The Wily Filipino

"One by one we shall creep from cover..."

The other night I gave a lecture at UC Davis for BRIDGE, the Filipino Outreach and Retention Program. The topic was the Filipino American War, and current militarization in the southern Philippines (as part of Bush's "war on terrorism" -- to deflect criticism, I said, that the war on Iraq was making him neglect the war on Al-Qaida).

In any case, I read the following excerpt below by way of an ending. It's from a letter by William James -- known to most people as a psychologist and the writer of The Varieties of Religious Experience -- but also an ardent anti-imperialist as well. (The excerpt is long, but read at least the final paragraph.)

The letter was written to the Boston Evening Transcript in March 1899, just a little over a century ago; I take the excerpt from Boone Schirmer and Stephen Shalom 's excellent The Philippines Reader: A History of Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship, and Resistance (Boston: South End Press, 1987):

We are now openly engaged in crushing out the sacredest thing in this great human world -- the attempt of a people long enslaved to attain to the possession of itself, to organize its laws and government, to be free to follow its internal destinies according to its own ideals. War... aims at destruction, and at nothing else. And splendidly are we carrying out war's ideal. We are destroying the lives of these islanders by the thousand... But these destructions are the smallest part of our sins. We are destroying down to the root every germ of a healthy national life in these unfortunate people, and we are surely helping to destroy for one generation at least their faith in God and man. No life shall you have, we say, except as a gift from our philanthropy after your unconditional submission to our will....

It is horrible, simply horrible. Surely there cannot be many born and bred Americans who, when they look at the bare fact of what we are doing, and do not blush with burning shame at the unspeakable meanness and ignominy...?

Why, then, do we go on? First, the war fever; and then the pride which always refuses to back down when under fire. But these are passions that interfere with the reasonable settlement of any affair; and in this affair we have to deal with a factor altogether peculiar with our belief, namely, in a national destiny which must be "big" at any cost, and which for some inscrutable reason it has become infamous for us to disbelieve or refuse. We are to be missionaries of civilization, and to bear the white man's burden, painful as it often is. We must sow our ideals, plant our order, impose our God. The individual lives are nothing. Our duty and our destiny call, and civilization must go on.

Could there be a more damning indictment of that whole blasted idol termed "modern civilization" than this amounts to?...

...The issue is perfectly plain at last. We are cold-bloodedly, wantonly and abominably destroying the soul of a people who never did us an atom of harm in their lives. It is bald, brutal piracy, impossible to dish up any longer in the cold potgrease of President McKinley's cant... -- surely as shamefully evasive a speech, considering the right of the public to know definite facts, as can often have fallen even from a professional politician's lips. The worst of our imperialists is that they do not themselves know where sincerity ends and insincerity begins....

The impotence of the private individual, with imperialism under full headway as it is, is deplorable indeed. But every American has a voice or a pen, and may use it. So, impelled by my own sense of duty, I write these present words. One by one we shall creep from cover, and the opposition will organize itself.

Putting Izzy to sleep.

Ever since Izzy was about -- I don't know, maybe five, six months old, we've had the exact same nighttime routine. Because of this (and other reasons like her temperament) she's gone down to sleep fairly well; as a matter of fact, she was sleeping through the night by the time she was about four months old.

Usually we would feed her her dinner first, before we eat. Madeline and I will eat dinner while she watches Sesame Street; I know, it's not a good idea to give kids too much TV, but it relaxes Izzy and gives us a breather while we eat in relative peace.

Then it's bathtime, which happens every other night: Madeline runs Izzy's bath (I'm a slow eater, so I'm usually still trying to finish up), and then once the tub is full, we take Izzy to her changing table. The naked baby is brought to the tub, washed (she doesn't like water over her face, though, so it's hard to shampoo her hair), and given time to play (she loves bubbles and her rubber duckie), and finally pulled out of the tub (she's usually complaining by this time, because she loves splashing around), and changed into her sleeper.

We try to read to her afterwards, though this doesn't always work; her attention span is growing, however. Now she can go and pull books off the shelf, give them to us and say "book." Her favorite books, it seems, are "Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb" (can't remember the author right now) and Dr. Seuss's "Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?" (She can actually say "moo" if I point to the word, but Madeline won't believe me.) Margaret Wise Brown's "Goodnight Moon" and "The Runaway Bunny" get a lot of read-time too, as well as Peter McCarty's "Baby Steps" and "Hondo and Fabian."

