What a nightmare!

Domingo has been waking up crying in the middle of the night a few times these past few weeks. We suspected he was having some nightmares but he's usually too out of it to tell us what's wrong and just goes right back to sleep.
Last night Domingo woke up crying again, and Chris asked him what was wrong. He said "mommy took a bite of my fruit and I didn't want her to take a bite."
Seriously?
This child is not having nightmares about monsters or being lost or getting eaten by dinosaurs, which would make sense since his crazy parents let him watch Jurassic Park and he's only 2. Don't judge! He LOVES the dinosaurs and is totally not phased by all the people eating stuff! He's like, "look mommy, that quetzalcoatlus is hungry, he wants to eat that man." Circle of life.
No, no, my son's biggest fear is that he will have to share his fruit with his mother. Or a toy with his sister, we think he was crying in his sleep about that a few weeks ago, he was mumbling something about "it's my toy!"
This may have been brought on by me a few weeks ago daring to suggest that we share the last ice-cream bar. Domingo just about lost his mind. I mean, no wonder he's having nightmares, I should be locked up.

Meanwhile, Amalia has turned into a total brute! She beats on her brother now with such glee that I almost have to laugh. He will pull a toy out of her hands, or try, and she will yank it right back, or clock him with it. She is just trying to defend herself from his constant selfish toy yanking ways! The other night she smacked Domi over the head with a big hard plastic dinosaur. Domi took it in stride, and just asked for a band-aid for his head, but it probably really hurt.


The drum stick, one of her weapons of choice.

She is such a baby-hulk. She'll get tangled in her play gym but continue to scoot along where she wants to go, just dragging it along behind her. The other day she had a trail of babygym, bjorn, and bumbo tagging along for the ride as she scooted desperately to where she heard Domi and tio James laughing and having a good time. Nothing was going to keep her from playing with those two.

So between Little Miss Smacksalot, and No-Share MacGuiliacuddy we're doing a bang up job over here.

Back it up, way up.

So this weekend our computer hard drive decided to die. Unfortunately this means that the last year and a half of pictures, videos and precious baby moments committed to our computer are now lost to the ages. I am understandable upset by this. More upset by my own stupidity than anything else. Of course I know you have to back stuff up, of course, I'm not an idiot! We even have one of those little stick thingies that you put stuff onto. And of course we did it one time about a year and a half ago, and then of course we never did it again. More than ever I'm glad that I have this blog that I've been uploading pictures here rather than just waiting to print stuff out and fill in my baby books because, oops! Wouldn't have ANYTHING AT ALL for Amalia's book at this point and the last ones we have of Domi are from when he's chubby and not walking yet!
So we now have a back up hard drive so we will at least have pictures from her first birthday if nothing else.

Happy 10th monthday!

Amalia, Tuesday was your 10th monthday!
You've made some pretty incredible leaps this past month. You are signing more and more(mas y mas) and you are officially unconventionally mobile!
You've taken after your tia Leticia and discovered the best way to travel is by sitting up and scooting along the floor on your rump. You never liked tummy time, and as soon as you learned a way to avoid it, you would never spend more than a few seconds on your tummy, so it shouldn't be that shocking that you don't crawl on your belly like a normal kid! But strangeness aside, you are fast! I realize it isn't the most efficient way to travel, but you manage to disappear in a flash, and by the time I look up you are in another room!
Because you are the second child, you are doomed to be compared to your older brother. This began long before you were born, when you were just a little bean making me throw up more than Domingo, moving around more than Domingo, and then once you were born, being so much calmer than Domingo, and then screaming inconsolably for hours JUST LIKE DOMINGO!! Fortunately for you, your mother was not so dumb to think that "oh it's just colic, she'll grow out of it" like I did with Domingo, because really, what are the odds of two colicy babies in a row?
Well this trend of comparison continues, and again, I don't know why it surprises me so every time I make this realization, but you are so very different from your brother. You have your own little personality and are your own little person already. You are much more curious and adventurous than your brother ever was, or even is to this day. Where he is very cautious and careful, your throw caution to the wind. He never put things in his mouth, babyproofing for that reason was pretty easy. He was content to sit and look at books or toys for long stretches at a time, and didn't really feel the need to move around much. Part of the reason I think that he didn't walk until he was 15 months was that he really didn't care too much to get any where. He was pretty happy just to sit where he was and play with what he had near by.
You on the other hand cannot get enough of moving around! You want to be where ever you are not. You want to see all the action from a front row seat. And you get there fast with your swish swish, slalom-like scooting.
Along the way you put everything you get your hands on directly into your mouth. You want to eat every new food, gum every toy you pass, taste every surface you encounter, it doesn't matter that it's a public restroom mirror or the tires of your stroller-ARGH! you just want to explore the world and the best way you know how is through your mouth.
The only time something is not in your mouth is when you are trying to use it to talk to us. You are so chatty it's great. You still aren't speaking in words we can understand, but that is definitely our failing and not for lack of you trying to get us to understand! You whisper, scream, giggle, laugh, whine, and babble all the time. You are signing a few words, light, more, duck. And you get so excited when I get excited and clap when you use signs. You clap and smile and laugh, it's so great.
I am so excited for these next few months, not just because you'll be turning one, but for lots of reasons. The sun is coming out and it's warming up, we're going outside more and more. Soon we'll be swimming at abuela's or going to the cottage with grandma and farfar. And even sooner we'll get to meet baby Owl!
There is so much to look forward to. I know that you will be front and center to see it all.
Love Mama.

