Toddlerisms and baby growth

These are "Mickey Mounster" and "Mimi":

Until recently, "Mickey Mounster" was called "Elmo" (since Kid 1 doesn't know any Sesame Street characters except toddler-crack Elmo). I just like how "Mounster" neatly blends "Cookie Monster" and "Mickey Mouse".

Mimi is the name for Minnie Mouse in Spanish.

They are the subject of many poop jokes lately. Almost-3-yr-old humor, I tell ya.

It's been months since I wrote anything. Kid 1 speaks a ton of English, catching up almost to her Spanish. She also has this funny adaptation: If she doesn't know a word in English, she takes the word in Spanish and just sort of pronounces it in English. She'll do this by dropping the trailing vowel to Englishify her word, or just pronounce the word with American vowels. Like 6 months ago she coined "Biciclet" (sounds just like the French "bicyclette") this way. Last weekend, when a bunch of friends were over, she was trying to tell a story about her brother in English:

And then he pulled up on my....mesa... and then he fell and hit his head.

(She does know the word "table" but it just didn't come at that moment I guess.)

Kid 2, meanwhile, did eventually crawl but much prefers the army crawl. He now heavily favors one arm over the other for forward motion. He can remain sitting finally but he does NOT push himself into a sitting position ever. He is nearly 10 months and just moved into his 24m/2T onesies. 24m hats are too small, but some 18m pants still fit. He wears a size 6 shoe. For the last 6 weeks he's been pulling up on any and everything, and scoots along (pretty inelegantly still). This weekend we pulled up the walker toys and he is very excited about them. His favorite toys are still any sort of a ball or object that he can roll away. (Markers, toy teacups, toy eggs) He plays a sort of "fetch" with himself for 15-20 minutes at a time. He's got 4 teeth and a 5th will poke through at any minute.

Since my suegra buzzed his hair (like 1/8th" buzz!) in August, it's been growing out. He's had two trims (one around the ears, the other to clean up his neckline) but he's still got two huge tufts on either side of the top of his head that stick STRAIGHT OUT. Since the middle portion has finally decided to start lying down, he looks a bit like a baby Wolverine (the X-Man, not the animal) with 2.5" tufts on his little baby head.

My sweet beautiful ginormous baby boy

The Hottest Computer Scientist in the Universe is dutifully filing away a pile of accumulated paperwork. Today was Kid 2's well-child visit. (Ouch!)

THCSITU found the little report cards from the Guajolotita's visits as he filed away the Guajolotito's from today. He is heavier at 4 months than she was at 9 months! He is only 1/2 an inch shorter! I can't believe that he is the same physical size as she was on her first trip to Mexico.

Kid 2, 4 months: 18 lbs14 oz, 27.25"
Kid 1, 9 months: 18 lbs 3oz, 28.25"

 She was crawling and cruising and clapping and pulling the magnets off the fridge and fell off the bed onto the (concrete) floor face-first (twice). He likes to "stand" and pull hair and giggle and drool. At 9 months he'll do all the same things she could, I imagine, but how big will he be by then?? My sweet delicious boy. He's so cuddly and amazing.

D'oh: having typed that it just occurred to me, this is going to be one heckuva crowded trip. We were 3 people in 2 seats on that trip. Now we'll be 3 people in 4 seats but the guy without the seat will be a lot bigger than our first lap child. Ah well.

Anecdotes

I'm super angry right now because I forgot ALL of the components of the pump at home - yesterday it was the tubing, last week it was something else.

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Kid 1 is learning about relationships. She told me something like, "R** es el esposo de Abuela." I tell her that's right, and we go through and name all the husband/wife pairs in our family. She immediately follows up with: "*** es mi esposo" (Kid 2 is my husband), as she hugs him tight.

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We went on a weekend roadtrip 8hrs away for a relative's memorial service. He died one year ago and we'd nicknamed the event J**'s Permanent Siesta Fiesta. Kid 2, just like his sister as an infant, HATES THE CAR. Screams for hours without stopping. Our last stop, for food and potty breaks, left us 2 hrs till home. From 8pm-10pm, Kid 2 screamed. Without stopping. Kid 1, poor girl, is cooped up back there with the screamer. She started making pretend phone calls to her second cousin whom she'd met at the Fiesta. For two hours. She would hand the phone to me and tell me to talk to her, and then started demanding that Papi also join in the conversation. This cousin speaks English, so these conversations were in English:

"Hi! What are you doing? I'm in the car."

Papi cleverly answers,

"I'm driving, I can't talk on the phone."

To which Kid 1 has a solution:

"Put it on speaker! Papi you press the button! Put it on speaker! Talk to C**!"