Then it's time for bed: one of us gets the milk, while the other sits in the rocking chair with her. After she finishes her bottle (and usually by this time she's almost asleep), we clean her teeth with a wet cloth, put her in the crib, turn on her music box, and stroke her back a little until she's finally asleep.

We've managed to come up with a little repertoire of songs that work while putting her to sleep; a song she really likes "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" or "Old McDonald" would be too lively. I've found as well that many of the pre-WW2 standards or anything after, say, 1974 -- just about the whole fount of songwriting from which I can draw -- are too lively or way too slow.

"Close to You," "Top of the World" and "The Rainbow Connection" work very well; Madeline also likes "Sing" and "Yellow Submarine." (The latter she adapted with lyrics about Shelby wanting more food to eat, but I won't quote them here. But see how the first four draw straight from the singer-songwriter tradition of the late '60s and early '70s?) I've also started singing her one of my dad's favorite songs, "Red Sails in the Sunset" (the Nat King Cole version).

And I'll end with a bit of that here:

Red sails in the sunset Way out on the sea Go carry my loved one Home safely to me.

Good night, little Izzy.

Template

Almost forgot: my template is freely adapted from a template called Grey River downloaded from noipo.org. (The photograph of the wires is mine.)

Norah Jones, 24/7.

There's a bit of a backlash now against Norah Jones now that she's won all her Grammys. Even the New York Times -- with the article illustrated by a ludicrous photo of Ms. Jones wearing a tank top about two sizes too small for her -- used the phrase (and I may be misremembering this) "oppressive good taste" to refer to her album.

Actually, I really do like that song, but I thought I'd contribute to the backlash -- no hard feelings, now -- with an AP photo of Ms. Jones doing her best Reese Witherspoon:

If anyone can think of a good caption to this, let me know in the comments section below.

It's Cool! It's Strange!

First there was Otis Fodder's 365 Days Project; now Dana Countryman is offering the Cool and Strange Music Magazine Compilation! Is this simply not amazing? Download them now before they're taken down forever on April 15!

No School, No Work, No Business as Usual.

This is what I'll be doing on March 5 -- no anthropology class!

As the Not In Our Name folks write:

On March 5...

* You could call in sick (sick of war, sick of militarism?)
* You could close your business.
* Professors could cancel classes.
* Students could plan citywide high school walkouts and other campus actions, joining with student strikes being organized across the country.
* City councils and county boards that have passed resolutions against the war could mark the day with town hall meetings, teach-ins or other ways.
* Unions that have passed anti-war resolutions could call job actions.
* You could stand for peace at the nearest post office or government building.
* You could begin a campaign of bold letters to legislators, the president and his secretaries.
* You could establish "no war zones" with signs and banners at strategic intersections (as they are doing in Atlanta).
* You could hang banners from major overpasses (as they are doing in Chicago).
* You could bring your protest to a military facility, with acts of civil disobedience "supporting" the soldiers by attempting to stop the U.S. military machine from sending them off to war.
* Houses of worship could call for special services that day; could call their congregations to protest at military recruiting offices or elsewhere; could open their doors to conscientious objectors.
* You could engage in nonviolent direct action at appropriate locations.
* You could begin a dialogue on how to bring about a peaceful and just world.
* Afternoon or evening convergences could bring together everyone who’s acted earlier in the day to voice opposition in the streets and at community gatherings.

A poet against the war.

A few months back my friend and colleague Nerissa Balce asked me to introduce a trio of Filipino writers for a literary reading at the San Francisco Public Library.

Joi Barrios -- currently a visiting professor at UC Irvine, and Palanca Award-winning playwright and poet -- was one of those writers, and she read the poem which I reproduce in full below:

YANKEE DOODLE/LAYAS

Yankee doodle came to town
Riding on a pony
Killed and maimed and tortured us
And called it a … democracy.

Yankee doodle keep it up,
Yankee doodle dandy,
Burn the village and the town,
And with your gun be handy.

Balangiga, 1901. / Balangiga, 1901.
Ang hudyat ng batingaw / The bells signal
Ay tawag ng pag-aklas. / A call to arms
Hubdin ang balatkayo, / Remove your disguises,
Bayani at bandido ay iisa, / Bandit and hero are one
Lusubin ang kaaway, / Attack the enemy,
At itarak sa kanyang dibdib / And plunge into his heart
ang patalim, ang sibat! / The dagger, the spear,
Ang poot at himagsik! / Anger and revolt
Hayaang umalingangaw ang kampana, / Let the bells ring
Himig na nagbabanta’t nang-uusig / Music that threatens and condemns
Layas, layas, sa aming bayan ay lumayas / Leave, leave our land!