rhyme time

We had another fun weekend in Morris with the primas. Domingo continues to be enamored of them, he calls them "my pweemas" or sometimes he says my cousins. He is so thoroughly bilingual now it's funny. He has some weird speech impediments though. He doesn't say r's or l's in English, but has no problem with them in Spanish. He can say libros or lechugas or libelula in Spanish with out a problem at all. But ask him to say lizard or lion or leopard and he says wizard, wion and weopard. The other thing he has started recently is a little bit of a stutter. There is a lot of and a and a and a that goes on over here. I have a feeling that's partly because he's deciding which language to speak, and then his mouth just doesn't work as fast as his brain.
Today he was showing off his funny brain with the girls. They were playing a rhyme game with Chris. They were making up "poems" and saying rhyming words. Domi spent our entire lunch saying words that rhymed with his various lunch items. Rice rhymes with ice, hot rhymes with pot, and apparently porridge rhymes with orange. So much for that old saying that nothing rhymes with orange!
No pictures this time, but I'll get around to posting some more soon.

Happy Easter!

This weekend we went to Champaign-Urbana and met up with the primas and family at the girls' Nana and Grandpop's place. Tia Leticia and I ran a race, and then we drove back up to Morris for some Easter fun.
Domi and the twins had a fun Easter egg hunt, but we didn't get any pictures since the egg hunt lasted all of 5 seconds! Domingo found his first egg, realized there was chocolate inside and just started scarfing down the candy without bothering to look for any more eggs. It's probably better that way, since he'll end up eating less candy overall, but his sugar high was immense.
Here are some more pictures from this weekend, and one of Amalia from last weekend and tia Heather's awesome baby shower!


Roxie- just about the best dog ever. Amalia took a minute to get used to this big girl, but as soon as she figured out she wouldn't get licked, Amalia started scooting after Roxie every time she was in view.



Beautiful Easter dress before...


And after!


Domi's deciding what he wants to eat... strawberry or blackberry?


Amalia's floral fashion statement, and chins.

31st Monthday!!

Domingo, we are ridiculously light on the pictures of you this past month. But we do have a bunch to report. This past month you have exceeded even your usually impressive amounts of willfulness. But you temper it nicely with your sweetness especially around your sister.
You are also keeping me from throwing you to the wolves by all the funny things you say lately, and there's loads. Some of my favorites are "calmate" and "no te frustres mama" when you think I'm getting a little too antsy for anyone's good. Rather than send me into a rage as I'm sure it would if you were a few years older and accompanied by the obligatory eye roll, I actually am reminded that you are watching every move I make, and if I'm frustrated or agitated, you pick up on it instantly. So it really works, I take a deep breath and relax, and then I laugh at you and myself.
You now speak English just as well as Spanish and your vocabulary is skyrocketing. You are so comfortable speaking in English now I get a little worried that your Spanish will slip away, but I am making every effort to keep it up.
You are now sleeping every night in your big boy bed with Papa. We are transitioning ever so slowly to you in your bed alone, and I think it's working. You love sleeping in your bed, and a few weekends ago when you had to give it up for the primas, you were none to pleased. Soon enough you'll be in there by your self, or maybe we'll make you share with your sister! I think it's helping everyone sleep a little better now that we're not all crammed in the bed together, but I do sometimes miss the sweet boy snuggles. It's officially boys against girls now and your sister and I say good night and don't see or hear you again until morning. All this Daddy-Domi time you've been spending has lead to an unexpected Daddy obsession on your part. You are so into your Papa lately, it's great. I must admit to feeling a little heartbreak when I went to console you once at bed time and you screamed, "Yo quiero mi PAPA!" I was so taken aback, since you have never once before wanted anyone else over me if you were upset or crying. I almost cried, then almost launched into a "I carried you for 9 months..." type tirade before I realized that not only does this make perfect sense, it is a wonderful thing that you and your Papa are so very close, and growing closer every day.
The other big news this month is that after months of hand wringing and angst (on my part, you have been blissfully ignorant of all the drama) you will be attending a cooperative preschool next fall! You got in off of the waiting list for one of the schools we applied to in January, and I am so excited and happy. It seems like it will be a good fit for us, as it has everything I wanted from a preschool- finger paints etc. and it has the parent involvement that I think is really important for us both to feel comfortable with the transition to school. The other good thing for me and your Papa is that we'll get to learn how to be good responsible involved parents BEFORE your actual school starts. It's a win-win.
Every day you say or do something insane, or hilarious, or adorable. Everyday I say "man I've got to type that up for my blog". But the thing is, we're so busy actually doing insane, hilarious and adorable things that the time slips by and I forget what it was that was so noteworthy! However, I would rather be there with you than be next door typing up what I heard you say.
Love,
Mama.

Masing her butt off

I got home from work today and Amalia was pulling up to kneeling on the coffee table, and (according to her Papa) "Masing her butt off". Amalia was just on the cusp of doing all kinds of stuff for so long. She is "crawling" too by scooting along on her bottom. She was pretty stealthy about moving up until the last two days, where you would need a time lapse camera to notice her in motion. You would just look and five minutes later she was some where else. Now she motors across the room on her tush.
And when I asked if she wanted mas puffs, she started signing mas with a fervor that could only come from realizing she is communicating the need for more food!
When she pulled up at the table, she looked over at me with the biggest most breath taking smile. She was just so proud. I had to clap!
I'll get some video up here asap.