Captain's Log-3:44AM- Sunday
It happened! We've been anticipating it for a long time. We've been planning for this day and even have a family bet about it... and it finally happened! No... they are not sleeping through the night yet and no, they are not crawling or walking yet. It's even better than that. They can speak. It happened last weekend when I walked into their room to see if everything was okay in the middle of the night. They looked up at me and Catalina said: "You know that this torture is never going to end, right? You know that we are going to make you crazy with worry and exhaustion for the rest of your life, right?" I was shocked. I was frozen in my place. And then Rentata said with a chuckle: "You're such an amateur. Just wait until we're teenagers. You think you're tired now? Just wait till we're out till all hours of the night and able to Uber ourselves anywhere, anytime. That's when the fun will really start."Sigh...
Ok. So maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. Maybe I'm projecting all of my fears for the future into this moment. But they did speak, or at least... they said their first word. Cat was first, as always, but Renata followed suit very quickly. Interesting point here... As I've mentioned in past episodes, even though Renata is older by 30 seconds, she's been about 2 weeks behind Catalina on most developmental milestones up to now. But there was only a couple of day's difference on this one. Is this a sign? Is Renata making her move? Is she about to overtake her sister and take the lead for a while? The possibilities are endless and only time will tell but I'm starting to get the feeling that these two will be battling it out like this for the rest of their lives. Trying to out-do each other at every step and prove to each other who the dominant one is. I'm only sure of one thing... the dominant one will not be me.
The family bet was simple. I was betting that their first word would be "Papa" and Treicy was betting that their first word would be "Mama". Esteban, on the other hand, was of the opinion that their first word was going to be "Worcestershire Sauce" (I love that kid. He's so weird in the most wonderful way). So there we were on a windy Saturday night last month. We were in the middle of the 9PM feeding when Catalina looked up at her mother and said "Mamamamamamamama".
Treicy jumped to her feet...
"She said it! She said Mama!" she screamed.
I couldn't resist...
"No. She said Mamamamamamamamamamama" I said with a chuckle.
I would like to pause for a moment and share a life lesson that I learned here.. I've been on the receiving end of dirty looks by women a few times in my life. Most were warranted, so I consider myself a bit of an expert in this field. And what I learned was this: Never attempt to tease or joke with a woman when she is in full Mama Bear Mode. It will not go well for you. The look I received was straight out of the movie The Exorcist. I mean, her head didn't spin around and she didn't throw up on me... but it was pretty damn close. I quickly defused the situation by suggesting that we celebrate with some mango mimosas and before you knew it, we were laughing and sending messages to her family, sharing the big news.
Crisis averted.
Exactly 2 days later during a snuggle session on the sofa, Renata looked right at me and said "Papapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapa".
Treicy just looked at me and smiled. This was huge. We both knew exactly what this meant.
Exactly... more mimosas.
Something really odd occurred to me the other night. It's something I've lived with my entire life and never noticed until just recently. I don't know the lyrics to any songs that are appropriate for children. This particularly disturbing epiphany hit me last week when I attempted to softy sing Cat to sleep. Many times I've watched and listened as Treicy sings to them as we try to rock them to sleep after a feeding. She has a wide array of children's songs in Spanish that she learned growing up. Songs about butterflies and rainbows and puffy clouds shaped like kittens. The problem is that I'm a child of the 80's and my musical tastes have pretty much stayed there. She is fully versed in all of the latest pop music in English and Spanish... I, on the other hand, only know the lyrics to 80's rap songs, Led Zeppelin music and the soundtrack from the musical Grease. I literally sat there for 20 minutes the other night and tried to remember the lyrics to at least one song that would be appropriate:
Stairway to Heaven... too dark.
Billy Jean... too controversial.
Bruno Mars... stay away from my daughters.
I got so desperate that for a moment there I actually considered singing La Macarena to them.
I expressed my frustration to Treicy who just laughed and shook her head at me.
"They don't care what you sing to them... just as long as they hear your voice. That's what calms them. Not the song selection".
She was right. As long as it's daddy that's belting out the tune... that's all that matters. That evening as the family slept... there was a single light coming from the baby room as Renata took her midnight feeding. And softly... melodically... drifting from the room came the calming sounds of Daddy lullabying his baby girl to sleep to the soothing sounds of Vanilla Ice.
"Ice Ice Baby... Ice Ice Baby...
Alright stop... collaborate and listen...
Ice is back with a brand new invention"...
It worked. She was out like a light in under 2 minutes. This is good. I'm gonna hit em with with Sir-Mix-A-Lot tomorrow.