Yankee doodle comes again
Riding on a fighter
Brings his war to my country
And calls it a … democracy.

Taong 2002. / Year 2002.
Dito, sa Estados Unidos ng Amerika, / Here, in the United States of America
Nananahan ang batingaw, / The bells reside.
Sagisag ng kanilang hapis / A symbol of their grief
at ng ating miminsang tagumpay. / and our rare victory.
Dito, sa Estados Unidos ng Amerika, / Here, in the United States of America
Nananahan tayong lahat na nandayuhan, / all of us migrants live.
Tinig ba’y magsabatingaw? / Shall our voices ring as bells?
Dinala nila sa ating bayan ang digmaan! / They have brought the war into our land.
Hintayan pa ba ang hudyat? / Shall we yet wait for the signal
Ilang kababayan ang malalagas sa digmaan? / How many shall perish in the war?
Sa kampana lahat ay kumalampag, / Ring the bells!
Layas, layas, sa aking bayan ay lumayas!” / Leave, leave, leave our land.

Overseas Voters.

I've been avidly following the developments leading to the signing of Republic Act 9189, otherwise known as the Overseas Absentee Voting Act. Senator after senator has passed through San Francisco and Los Angeles, promising passage of the bill, and I couldn't help but wonder whether this was all a dress rehearsal for future informal campaign stops (and shopping junkets for their respective partners, of course).

Anyhow, the bills have now become a law, signed without much fanfare. But it is testimony, I think, to the government's reconceptualization of the civic and political role of overseas contract workers. Prior to this, the Administrations' consistent lip service was the general policy; OCWs were being crowned as "bagong bayani," or "new heroes," while they were being farmed out to countries where their rights were barely protected. (The language of nationalism only barely clothes Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's latest term, OFIs, or overseas foreign investors -- god, the woman has no shame!)

The reasons for the bill should be clear. More than 7 million Filipinos overseas are denied their fundamental political right to vote, despite a constitutional mandate (back in 1987!) to Congress that a voting in absentia law be enacted. And as the International Coalition for Overseas Filipinos' Voting Rights wrote:

The right to vote in absentia, practiced by more than 40 countries, is not unique to the Philippines. But ours is a necessity made unique by the economic circumstances that compel a sizeable number of our citizenry to seek better opportunities abroad, yet remain politically marginalized, mute and powerless, even as they are hailed at every politically expedient turn as economic saviors for remitting billions of dollars a year.

And if people were still unconvinced, the war cry of "Taxation without representation" would have done fine as well.

The trouble with all of this, however, is the fact that the new law is spectacularly unworkable. And this is not considering the fact that implementation of this would be a logistical nightmare, both for COMELEC and the DFA.

Let me turn to the section that has the Filipino American press all in a tizzy:

SEC. 5. Disqualifications. – The following shall be disqualified from voting under this Act:

1. Those who have lost their Filipino citizenship in accordance with Philippine laws;
2. Those who have expressly renounced their Philippine citizenship and who have pledged allegiance to a foreign country;

This is clear enough, i.e., no dual citizenship.

3. Those who have committed and are convicted in a final judgment by a court or tribunal of an offense punishable by imprisonment of not less than one (1) year...

And that should be clear too.

And now we come to the real whopper:

4. An immigrant or a permanent resident who is recognized as such in the host country; unless he/she executes, upon registration, an affidavit prepared for the purpose by the Commission declaring that he/she shall resume actual physical permanent residence in the Philippines not later than three (3) years from approval of his/her registration under this Act. Such affidavit shall also state that he/she has not applied for citizenship in another country. Failure to return shall be cause for the removal of the name of the immigrant or permanent resident from the National Registry of Absentee Voters and his/her permanent disqualification to vote in absentia.

Got that? Such an affidavit, of course, would be totally unenforceable, if not entirely unfeasible. If the voter does not return to the Philippines permanently, does the vote get nullified? Can a congressperson be recalled if a sufficient number of overseas voters do not return after three years? And who, exactly, will be monitoring whether these overseas voters actually return? Customs? (It's the "actual physical permanent residence" that should bother those in the Middle East, or those working as domestic helpers everywhere else; does this mean they can't reapply for another contract?)

