Jose Francisco - the Luchador?

[General pictures, but not of Jose Francisco wrestling]

Jose Francisco loves to wrestle. It's not something I taught him, I think he just enjoys the feeling of grappling someone to the ground and getting on top of them. He has various ways he accomplishes this with his sisters. With the 4 year old Alejandrita, he likes to take one of her dolls and throw it on the floor. When she bends over to pick it up, he grabs her back and pushes her down and they start to wrestle. She's giggling the whole time.

With my 7yo, Dulce, he goes for her legs, which makes her get on her knees, and then he grabs her hair (which normally he never does), which gets her on her hands and knees, if not her side, and then he climbs on her.

Now Dulce is my sensative, skinny cuddle bunny, but I was still surprised when I heard her call me for help and found Jose Francisco had grappled one leg around one of her arms and the opposing arm around her leg, and she told me "I can't get Jose off of me..."

He's 19 months old. So I told her to tell him to get off without sounding like she was playing, which she did, and then I said commandingly "Jose! Escuchan tu hermana!" which means "listen to your sister" and he got off. Since then she's got safe words and thinks it's fun. Fun, for Dulce, is always knowing there's a way out.

Fun, for Jose Francisco, is proving that there isn't.

Outdoors he also likes to grab a fistfull of dirt and put it down their backs. I asked my 9yo, Maria, how he learned to pull open the back of their color and stuff dirt down their shirts, and she paused a while, and said "I taught him." The other thing he does is quickly points at Maria, who points at him, when my little girls look for whodunnit. Of course they know the truth — they were both in on it.