Marcelo turns 2

- Saturday -

Marcelo received many Sesame Street toys.  Sofia opened most of them for him.  He tried to give each one the time and attention they deserved but he had to be rushed onto the next present for sake of moving along with the party.

He loved all his presents, but he was most obsessed with the balls, not sharing or even letting go of them

His cake was an alligator made from cupcakes.  He "oohed" and "ahhed" when he came down after his nap and first saw it.  I made him a special non-allergenic cake and he knew just what to do when it came time to blow out the candles.

- Sunday -

On Sunday, we had Abuelo & Abuela, Tia Marcelo & Tom, Uncle Peter, and Autumn over.  It was a bit windy so we ate inside.  Marcelo was all about Tia Marcela, "look at this...", "Tia Marcelaaaaa!".  There were some big gifts, a basketball hoop from Abuelo, and the Speed Racer car which we thought would need to be charged but Sofia showed us otherwise when she hoped in after it's excitement had died down a bit and pushed on the gas pedal.  Marcelo immediately had to have at it of course.  And although he managed to press on the gas pedal without assistance, he felt no need to take charge of the stearing wheel choosing instead to go where ever the car chose to lead him.

Marcelo also received a Sesame Street lego set from Tia Marcela, a set of cute little cars from Abuelo & Abuela, and a drum set with musical instruments from Mami.  I know, why would I do that to myself?  I don't know, because I'm willing to hurt myself just for the enjoyment of my own children.  Marcelo loves to play the drums anyway on anything he can find.  When we're out in the garage, he somehow knows to turn the plastic water containers upside down, hold it up with his legs and beat on it.  He's a very musical boy, what can I say.

Go Speed Racer Go! (in your new JCrew cardigan from Kiri & Ann)

You had tons of fun on your two day birthday celebration.  Now we have to figure out how to handle your newlyfound posessiveness of your toys.

2 Years

You're almost two years old and boy does it show. Your easy going spirit has slowly been replaced by a more boyish disrespect for authority. My authority to be specific (I would mention Daddy's authority but I'm still waiting for him to develop some.) Your listening skills definitely leave much to be desired. Your ignoring skills are highly refined and right up there with a full grown man's ignoring abilities. Another boyish trait of note is your propensity to repeat an action with undesirable results. If you consistently fall off a chair you decide to climb on, you might want to consider moving on to something else. Particularly since you're more prone to come running to mama, whining and crying when you get hurt as opposed to the I-meant-to-do-that,-I'm-fine type of attitude Sofia would have taken at your age.

I suppose this confirms what I've known all along despite the almost unanimous opposition from my Senior Thesis Philosophy class in college, that men and women really are fundamentally different. Even compared to the classic tom boy that is Sofia, these qualities still set you apart in that time honored and recognizable the world over male way.

I will concede that your influences have been different as the second born child. The obvious and greatest influence is that of another child. You spend a great deal of your life following Sofia around, adopting whatever game she chooses to invent and acting like it's your own. You have progressed by leaps and bounds in your vocabulary which I think is greatly owed to the way you repeat every word, phrase, and conviction that Sofia has to offer. Just a couple of minutes ago, you and Sofia swarmed in here like flies, (that's what I call you two when you manage to find me and swarm around me no matter what room in the house I'm trying to enjoy some alone time in) and declared that you were bobcats as you displayed your hands gloved in mismatched socks. First I had to attentively listen to Sofia and then again to you with equal interest and surprise.

I know you don't know what a bob cat is but you never shy away from new words even if you can't pronounce them very well at all. It's a good trait to have. Not doing things for fear of being wrong will only hold you back. I've always been a competence first then comes confidence type of person, but as I've learned in my wise years, confidence will often get you much farther than competency. In this, you follow in your father's footsteps and I hope it serves you well.


Until recently, I had let your hair grow wild and long. I kind of always wanted you to have long hair but your hair just shoots down your forehead straight into your eyes, so alas, I abandoned my fantasy and took you in for a haircut. Despite my pleas that they not make you look like a Mormon missionary, you ended up looking like a Mormon missionary -sorry.

You're still a skinny little boy. I'll update with your measurements when we go in for your two year well check up. But, you're longer and your head is more proportional to your body making you look probably much older than you really are. I dress you like a regular little boy, but I miss the more cute and cuddly outfits of yester-year. I guess boys just have a shorter cute and cuddly shelf life than girls.

... more later



The visit at the pediatrician's office was challenging to say the least. Somehow, you seem to be able to retain some memory of doctor's visit even though your last one was more than six months ago. Nothing terrible has been done to you aside from the vaccines (no, I'm not counting the circumcision when you were two weeks old). Anyway, even though, the nurse kindly let us wait in the waiting room instead of the small examination room, you still decided you wanted to leave the second we got in the exam room. Despite the fact that you are normally quite friendly with anyone willing (or not willing) to talk to you, you wanted nothing to do with the nurse. You didn't want your head measured. You didn't want to lie down on the paper so we could measure your length, you didn't even want to sit or stand to get weighed.