This is why the folks in the Filipino American press are shaking their heads in disbelief; the main difference between Filipinos in Abu Dhabi and Singapore and Hong Kong and Rome and Filipinos in Daly City and Modesto and West Covina and Queens and Hialeah and Colorado are that those in the United States can, and usually, stay there.

And I present, as an afterthought, the last disqualification, or what would disqualify any of the senators or congresspeople who dreamed this up:

5. Any citizen of the Philippines abroad previously declared insane or incompetent by competent authority in the Philippines or abroad, as verified by the Philippine embassies, consulates or foreign service establishments concerned, unless such competent authority subsequently certifies that such person is no longer insane or incompetent.

But this does raise a fundamental question about the nature of political participation, and civic duty, and living in a country like the United States with relatively liberal naturalization policies (in comparison to other European countries, or Japan, or Middle Eastern countries, or...). Suppose such an affidavit was not required: Could a Filipino with a green card live in Vallejo or Glendale in perpetuity and yet continue to vote, every few years, in the Philippines? How would this affect that person's political participation in the United States? That is, surely the affidavit, however inane it looks on the surface, was meant to ensure... accountability?

In any case, this seems lost on some Filipinos in the United States. Take, for instance, the latest editorial, dated February 19-25, from the Filipino American newspaper Philippine News:

We agree that granting Filipinos living abroad the right to vote is important. Perhaps more than their countrymen back home, they have a bigger stake in the stability of the Philippines. It is they who have chosen to make the ultimate sacrifice of leaving family and friend to work abroad in hopes of bettering the lot of their loved ones.

(But this is perhaps a slightly different matter for the green card-holder in Southern California, saving up for that SUV and waiting for the day when she or he becomes a citizen, and petitions for the relatives, than it is for that domestic helper in Hong Kong, no?)

And there's more:

Theoretically, Filipino voters based abroad would have voted a lot more wisely than some of their compatriots, who have a tendency of turning every election into a popularity contest.... An intelligent electorate would have pored through candidates' qualifications before choosing, and under this premise the Philippines would never have elected a thug as president, which is what happened in '98.

Nothing like being unaccountable and elitist at the same time.

It should be apparent to the handful of you who read this that I've returned to Blogger -- alas, the sleek and highly configurable Movable Type pretty much died on me last week, and my total ignorance of .cgi scripts (despite much panicked postings on the Aletia and Movable Type forums) means that I can't troubleshoot the program myself.

I also tried Radio Userland for a little while; it's interesting because the program actually resides on your hard drive, and the xml-based "news aggregator" makes it a cinch to post news items. The documentation, however, leaves much to be desired, and the templates are fairly bare-bones.

So it's back to Blogger for now, even though their servers seem to slow down a lot. (And you may also notice that everything I've ever posted is on this main page, because they were all lumped together in seven days.)

Izzy's songs.

Izzy can kind of dance now. Whenever she hears the theme song to "Elmo's World" or "Sesame Street" (I know, I know, it's all from television), she stands up, shuffles her feet from side to side, sways her body, and sometimes does squats. It's all extremely cute. (I am also told by her day care teacher that she knows how to do the hokey-pokey.)

Izzy is also familiar, of course, with a good number of nursery rhymes; she automatically starts weaving her fingers together whenever she hears "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider," and she waves her arms to "ABC" or "Baa Baa Black Sheep." (After all, she can say "baa" when asked what sound a sheep makes.)

Otherwise, any melodic, "peppy" music will do, and it is certainly the music for choice during feeding time. Alas, those CDs with kids singing nursery rhymes -- one can buy these bricks of CDs with 100 kids' tunes -- I find rather insufferable, so "The Best of Elmo" or Dan Zanes's "Rocket Ship Beach" are excellent alternatives. (I also discovered last year that Izzy also likes house music, but I'm not sure the thump-thump-thump can aid her digestion any.)

Jonathan Schell

I'd like to contrast Jonathan Schell's words -- at the very least, the stirring conclusion to his essay:

We--that is, we, the peoples of the earth--have examined the case for war against Iraq and rejected it. We have stepped forward onto the streets of our cities and looked at ourselves, and have liked what we saw. We know our will. Now we must act. We can stop the war.

And what was Bush's typically arrogant (and ignorant) response regarding those ten million people the world over?

Size of protest — it's like deciding, well, I'm going to decide policy based upon a focus group.

Meanwhile, on another front...

Oops!

Looks like someone forgot something -- now what was that again about the U.S.'s humanitarian commitment to people it wanted to liberate?

