Early signs

Madelena suffers the fate of many second children; fewer photos, the absence of baby or brag books, and "pre-owned" toys simply scrubbed down for her enjoyment. But she seems not to notice, and in fact eschews any new toys given to her. Her favorite toy at the moment is a small, dusty plastic bag filled with leftover plastic bears from a long-ago birthday party; the bag is taped shut, with grime collecting on the curling edges of the tape. She carries this bag around like a prized possession, often placing it in her bag-lady shopping cart filled with other random items from around the house. Occasionally I will find her singing into the bag, like a microphone, closing with "Thank you, San Francisco!" Last night she was dancing with the bag, making it sing along to Move It; afterwards she placed it lovingly in her tattered box of crap. The box contains, in addition to the dusty bag, half-torn stickers, crumpled playing cards, dried up stamps, a fuzzy pipe cleaner and a car missing one wheel. 

I have tried to interest her in the few new toys given to her over the last year - a MacClaren stroller, an alligator xylophone, beautiful Latina dolls with shining dark eyes and glowing brown skin. On Christmas morning she awoke to these dolls, strapped in her new stroller and ready for a walk. She screamed with delight - "MIRA!!!" - and promptly dumped the dolls on the floor and replaced them with her omnipresent panda, one of Shawn Joaquin's shoes and an old cup of chunky milk she had carefully hidden in her toy basket. Now I occasionally find the dolls in the oven or pushed into the corner of the kids' tent, only to be used as weapons or pillows. The stroller is used merely as a replacement for her shopping cart or as a means to push her big brother around and eventually crash into the wall with his head or feet hitting first.  

The upside of all of this - head injuries to Shawn Joaquin aside - is that our toy budget is small and usually used for educational but fun toys for Shawn Joaquin that she will eventually inherit. The bad news is that we worry that she will someday end up pushing a shopping cart down the street and living in a cardboard box, and be not at all bothered by her fate. Perhaps our best investment for her is not Gymboree or art classes, but  survival skills class that includes "how to urinate in a public place without being caught" or "Under-Bridge Habitats: Not Just for Trolls". She may be a bag lady, but thanks to us, she'll be the best bag lady there is.