It’s officially happened. Carmendy has become the victim of second child syndrome. First, it took over two years for a photo of her to be displayed in our home. And now this – I have missed one of her blog updates.
I wrote about Owen quarterly during the past two years. My plan was to do the same for Carmendy. Unfortunately, it looks like that plan was a little bit overly ambitious. Nearly six months have gone by since I last posted about my middle child.
And I should probably feel guiltier about this than I do, but I’m too tired to feel more guilt.
So here we are. My little girl is almost halfway to three years old. There’s so much to cover since she turned two, I’m not sure where to begin.
Shortly after her birthday, she suddenly started speaking in full sentences. One moment she was saying “Milky?” and the next moment she was saying “Can I have some milk, Mommy?” I used to think that Owen had a far better grasp of language and vocabulary than Carmendy at this age, but I think I may be wrong. Carmendy knows much more than she lets on. She’s always listening and plotting. Her voice is tiny and sweet, the opposite of Owen’s loud, demanding volume. But don’t let her voice fool you; she’s tricky. It seems wrong to call a two-year-old “cunning,” but the word comes to mind when I think of Carm.
Mostly, she is like all two-year-olds. She wants everything to be hers. Sharing does not interest her. Not immune to temper tantrums, she’s stubborn and strong-willed. Her mind is a steel trap; she never forgets a promise (especially if it involves food).
And then, in other ways, she is nothing like other children her age. I can’t even really put it into words – she’s just weird. A couple people have told us she reminds them of Stewie from Family Guy. So maybe I get the weird vibe from her because she is scheming to kill me. Perhaps I should sleep with one eye open.
Carmendy has no desire to please others. Which means potty training is going to be a real bitch.
She is her own person, and she does precisely what she wants to do. She has no problem being a loner, or being left behind. Or running ahead, leaving you in the dust. The good part of this is that she can entertain herself, while I try to gulp down my coffee after reheating it for the ninth time in the microwave. The bad part of this is that she’ll run off as soon as I let my guard down.
Here are some more recent tidbits about my strange little Carmie:
Carmendy loves when Richard tosses her around. In particular, she likes when he lifts her up and down while he’s lying on the ground. Richard tells her to lean forward and rest on his hands, so he can lift her. Then Carmendy does a cute little dance with a funny arm motion, while repeating “lean forward, lean forward, lean forward.”
Carmendy’s reaction to Winnie’s presence in our home manifested in odd ways. Since Winnie arrived, she’s taken to stripping down to her naked bum while in her crib and removing every single item. And I mean EVERY. SINGLE. ITEM. Even the mattress cover. Finding a diaper-less babe on a bare mattress in the morning is not exactly pleasant, especially when said babe who is not potty trained has taken a leak.
Carmendy derives pleasure from two things in this world – music and food, with the most important thing being food (obviously). Her favorite tune is Ophelia by The Lumineers, which she listens to every night at bedtime. She also enjoys Pentatonix Christmas songs. At this rate, I imagine we’ll still be listening to them in July.
Most of Carmendy’s day is spent thinking about food. She can detect the sound and smell of food with superhuman skill. It is literally impossible for me to sneak a piece of candy if Carmendy is within a mile radius. She WILL find me and eat it before I can. Her preoccupation with food has led us to conclude that if Winnie is our Pooh bear, then Carmendy is our Piglet.
Since she spends most of her days thinking about food, she also spends most of her days asking me for food. “I want” is her most-used phrase. If I ask her if she wants more of something, her typical reply is “No, I want a lot.”
Her pronunciation is not the best. Listening to her repeat our mealtime prayers makes me giggle. She loves cereal but when she asks for Chex, it sounds more like “I want some sex.”
It is extremely difficult to change Carmendy’s mind. For example, if she sees a picture of a donkey and calls it a horse, it is damn near impossible to convince her that it’s a donkey and not a horse. For weeks after Winnie was born, Carmendy insisted on calling her Molly (her baby cousin’s name). No matter how many times we corrected her, she continued to assert that Winnie’s name was Molly. Only recently has she embraced calling her Winnie.
Carmendy’s sneakiness is nearly supernatural. She’s like a tiny stealthy ninja. For Christmas, I hung little envelopes filled with a couple pieces of candy for each day in December as an Advent calendar. I hung them high enough to be out of reach from Carmendy, since she has no self-control when it comes to sweets. One day, I noticed Carmendy was eating a piece of candy – the same candy in the Advent calendar envelopes. But none of the envelopes were missing, all of them were still neatly hanging. I looked closer and noticed one of them had less candy. Carmendy must have used one of her toys to silently climb up high enough and then quietly and carefully extracted the candy while somehow leaving the envelope undisturbed.
To go along with her unique personality, Carmendy also looks a little wild and eccentric. She does NOT like hair bows. And since we’re trying to grow out her bangs, she is resembling a shaggy dog more and more each day. She walks around with her chin up in the air, trying to see out from under the hair hanging in front of her face. Her current style could best be described as “hot mess.”
My Carmendy is a real character, that’s for sure.
