Joan & Yendry

My life in my host family has been dominated by two things lately. The first one is Joan (pronounced like Joan Miró, not like Joan of Arc), who is my host sister's two-year old baby. The second is Yendry (pronounced like Jenny, but with a d-r), who is my neighbor's two-year old baby. My host sister is three days older than me, and she recently moved back to Osa with her husband/boyfriend (who is not the father of the baby). They now live in her brother's (my host brother's) house two doors down, but they were living in our house for about three weeks. During that time I became 'Tato' and we played a lot of hide-and-go-seek and had many arguments over whether random things around the house were his or not. 'Mio' is his favorite and most common phrase, usually he compulsively grabs and object, examines it, and yells 'mio!' while walking quickly away with it.
Both Joan and Yendry enjoy being lifted up high, and they adore bicycles and vehicles of all kinds. They both have little kid bikes, which they carry around with them, or attempt to sit on and asked to be pushed around. They demand coffee whenever someone is drinking it, they are constantly begging for water, and they love sweet breads. Joan's most common facial expression is confusion, but my host dad constantly says that 'looks like a leader', and to tell the truth he is very smart. He is speaking intelligible words now, and the other day he pointed to my bike and said "Bici Tato" then he pointed to my host sister's bike and said "Bici mami" and then to Yendry's little bike and said "Bici mio". Not perfect, but he is beginning to understand ownership as a concept that other people can participate in.
Yendry is not yet speaking as clearly or as much, but she is getting quite good at mimicking her mother. She yells for her brother in a loud squawk which brings him running from the vacant 'soccer' field a few houses down (where the barbed wire fence pops about three balls a week). She also puts one hand on her hips and says 'vea' which her mother uses to mean 'see' as in "See, we're gonna get 'em, see..." in a passable imitation of a female Cagney.
I am in an unofficial guardian capacity, mainly as the one who runs down to the soccer field when it starts raining and carries them home, but recently both of them have started to run up and hug me around the ankles whenever I get home from work, which is the best reward I could ask for.