Once we got called back to the exam room, you immediately turned back towards the door. As I tried and failed to distract you with nothing but my charm, Dr. Arnold walked in, quickly assessed that you were trying to escape and calmly blocked the door with a chair. I guess he's dealt with this before. I had a very hard time trying to concentrate as Dr. Arnold started talking to me. You were still rather enraged and started grunting and trying to move the chair out of the way. I thought at any moment you were going to make a break for it and I was going to be running after you down the hall making a spectacle.

As I wrangled you onto my lap for the exam, I braced myself for, what would surely be, the most embarrassing trip to the doctor's office. Where, despite Dr. Arnold's kind and regular reassurances on each visit that I'm "such a good mom", he would surely find out now that I wasn't and that I'd simply let you raise yourself as a feral child. Luckily, Dr. Arnold managed to sustain your attention for a couple of seconds with the lizard on his stethoscope. And although, you would only grant us short reprieves from the fit you were throwing in order to escape, Dr. Arnold was able to complete the exam and I was still able to escape with half of my dignity.

How much you don't grow:
Weight:  23 lbs 7oz (5th percentile)
Length:  33" (25th percentile)
Head Cir.:  48 1/2 cm (50th percentile)

Sesame Street and other hobbies

Marcelo's favorite show is Sesame Street. While only a few months ago, he past by the TV as Sofia watched with only a glimpse here and there, once he witnessed the experience that is Sesame Street, he didn't take his eyes off it for the whole hour of its entirety.


He usually watches it once a day with Sofia in my room while I take a shower. I've discovered it to be a very effective de-mobilizer and babysitter. I can count on them staying put the whole hour, giving me time to shower, get dressed, dry my hair and put make up on without being in a hurry or being disturbed in the shower every five minutes. Marcelo is mesmerized by each segment. He likes to watch it while clutching on to his little blanky. I tried watching it myself to see what was so great about it, but it didn't have the same effect on me -I just found it boring, annoying, and boring.

Marcelo also enjoys still throwing things on the floor, I think he knows it's slowly killing me; drinking his rice milk from his favorite straw cup; running around like a drunken midget; being picky and demanding what food he chooses to eat each day; tormenting Sofia by occasionally stomping on her head while she's laying down on the floor quietly watching TV; repeating everything anyone has to say in an interested, matter-of-fact, and curious way; and still being cute and adorable.

Recently, he has really uped his gamed in the terrible-ness department, though. He has become even more picky with food, only wanting to drink rice milk and eat wheat bread all day. And when I say all day, I mean all day. There must be a continuous influx of rice milk coming to him otherwise the shrill shrieking of "milky" begins. Trips to the time out couch have been more frequent lately and I suspect it will be necessary to make them even more frequently to keep his terrible-ness at bay.

Oh, I may have also forgotten to mention, he has committed his first toddler felony, assault with a hurtful weapon -his teeth. One day that he and Sofia were not seeing eye to eye, he decided to lunge at her face and bite her in the cheek. Luckily for him, Sofia was so shocked, she didn't retaliate and came crying to me instead. I felt really bad for her and I have to admit, for a second I had this feeling that I was glad it didn't happen to me because it looked like it hurt a lot. I could see the imprint of all his top and bottom teeth in a perfect circular pattern. This definitely sent up a red flag, hopefully it doesn't become a constant occurrence. He did try to attack me at Old Navy the other day when I had to chase him down and told him he had to go back in the stroller because he kept running off in the store not listening at all. As I tried to wrangle his squirming body, he lunged at my face, his teeth made contact with my cheek (apparently this is the target of choice), but luckily I held him back just in time to avoid the chomp. It was scary, I felt like I was holding a giant piranha. Not cute Marcelo, not cute at all.

On the more positive side (and potentially not good for me side), Marcelo and Sofia enjoy playing with each other more and more as he gets older. Most of the time Marcelo follows Sofia around trying to mimic what ever it is she's doing. But lately, I've caught glimpses of them playing together, pretending games, like kitchen or doctor, or building things with blocks together not just side by side. Having conversations and cooperating to make something happen. It's really nice to see them having that brotherly/sisterly rapport. I just hope this doesn't develop into conspiring to create fires in the closet when they get older.

Now that Sofia has started school again, Marcelo gets a little bit sad when we drop her off. It’s right as we start to drive away that he does a little puppy cry.

