Yo sola!!!

After 21 months of being entirely dependent on my parents and grandparents for everything, I am pleased to inform that I have broken free and established my freedom - painstakingly implementing the Autonomous State of Julia during the last several weeks - and I now take my coat on and off, do my puzzles, open the front door with a key, and reach for the things that I want and need ALL BY MYSELF! (with some limited exceptions in the latter case because, let's face it, I am only three feet tall). I take precautions and safeguard this priceless and newfound independence by shrieking, "Yo sola! Yo sola! Yo sola!," and seemingly disintegrating into a whimpering pile of baby on the floor whenever anybody thwarts my objective by trying to "help." I possess the patience of a fruit fly, so sometimes I do have to enlist a little support and assitance for more complex tasks, but then again, so must most of the sentient adults that I've observed.

In other news, my Spanish is improving by leaps and bounds and has left my plodding English in the dust. In the King's Castellano, I am known to conjugate verbs (tending towards a focus on the first person) and to use both present and past tenses (I plan to leave the future for another day), a mastery that is crucial when it comes to my favorite relational formulation: "antes x, ahora y." As in, "before Mama wasn't here; now she is." I am also pretty heavy into Spanglish and am not averse to assuming that everybody else is as well: "antes Mama light broken, ahora Papa light no broken." I am still dubious as to whether I'm a girl or a boy, but I do have enough self-awareness to know that the sobriquets "Yo," "Julia," "JuJu," and "BooBoo" all refer to me. Pol Pot had three different names and, what's good enough for Pol Pot.... I also answer to "JuJu Bunny," "Chiquitina," "Monkey Breath," and "BooBoo McBride," among others. I spend hours in the park every day and love going to El Corte Ingles ("al Gles" in my shorthand) with my Yaya and Avi, and to shops all over L'Eixample with my Mama - many of which I recognize and can point out if for some absurd reason we walk by them and don't go inside. My time in the parks has enabled me to gradually accept that there are other babies in the world like me who may wish to play with the same toys at the same time, but they can go f*ck themselves. Just kidding! What that actually means is that I may be giving nursery school another crack in a few months time, once I am two and ready to throw my lot in with society.