Quite honestly, the more I think about this, the angrier I get. What was all this talk about a so-called Marshall Plan for Afghanistan? And why does this make all the promises about liberating the poor people of Iraq sound terribly hollow?

Nothing Much.

It's been a long time since I've last posted. It's because I've been incredibly busy this past few weeks -- I have four separate preps, which includes my Asian American Studies class at UC Davis, and, on top of all that, my gig as M.A. student adviser for the College of Ethnic Studies. (It also means that I have to drive up to Davis and back twice a week -- a pleasant drive, actually, except for the fact that it's loooong.)

Izzy is now 18 months old and is an absolute darling. She is so much better on her feet now -- she still kind of reels like a drunken sailor, but her coordination is already quite good. So good, in fact, that she can climb up the stairs while her Mommy holds one hand.

Her vocabulary is also increasing in leaps and bounds, and we suspect that she probably knows more than she lets on -- okay, more than we realize. A couple of months ago or so she could already point to parts of her body when named; now she can point to her nose (or her Elmo doll's nose) and say "no." She can point to a car and say "car," and when asked "What sound does a sheep make?" will answer "Baa." (She calls Shelby "Ba" as well, for some reason or other.) For a dog she will make a nice throaty bark (not just a "woof" or an "arf") like Shelby does, and she's also figured out how to make cat- and baby-like sounds. But her current favorite sound is still "Mama" and "Dada."

She is getting more and more dexterous, as she can spoon some Cheerios and milk into her mouth (though not very well -- milk still slops out onto her bib). Feeding time, though, brings out the little devil in her, as she loves to hurl (and I mean hurl) her plates and forks and sippy cups onto the floor, scaring poor little Shelby. Indeed, just last month Shelby would be sniffing by Izzy's chair in a perfect symbiotic (or shall I say parasitic) relationship, but not anymore; now the dog spends her time underneath the table, waiting for Izzy to finish so she can eat the rice or beans or potatoes or carrots or cereal off the floor.

Signs Say No.

So I finally got to see my second-most anticipated film of 2002 (the first was The Two Towers, naturally), M. Night Shyamalan's Signs. This was a huge disappointment, coming from the director of the excellent The Sixth Sense and the very good Unbreakable.

Mel Gibson -- showing his age, and shot from a much higher angle than he is ordinarily, making him look like the short fellow that he really is -- plays a Catholic deacon of some sort who has lost his faith after his wife's death. The film starts with him puttering about on his farm, his two kids (cut from the same cloth as that "I see dead people" kid whose name escapes me right now), and his dour brother (played by Joaquin Phoenix). The dog starts barking. He goes off into his field and finds the crop circles. Actually, this is all in the previews, so everyone knows the beginning by now.

What is ostensibly an alien-invasion film turns out to be more of a "meditation" on faith and belief. That's fine. But even Close Encounters of the Third Kind handled this theme so much better, as Shyamalan simply clomps around with it. It's a bit of a mess: it's part Field of Dreams, part Night of the Living Dead; there's a Bernard Herrmannesque theme for the opening credits, and the deadpan jocularity of The X-Files running all throughout.

The real heavy-handedness comes in when Gibson sets it up midway -- in fact, Shyamalan gives the goods away very, very early -- when he tells Phoenix something to the effect that there are two kinds of people: those who believe in signs (that things happen for a reason), and those who think it's sheer coincidence. (Surely there's room for skepticism somewhere there?) Simply put, are there really such things as coincidences?

This would be fine as the movie's core question for the viewer to ponder -- but the "coincidences" are, alas, so clumsily stacked on top of one another that the conclusion looms too clearly for us. (And does one really need quick flashbacks to events that happened ten minutes before?) The seams are showing in the way Shyamalan structures his screenplays, unfortunately,and by the time we get to the ending the thrill is gone. And indeed, seen in the context of his two previous films, it's clear that the higher power here is Shyamalan himself.

It's Been A While.

Haven't posted in a while, what with grading exams and papers pretty much the day before setting off for Houston to see my in-laws for Christmas break. The 3 1/2-hour flight to Houston was really hard on poor Izzy; she threw up twice, after a week-long bout with cold and cough and fever.

Once we got there she got a bad case of diarrhea and diaper rash (the result of cheap diapers from Kroger's). All that and the fact that Friendswood is a dry town! (My mother-in-law got me and my father-in-law a six-pack of Tsingtao from Chinatown a few days later.)

