She has been at it for 10 minutes. I can't help but admire her persistence, even as I gently coax her with "Baby, please. Keep them on. It's almost bedtime." She glares at me like her head is about to spin around and I am to be bathed in pea soup. Girl knows what she wants and she wants her pajamas off. She tugs and pulls and moves around to get better leverage. She has all but one leg free. I try to catch her, but she is too fast, even tangled in flannel teddy bear feeted pajamas. She shimmies away and turns a corner. I lumber after her, only to slip on the newly shed pajamas, pooled on the top of the stairs like a snake skin. I spy a gleeful flash dashing into the kitchen. And it is a true flash, as her diaper proved no battle at all and lies forlornly in the middle of the living room.
Her brothers were never like this. Super Kindergartener is Mr. Rules himself and informs us when we are violating some long forgotten edict that I hollered into the backseat to impress the mom in my car pool or the visiting playdate. "But Mom, you said no eating in the car last week." "But Mom, I thought sitting on the table wasn't allowed." I have a developed a fast and loose method of qualifying rules due to his steadfastness. "Oh, that is only on Wednesdays. When we have guests. If the weather is over 65 degrees." He probably remembers each and every one of those qualifiers too. Needless to say, clothes stay on Super K. Because that is what clothes are for.
Super Preschooler blithely ignores most rules, but he is also terribly and lovingly slothful. He is really more of a passive rule-breaker. He rather play in his mind with his imaginary friends, laughing at private jokes and making delightful arm movements that must relate, but look more like ethereal dances with friendly ghosts. His interactions with others are passionate, surely, but his bark is way worse than his bite. It is like a mysterious bubble houses Super Preschooler and he'll wave at you from time to time, but his world is so totally his own. He has no strong opinions about clothes. If left out of them, he'll stay out of them. If put in them, he'll stay in them. He has never yet lost a diaper. This is making potty-training a bit of an ordeal, but one battle at a time.
Super Toddler bounces through life like a super charged bouncing ball; plowing into and off of anything she happens to encounter. Her bite is way worse than her bark; we had a full-on Dracula moment the other evening because she got a little too excited during a hug. She listens to no one. She obeys no one. She eats like a starving caveman. She throws everything she can pick up. And her arm is that of a big league hurler, which delights Awkward Dad until she beans him in the face with a fastball and then laughs. She hates being dressed; clothes fly off of her faster than at a Chippendales convention. The girl thinks she is potty training, but what this amounts to is her ripping off her diaper, squatting over the potty for 2 seconds, standing up, and peeing on the bathroom floor. It's nice that she is interested, but it is costing me a fortune in Lysol.
If she saw a mountain, she would climb it. An ocean, swim it. Any obstacle that lands in her way, she plows right over. Or tries to eat it. There is no containing her. No reasoning with her. And no way to not be delighted by her. She's a little bit like an Id gone amok. She takes such pleasure in her life and whatever happens to fall into her life. And while this makes bedtime a bit of a struggle most nights and I wonder if I should give Father Karras a ring, I really wouldn't want her any other way. Awkward Dad watches her sometimes and marvels, "just think what she is going to do with her life. Just think about all the wonders she is going to meet. Just think of all those eating contest trophies."
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Princess?
Nope, this is full-fledged queen.
hahahahah, think of all the eating contest trophies. I love it.
ReplyDelete-Catherine P.
Gotta have goals. :)
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