Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Mi travieso terrible - My mischiveous toddler

English needs a word like the Spanish travieso. Travieso means mischievous, but in Spanish it's used as a noun as well and sometimes it just WORKS that way. I never considered the word travieso much before, but now I am . . .

Suddenly, my 20-month old is completely mischievous. Almost every day he does something that leaves us just shaking our heads. This weekend he had a couple of real doozies - ones that left us wondering how he'll be when he's 4, or 14.

Saturday was spring cleaning day, and I spent 4 hours shampooing the carpets. Sunday we were all in the yard - kiddos playing and Papi and I working. The kids were in and out of the house like usual, when Gabi came to let me know that little Buddy had dumped a shovelful of potting soil onto the freshly laundered, beige carpet! Now I'm far, far from a neat freak, and if he had done the same thing Friday I would have just shrugged oh well and cleaned it up. Sunday afternoon, however, it hurt my soul to see that black pile of dirt in the middle of the room. All that work! Why couldn't it have been in the playroom! Or at least the corner! I haven't had the heart to haul out the steam cleaner again - maybe next weekend.

Now that's the kind of mischievous thing that any little kid might do, but Sunday night his more devious side came out. We were finishing dinner (nothing weird - spaghetti with meat sauce); both kiddos had refused to eat it at first, but finally Gabi had gotten up the courage and eaten about half of what was on her plate. Papi and I were making a fuss over her, that she had eaten a good dinner and could have a treat. I looked over to little Buddy and he was grabbing fistfuls of his dinner and shoving it under his place mat. I held back my laughter as much as I could and asked him "are you doing that so I think you ate a good dinner too?" He of course said "yes". Sooo tricky! Funny as hell, of course, but super devious too. Luckily he's still too little to lie to us!

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