Summer '09 Vacation - Road Trip

We weren't entirely certain how vacation-y it would be for us to go on vacation with a toddler. So our plan was to keep him contained and limit his free will as much as possible. We had tested out the child carrier a few times on short walks and Marcelo seemed to do OK with it. I also bought him a little chair that would attach to the picnic table at the campsite in the Redwoods, because I knew we would be eating there a lot. And, he got his own Little Cub sleeping bag which he wasn't quite sure what to do with since he's used to sleeping on top of the covers aligning his body only with the stars. Our plan worked. He was content to spend most of his time confined to his car seat, the child carrier, the portable high chair, or the bed. We did let him walk around for brief periods of time to make sure the muscles in his legs wouldn't atrophy all together.

Marcelo, mountain boy

Exploring the campsite at the Redwoods

Taking it easy while Daddy gets a workout

Some brief playing time at the gift shop

Sleeping like a baby. Marcelo's first week of sleeping in a real bed. We used Sofia to act as a buffer on one side and surrounded him by a dam of comforters and pillows on the other. By about the third night he finally figured out that you're head goes on the pillow, not your butt and legs.

At Safari West, Marcelo enjoyed looking at all the "doggies". Apparently we haven't done much by way of expanding his animal vocabulary

Rain or shine

The kids love to play in the backyard. Even after the daily showers and thunderstorms we've been having lately. Sofia insisted on wearing her rain gear and found her old rain boots for Marcelo. He had a bit of a hard time walking around with them being that he has ant feet and the boots were too big. Eventually, they ended up splashing in the puddles with no shoes anyway. Marcelo follows Sofia around doing what ever she's doing, chanting what ever nonsense is coming out of her mouth. He also enjoys yelling what ever the last word is in the sentence that you just said to him. So if I say, "Marcelo, no screaming", he'll reply with, "SCREAMING!!!" in a kind of rusty, scary, troll-like voice.

Roly Poly

While Marcelo is certainly anything but roly poly, he certainly does enjoy playing with roly poly bugs. Whenever we go in our backyard to play, he soon comes walking over to me with his prize, "bug!". Unfortunately, by the time his little pincers have grabbed them, they have usually expired or have unwillingly been pryed open and multiplied forcefully. This has been going on for weeks now and Marcelo is not showing signs of losing interest in this little nature hobby. I'm sure it won't be long before he's squealing and crying at the sight of a fly. At least that seems to be the next logical developmental step from what I've observed.

Sand under my feet

Now that I've been doing the SAHM for almost a full year, I'm enjoying the fact that we can add amenities to our backyard guilt-free due to all the time we spend at home. This is definitely one of those things I thought to myself pre-children and even early on post-children that I just wouldn't do. I mean why would you want to have your kids play in a sandbox where they can get sand in every nook and cranny so you can later enjoy hours of cleaning them, their clothes, and everywhere they've tracked the sand into. Not to mention, what kind of yucky things could be lurking in the sand. Pretty much, anything that would make children messy, I was vehemently against.

Fast forward to now, things are a little more like this --get things for children that will entertain them and keep them happy for significant, prolonged periods of time in the comfort of my own home so that I may have moments of peace, sanity and contentment. Plus, cleaning sand out of Marcelo's nooks and crannys would still be better than cleaning dirt and small rocks out of his butt crack when he starts playing in the flower beds with his shovel. I needed something better than dirt where I could allow him to dig. I was getting sick of the sound of my own voice constantly yelling, "Marcelo, get OUT of the dirt."


We got lucky with this KSL classifieds find, a used sandbox that matches our play set with a new cover. After a few days and one long Sunday of annoying sanding, we turned the gray weathered cedar into almost new again. The fact that it had a fitted cover was essential as we did not want any of the afore mentioned yucky things ending up in the sand. After researching how to find safe sand without free crystalline silica dust, Ray was all up in arms for a couple of weeks when he thought I was going to have clean natural beach sand shipped to me from California. I won't lie, I did consider it momentarily. After all, you can't put a price on the safety of our children, can you. Besides, I couldn't very well sit there basking in the sun full of peace, sanity, and contentment while I subject my children to playing with silica in their lungs and eventual emphysema.


I eventually found some white washed sand at a local query. We screened out some little rocks, dumped it in and sprayed it down to keep it moist and non-dusty. I was quite pleased with it. I've even played in it myself, but only while Godzuki was taking a nap because I didn't want him to knock down my castles. Oh, and the kids love it too. They've been spending quite a lot of time playing in it. Marcelo is still dealing with the sandbox rules: 1) Do not throw sand out of the box, 2) Do not throw sand period. I know rules, rules, there's so many!

Sometimes I feel like I'm going against not only my vow to never allow my kids to do anything messy, but also to not get them anything that was very fun as to prevent them from getting spoiled. So far none of these plans for child rearing are working out very well.