Second Child Syndrome

I sat on the couch the day before yesterday with Nilsa as Ari entertained himself playing with the bongos. As I bounced her on my legs and she caved into my chest in a fit of giggles I started my latest thing with her - counting to ten. She counts to ten well now. Her enunciation is off but she is, after all, 17 months old. I started counting more auspiciously about a week ago after reading back in this blog that at her age, Ari was able to count to 12 in both English and Spanish and recite the A-B-C’s.

Reading that made me terribly guilty for the lack of direct attention to learning we have given Nilsa. We were so enthusiastic when Ari was her age to teach him these things and everything was counting and the alphabet. And here I sat feeling remorse in the fact that Nilsa has, yet again, gotten the short end of the stick by being the second born. Seeing that she seemed to have a good grasp on the numbers 1-10 (although 5 seems to be her preferred number and she will continue up to eleven) I opted to switch the languages and work on the numbers in Spanish. So I began…UNO…

And to my surprise she said DOS. Even further she counted all the way to DIEZ (ten) and happily clapped upon arriving at the number. She knows one to ten in Spanish already without us repeating it to her ad nauseum. Without being methodically instructed in it. Color me impressed.

We’re working on the A-B-C’s right now. She’s got the concept and the song down. I just have to work on the actual letters. I’m pretty damn proud. Maybe second child syndrome isn't as bad as I make it out to be. Or maybe I need to really try to focus my attention on one child at a time, which feels impossible most times as the other always serves to distract.

But she's happy. And I'm happy for her. We count and clap upon reaching ten or diez and then she collapses into my arms in a fit of giggles.