This won´t be a long post but I couldn´t miss saying something after days and days without checking the internet. Elisa Leonor turns the big 2 today and we are enjoying the day with Nacho´s family outside Madrid. We´re enjoying some cooler, cloudier days than the first few weeks here so it somehow feels like a different season. Last night we celebrated cousin Diego´s 9th birthday and as I watched Elisa running around the grass chasing her cousins, I thought about her first visit to Spain last year. She was barely toddling around and wanted to scoot and rummage around on the floor everywhere we went. It was the worst of prewalking times because she wasn´t content anywhere it seemed and everything was a hazard. This year is soooo much better and yet we still have new obstacles like her curious propensity for slapping her little cousin Sara whenever she sees her approaching. Let´s call it jealousy of the worst kind, but boy is it getting old. Elisa isn´t usually a big hitter, but with her smaller cousin, she can just smell weakness or something. Luckily, we managed to keep Elisa occupied and the evening passed with lots of jamon, pan and casera so the fighting was limited.
Since we arrived late July, Elisa has been sleeping about the same as at home. She does about 11 hours a night and a good two hour nap each day after about 4 hours awake. Fortunately, with the time change this means she is getting up somewhere between 9 and 10am and going to bed around 11pm. She naps as we have lunch and usually gives us about an hour of siesta for ourselves. So yes, life is good. Of course, today she had to throw us a curveball and fall asleep in the car on the way back up from the village, but she still napped a good bit and we´re now siesta-ing in shifts. So that´s how we´re doing. We saw cousin Jordan off on Saturday and he´s been sorely missed by a little girl who was used to seeing him everyday for nearly 3 weeks. As for language, I don´t know if this would have been a big spurt anyway, but being here and having Elisa completely surrounded by Spanish has been a complete boon for her vocabulary. She is speaking much more in Spanish and trying new words everyday. Now I am routinely greeted with ¨Hola Mama!¨ and her cries for more are still ¨mas, mas!¨ It´s heartening to see her interactions with all the family here and to see how comfortable she is amongst them. I think sometimes we worry that she will favor one side or the other and it´s true that we don´t get to Spain as much as we do North Carolina. But it´s also true that time with family is always short, and no matter what we will eternally be playing catch up. So it´s good to see how much she enjoys the time we have here. I hope we can build on this every summer until she can be my guide around Europe.
So what does two have in store for us? I wish I knew. Already we are well acquainted with the temper tantrums, crazy demands and easy laughter. The words are constantly forming and amazing me. Last night she actually said ¨What happened?¨with a kind of silly face and Nacho and I were both laughing. Where does all this personality come from? If I could bottle her intensity and sell it, I might have to consider it a controlled substance. It is potent. But that´s the only Elisa we know. And when she is demure and sweet, she is the absolute best. The rest of the time, you vaciliate between curbing her enthusiasm and just riding the tide. Because we all know it´s going to turn. But as I can already tell, that´s half the fun. If she´s still this way in another 5 years, I might change my mind, but for now, we love the girl that Elisa has become. All three feet plus of her. As the woman in the park today told me when I said she was just turning two, ¨Que grande, no?¨Si, si.
