Spring Break

My first spring thaw is underway and I have been enjoying it in the company of almost everybody I know. My Grandma Sheila, Auntie Valerie and Cousin Melaina (whom I allowed to do a little guest blogging below) came over for the week and we celebrated my very first birthday and the arrival of some good spring weather. As you will see in some of my pictures, my Yaya Cristina and Tia Inma also joined in the festivities and we had a pretty good time, although it was difficult for me to talk to everybody that I wanted to. I am always passing through time in a hurry, but this past week seemed to go by especially quickly - I guess that's the price of trying to maintain a bi-continental lifestyle and nuclear family. On a personal level, it was also a groundbreaking week. Although I am not paricularly eager to walk - as I can get virtually anywhere I want to crawling and hopping and getting around on just the two feet would seem to be an acknowledgement that I no longer need to be picked up and held by my loved ones - I do manage to pull off something resembling a walk when I amble around sideways with the support of something conveniently dimensioned, like a sofa or bathtub. Yesterday, I toppled backwards and really smacked the back of my head on the marble floor of the bathroom, which was both painful and embarassing and caused me to yowl like a banshee until I realized that my bath was ready and I could get naked and have some fun. I also said my first word apropos of something yesterday and it was one that I think will be useful to me for a long time to come: Da-di. I looked him right in the eye when I said it and spent the rest of the day looking at him whenever anybody else said it so that I could get it through their thick skulls that I knew what the hell I was talking about and wasn't just a babbling baby that happened to come out with something coherent, like the proverbial monkey with a typewriter. Given the excitement that it generated and the dividends it appears to have paid, I anticipate that I will be debuting a few more within the next few weeks. I'm also getting a bit more agile, which helps me in my investigative forays around the apartment. Fortunately my father has a LOT of stuff, because my mom is a bit of a minimalist and if it were up to her, I don't know if I would have anything at all to play with, other than toys, which as you probably remember yourself, are not nearly as interesting as trying to solve the inherent mysteries and design contradictions of apparently every day items. As I learn to pay more attention to other people and their relationship to my universe, I am also cultivating a serious facility with mimicry. I used to just laugh a lot to show everybody that I got the jokes, but now I enjoy imitating their sounds and gestures to great effect. Teasing and mockery are surely just around the corner. So that's what is happening with me as we get back into the way weather is supposed to be. Oh yeah - one more important thing - the mighty Futbol Club Barcelona avenged the loss they suffered in the Champions League at the hands of Chelsea last March 8th (yes, the night I was born) when they became distracted by my grand entrance. This year they managed to stay focused despite an injury to Lionel Messi and thoroughly whupped those distasteful hooligans from London and their whinge-ing coach Mourinho. Talk about a baby. Now they will pay Koeman's Benfica side in the quarter-finals on the way to their first of many World Championships in my lifetime. Yay!