Peace, Paz, Paix

I was gone all last weekend at a Board-Staff retreat for the Women of Color Resource Center. Consequently, Amado saw very little of me all weekend - I left right after he woke up and came home after he was already in bed. Then, on Monday night I had a work event in the evening, so he was at school in the morning, came home for a nap, and I was gone by the time he woke up.

All this to say that from Friday through Monday, I was kind of missing in action. And Amado, while very happy to have some one-on-one Papi time, was growing a little tired of the situation.

The reason that I know this is because he generally sleeps through the night with a couple quick wake ups. But on Monday night, he wakes up, sees me, and figures, "She's here, I better get my play time in now". So we bring him to bed for what we assume will be a quick-put-back-to-bed as is customary these days and instead we find ourselves in romper room.

I wont detail the whole repertoire of antics, but highlight a couple. My sister bought Amado a book for Christmas thats called something like "Peace Day", and it talks about how all around the world, kids say peace in different languages but they all want to be safe, go to school, share food with their families, etc. Its a really nice, positive book. And each page has something like "Carlos lives in Mexico. Carlos says "paz"". You get the picture.

So here we are, 4 in the morning, and Amado decides to whip out his mulilingual peace knowledge. He sits up, and says "Peace. Paz. Paix. Peace. Paz. Paix. Peace. Paz. Paix". Good lord. I mean in general, you really congratulate ssomething like that - I dont even know what that last language is. But its 4 in the morning.

So I say to him, in my most ernest and cautionary voice, "Amado, you are going to play in the morning with Rory and Lumina. You need to sleep now because if not, you will be too tired to play.". He didn't heed my warning. Instead, I put two fun names of two fun people out there in the mix and he decides to make up a song. Doing his arm-movements that signify music (some of you know exactly what i am talking about), he yells "Rory! Rory! Ro-o-ry!" "Luna, Luna, Lu-u-na!"

Wow.

And yes, he finally fell asleep. About a half-hour before I had to get up. It didnt make sense to go back to sleep so I spooned his little warm body, buried my nose in his hair, and felt sad about what it will be like when he is too old for this insanity.

animal sounds

Amado has been doing animal sounds for a few months now.
You say "como habla la vaca?" and he says "moooo".
"Como habla el gallo?" "kikirikiri!"
"Como habla el gato?" "eoooww!" (yeah, he leaves off the "m", we are not sure why)

So, you all know that "cafe" (and then the mysterious "whafe") was one of the earlier words in Amado's repertoire, no doubt based on the massive amount that we drink. Well, we recently bought a used espresso maker off of Berkeley Parents Network (yes!!!) and our consumption has now tripled. And he has a new animal sound.
"Como habla el whafe?" says his papi.
And yes, my toddler son says "schweeoohschweeschwee", imitating the sound of the espresso maker.

Learn how to mop, kid

So today, Jason and I were standing in the kitchen. Amado (one and a half years old) comes in and says "sucio". Sometimes he is just using his words for no particualr reason, just to say them, so we figured this was what was happening. Joking, I ask him "whats sucio? tu papi?". He shakes his head and says "piso".
My one and a hald year old kid is telling us that our housekeeping is not up to his standards. What a guy.