Monster Repellent and Stealing Cookies

The Honeymoon is slowly ending! This week Tonito and Vivi have become best buddies (laughing hysterically at jokes told in a secret language and stealing cookies for each other) and wrestling rivals (both enamored by the Thomas the Tank engine, the blue cup, the orange ball, the wooden comb, or any other "singleton" the other one is playing with)... all in 5 minutes.

Friends and people I meet who hear about Tonito always ask about his language development- "How do you understand him?" It just works. First of all, Tonito is a happy-go-lucky little boy who really is just interested in playing all day long. And eating. But mostly playing. His needs are either: hug (he says bao bao), kiss (says qing qing or "owie"), eat (he does the sign language of putting his fingers up to his mouth), he now says "agua" for water, or potty (niao niao). Anything else he needs or wants he might point, or sometimes he takes my hand and shows me. I know it sounds intimidating or impossible to communicate with someone who doesn't share the same language, but for some reason with Tonito it is really easy. I could claim it is because I am an ESL teacher and I am used to it, but I think the truth is he is just an easy going kid:).

Tonito continues to be my best napper (yay!) and this allows Vivi and I to spend some mommy-daughter time. Vivi really likes to help cook and frequently tells me "me gusta cocincad" (she mispronounces the Spanish for "I like to cook"). Since Tonito was sound asleep, we put Maya in the high chair with a banana (in her net-eating-utensil-thingy) and we made some easy lemon sugar cookies, which I had cooling on the counter. Once Tonito got up, they were each eating a mandarin orange at the table. I went upstairs to change Maya, and when I came down they were each eating a cookie at the table.

me: "Where did you get that cookie?"

V: "From the kitchen. I made it."

me: "Ok. Vivi, you guys can eat this cookie, but don't eat anymore because the rest are for Sunday."

V: "OK, just one."

I went upstairs to change Maya and I heard her going into the kitchen, so I grabbed the video camera. Of course I caught her taking another cookie, and asked her about it.

V: "I'm sharing with Tonito. It's for Tonito."

I hid behind the wall and taped her taking a couple of more cookies before confronting her again.

me: "I thought I said more cookies Vivi. You're going to get a tummy ache. Did you take another one?"

V: "Yes. I like cookies"

Sin verguenza!!! No shame! :) I love how she still is in the stage where she doesn't know how to lie. She could blame the dogs or Tonito or say she didn't take them, but I guess she doesn't know about that yet;). During the whole interaction Tonito was just smiling and trying to eat the cookie as fast as he could so I wouldn't take it away. And of course he was pointing at Vivi, letting me know in his own way that she was definitely the instigator.

Our final success story this week was that Vivi finally slept through the night without asking for her chupón (binky) and without being scared of monsters!! About a month ago she lost her chupón in China and since then she wakes up with night terrors, cries in her sleep for it, doesn't fall asleep for hours, wakes up too early, etc, etc. She blames it all on the monsters, who keep coming in her room and scaring her. To remedy the sleepless nights, we rounded up the most frightening animals we have (tigers, a lion and a crocodile) to scare away the intruding monsters. In addition, we bought a special monster repellent (aka glade odor neutralizer) and liberally sprayed it all around Vivi's door. We're not sure if the animals did their job, or if the clean smell scared away the monsters, but we don't really care which worked because Vivi slept the whole night! :) She only woke up at 6:30 when the roles were reversed and Maya woke up her big sister.. ahh the joys of sharing a room. We are so proud of Vivi!!! Knock on wood, let's hope this is a new beginning for the whole family to sleep the whooooole night!!!