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Kid 2 rolled over for his extended family audience this weekend. He's rolled from tummy to back several times, but doesn't make a habit out of it yet. This was the first time I've seen him roll from his back to his tummy all on his own. I was doing one last diaper change al fresco as Kid 1 played with some of her second cousins. He starts arching his back and flipping onto his side. I am talking to a cousin (who is an OBGYN, knows lots about babies and childbirth and is just a super interesting lady) and we start to cheer him on: Come on! You can do it! He sort of slowly pivots around one shoulder, fussing with all his effort, and eventually Whomp lands on his belly, completely sprawled out in the grass. He was 16 weeks old that day.

Denying the approach of Back to Work

I have two weeks left.

I'm freaking out internally. I did post an ad for childcare, but I just have no desire at all to meet these women. I don't want to leave my baby for someone else to love. I don't want someone else to negotiate the relationship between my kids. It's astounding the amount of thoughtless, stupid stuff that people say to kids.

On the other hand, I have no desire to fix dinner while managing the kids. The idea of trying to accomplish that is just exhausting. Either I leave the Guajolotito to scream for a while in the early evening, or I strap him on and attempt to cook with 18lbs suspended between me and the stove. Usually I choose option 1 because option 2 doesn't seem safe. Besides which that's the witching hour so the Guajolotita is either running circles around me or having insane meltdowns about nothing.

I also do not manage to keep the house clean OR do fun things with the kids. Really, I mean a usual outing is walking to the grocery store with the wagon which is kinda fun but she'd rather ride her balance bike to the park. But then she's too tired to cooperate at the grocery store... or if we are out all morning then the dishwasher never gets loaded and I can't plan something for dinner. But staying home realistically means changing diapers and negotiating the potty and nursing the baby and feeding the kid and I usually do run a couple loads of laundry but nothing really gets picked up or cleaned.

They don't sleep at the same time. My sweet boy naps in the late morning, waking up just one Kid 1 goes to sleep, and he falls asleep again about an hour after Kid 1 wakes up. This also contributes to the difficulty we have going for outings. I want to get the house a bit picked up/organized before going out for the day and by then Kid 2 is asleep in his bed. He will happily sleep in the Ergo but, having Kid 1 as such a poor sleeper I really want to let the Guajolotito sleep IN HIS BED so he doesn't get used to sleeping only with the motion of being strapped on to me. Also I am more or less trying to the Guajolotita be more responsible for herself - waiting for her to put her shoes on, waiting for her to let me know she has to go to the bathroom - but she takes FOREVER. And between that and the other one sleeping, then we are captive till 3pm each day.

But after I go back to work, I'll only see these kids for an hour before bed, AND still have to fix dinner during that time, and laundry and real cleaning will have to happen after they are in bed. A babysitter does a better job of loading/unloading the dishwasher and keeping the toys picked up than I do though. Or at least, that was true with one kid. I dunno if that will be true with two. I suspect probably.

Even though I don't feel like I do a very good job of "being home" I do really have fun with these kids. It's a wonderful feeling to just know everything the Guajolotita is talking about. None of it is a mystery - well OK a lot of it still is a mystery, I have no idea where some of her ideas are coming from, but many things I can relate to various conversations we had during the week. She's so sweet with her babydoll Alex, and occasionally plays so nicely with her brother, and tells me these neverending incredible stories. I really do feel so fortunate to know her and get to see her so much. I don't want to give that up.

:-(

P.S. childcare will be more than my salary when I go back. For at least the next 2 years.

El guajolote

We sometimes refer to Kid 2 with a typical diminutive of his name (ending in "-ito") but more often make a silly version ending with "-azo" or "-ote" which implies bigness. This kid is big. He's wearing mostly 9 month size clothes at 2 months. At his two month checkup today he was off the charts for height and weight. He's my Ferdinand the Bull - sweet, loveable, and massive. He can hoist his entire upper body up with his arms during his tummy time (that's of his nearly 17lb body, mind you). He usually suffers his sister's love - administered in smacks to the face, suffocating kisses, and thrown objects ("Estoy compartiendo!") - with little complaint. His baby smiles are a huge open mouth, a soundless belly laugh.

I'm so in love. I spend all day kissing his squishy cheeks and snuggling him. Well, that time that I'm not fending off Kid 1, or stuffing him into the Ergo so that I can accomplish something despite my two lovely assistants, or studiously setting him down to sleep so I don't screw up his sleeping patterns like I did Kid 1. So, like maybe an hour a day? Sigh, second child syndrome. Poor kid.

Bears run the internet

The Guajolotita was on the computer today - punching the keyboard and clicking around with the mouse to entertain herself - and she started explaining something to me about "las osas" and "internet". I kept thinking she was bastardizing an English word or I was otherwise hearing her wrong. Recounting to THCSITU tonight to see if he knew what she was talking about, I realized: she likes the Charmin commercial that has been coming up before the version of El son de La Negra that she usually watches.

2-week postpartum checkup

I was 177 the Friday before the Guajolotito was born - it's 20 days later (18 since he was born) and I am at 151. Still a long way to go to get to 133 - well, say maybe 138 while still breastfeeding.