She's a Force to be Reckoned With

It's been enjoyable to watch Christina start to hold her own with her brother more and more in the last few weeks.  Don't get me wrong, she still adores the guy, but lately she doesn't just roll over and let him have his way.  When Dominic takes her toy these days, she immediately makes a loud, angry sound.  It's not as if she's crying to get a parent to intervene, it sounds more like a warning: you better give that right back, big brother!  Marcos has noticed this too, and it makes us both happy.  I'm sure there will be plenty of times she takes direction from him and plays games his way, but it's nice to know she's willing to stand up for herself.

How does Dominic take all this?  He has been calling her Baby Godzilla lately because she wreaks havoc on car line-ups, block towers, etc.  He's usually pretty good-natured about it, but he has learned to keep things out of her reach.  He also knows the trick of offering her a new toy if he needs the one she's holding. She doesn't always go for it, but it's worth a try.

Today we went to a puppet show at the neighborhood pool.  Dominic was more interested in the snacks than the show, but he did pay attention a little.  He ate a package of fruit snacks, then moved right on to a pack of animal crackers and immediately told me "After this I'm still going to be hungry."  Silly guy.  Christie wore her new hat from Tito and enjoyed playing with the empty packages from all her brother's snacks.  Maybe she's at the age Dominic was on one of our San Diego trips when he played with a package of airline peanuts for 20 minutes.

He told me to only take a picture of her and then he tried to help get her to smile.