her through the dust in the laundry patio. Plus, her clothes hamper is just her size, so she can completely load and unload the washing machine on her own. It's great! Then again, she thinks she's capable of folding laundry, too. She'd be wrong on that one!
  

• My mother-in-law mentioned that her kids all learned how to make their beds when they were two or three. Since Clara's bed just got converted into a daybed, I'm in the process of showing her how to pull the sheets tight over the mattress. As it's so stinkin' hot outside, she sleeps with no sheets or blankets, so this is an excellent time to teach her this, right? She's got a long way to go before she'll ever pull those sheets even remotely tight, but she refuses to let me make her bed by myself. So I guess I'll let her learn how to make the bed. She is starting to get helpful at helping me make mine, though.

• Watering the plants has always been high on her list of priorities. Whenever she takes a bath, I now give her an empty yogurt container and ask her to water the plants with the water left in the tub (I've been bathing her in the patio--it's wonderful). She likes having something to do, and it gives me time to clean up her other bath things. Also, it's better for both of us if she's bending over to get that water out, rather than me. =P Sure, she often gets more water on the concrete than in the planters, but she's learning.

• If I make pancakes in the morning, she'll nearly throw a fit if I don't let her stir the batter. And again, she's getting pretty good at that, too.

Since she's so zealous to help, I really can't say no. And, let's face it, in a few years I'll be really grateful that I've already taken the time to teach her how to do these things.

In a few years, here's hoping that she's got a fraction of the enthusiasm for helping out around the house as she does now.

Conversations with Clara (Part II)

Being the things that pass (or, better put, evolve) all too quickly, I'm recording yet another Clara conversation here.

This afternoon we were in the pool. Clara likes using the skimmer net to fish out stray leaves and bugs, just like I do. This afternoon, she decided to fish out her ball and rubber puppy.

Every now and then she accurately counts to two or three. But we seem to be missing something, somewhere.

When she got both the puppy and the ball trapped in the net, she triumphantly exclaimed, "two puppy! Two balls!"

I pointed out that she had only one puppy and one ball in the net. "You have two toys. But only one puppy and one ball."

She seemed to seriously consider this information for awhile. But, for the rest of the afternoon, as long as she was playing with her toys and the net, she had two puppies and two balls.

It'll come.