The return flight home was pure hell -- we woke up at 4, got Izzy up at 5, to get to the George Bush Intercontinental Airport (figures) at 6 for a United Airlines flight at 7:15. We lined up for an hour and a half to find that it was delayed for a couple of hours, then until 12 a.m. Izzy at this point was already extremely cranky. Then we discover (just by strolling to the ticketing counters) that the flight was altogether cancelled, and that we had to line up again for another hour for rebooking.

Madeline runs off to try to find her brother Arthur a couple of terminals away (he was dropping his parents off at that point), and by sheer luck we get a Northwest flight instead to Minneapolis at 1 pm, and then from there to SFO. This effectively doubled our flight time, not to mention the agony of dealing with poor sleep-deprived Izzy (who only wanted to held by Mommy).

We finally arrived at home around 8:30 in the evening, over 12 hours after our original flight was supposed to leave. By then Izzy had vomited yet again after too much milk (it was the only thing that could calm her down, what with her crankiness and the air pressure on her ears), and Madeline had been holding her for hours.

No wonder UA has filed for bankruptcy. Such service was absolutely intolerable.

# Gucci dress (white): $1,595

# Gucci dress (white): $1,595
# Marc Jacobs thermal top: $760
# Yves Saint Laurent blouse: $750
# Natori handbag: $540
# Dolce & Gabbana handbag: $525
# Eric Javitz hat: $350
# Eric Javitz hat: $225
# Rhinestone hair band (black): $140
# Rhinestone ponytail holder (black): $120
# Rhinestone hairclip (black): $110
# Rhinestone hair bow (black): $110
# Cashmere blend socks (beige): $80
# Beaded purse, two (black): $55 each
# Saks socks, two pair (cream): $38 each
# Donna Karan socks, one pair (brown): $20
# Calvin Klein socks, two pair (gray): $16.50 each
# Calvin Klein socks, one pair (purple): $16.50

You probably already know whose shopping bag these items were found in.

The World's Worst Leader

Here's playwright and actor Harold Pinter -- you folks saw those Joseph Losey films, didn't you? -- on "the nightmare of American hysteria, ignorance, arrogance, stupidity and belligerence."

As he writes:

"If you are not with us you are against us," President Bush has said. He has also said, "We will not allow the world's worst weapons to remain in the hands of the world's worst leaders." Quite right. Look in the mirror, chum. That's you.

Some Damning News

And who knows what else they knew?

What A Cute!

This has got to be fake, but the What a cute! weblog has to be seen to be believed. As Natsuko herself writes:

Everything which I can say is as follows: What a Cute! is good, being for the sake of being here, you become like me, but, the fact that I am loved must be learned! Hard!

Nothing Much

It's been a long time since I've last posted. It's because I've been incredibly busy this past few weeks -- I have four separate preps, which includes my Asian American Studies class at UC Davis, and, on top of all that, my gig as M.A. student adviser for the College of Ethnic Studies. (It also means that I have to drive up to Davis and back twice a week -- a pleasant drive, actually, except for the fact that it's loooong.)

Izzy is now 18 months old and is an absolute darling. She is so much better on her feet now -- she still kind of reels like a drunken sailor, but her coordination is already quite good. So good, in fact, that she can climb up the stairs while her Mommy holds one hand.

Her vocabulary is also increasing in leaps and bounds, and we suspect that she probably knows more than she lets on -- okay, more than we realize. A couple of months ago or so she could already point to parts of her body when named; now she can point to her nose (or her Elmo doll's nose) and say "no." She can point to a car and say "car," and when asked "What sound does a sheep make?" will answer "Baa." (She calls Shelby "Ba" as well, for some reason or other.) For a dog she will make a nice throaty bark (not just a "woof" or an "arf") like Shelby does, and she's also figured out how to make cat- and baby-like sounds. But her current favorite sound is still "Mama" and "Dada."

She is getting more and more dexterous, as she can spoon some Cheerios and milk into her mouth (though not very well -- milk still slops out onto her bib). Feeding time, though, brings out the little devil in her, as she loves to hurl (and I mean hurl) her plates and forks and sippy cups onto the floor, scaring poor little Shelby. Indeed, just last month Shelby would be sniffing by Izzy's chair in a perfect symbiotic (or shall I say parasitic) relationship, but not anymore; now the dog spends her time underneath the table, waiting for Izzy to finish so she can eat the rice or beans or potatoes or carrots or cereal off the floor.