Attitude

I don't have anything really specific to write today, only that sometimes I lie awake (lay awake? why can I NEVER remember!) at night thinking of all the Thisbe quirks and mannerisms that I have not written down that might vanish at any time and be gone forever. Sigh. Here are a few of my favorite things (besides girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes):

1. You know you're not supposed to climb the stairs without Mama or Dada so if we forget to put the baby gate up, you toddle as fast as your legs can carry you over to the stairs, you put your hands on the bottom step and then you look over your left shoulder to make sure we see you and you laugh your pants off. Then I yell "oh no you don't!" and I rush over to you while you furiously attempt to climb as many steps as you can before I reach you peanut-sized frame and kiss your neck and bring you back to earth. Or rather, to the stained and skanky carpet.

2. You are now walking everywhere. Quickly. You must ALWAYS be carrying something with you as you go. You prefer: black plastic measuring spoons, your orange bib from IKEA, your dollar-sized koala, a column-shaped wooden block, or metal lids from organic baby food jars.

3. If you're in the right mood, you're capable of bringing me the following: lion, frog, duck, giraffe, koala, bunny, monkey, and book. If you're not in the right mood, Mommy can forget about it.

4. You love to look at a set of flash cards I got for you at Walgreens in preparation for our trip to Holden. I'm a little embarrassed of the cards because one might think--one who comes to the house without knowing us really well--that Mommy and Daddy are already trying to home school you, that we are hell bent on teaching you words like "tea kettle," "flamingo," and "octagon." This is not the case--though truthfully if you wanted to bust out with "octagon" in the middle of the grocery store, I wouldn't be SAD about it.

5. Unfortunately, I think you've got Mama's sweat genes. When you wake up from a nap you cry to let us know you're awake and you'd like to be taken out of this god-forsaken crib five minutes ago. By the time I get to your room (two minutes later perhaps), you've been crying intensely enough to have worked up a sweat, your blond hair stained brown at the temples and around to the base of your neck. Walking also makes you sweat. When I finish nursing you there is usually a slick sheen on my forearm where your head has been resting. You're a furnace.

6. At mealtimes you exert strong preferences about food. Rather than spitting it out, however, as in days of old, you now simply feed unwanted food to Luxy. So, for instance, if you have bits of apple and squash on your highchair tray, you will put a bite of apple in your mouth and then take a bite of squash in your hand and dangle it leisurely over the side of the highchair (like someone in a gondola trailing her fingers through the current). Luxy licks the food off your fingers and you giggle uncontrollably. Daddy and I should probably do something assertive and rigorous but instead we shrug and laugh..

7. Have I mentioned that when we say "no," you laugh? Your friend Leo understands the word. When his Mama, Bonnie, says "no" sternly, Leo WEEPS. He gets it. My greatest fear at this point it that you DO get it and you're just, well--unconcerned about our desires. Or, as the nursery attendant informed us on Sunday: "she's sure got a lot of attitude." "It's good to see," she then added hesitantly. And most of the time, it is good to see, dear Thiz, though we might think differently in another year or two.