Happy-hearted girl

Well, LG turned one year old a little over a month ago and I figured it was high time to get my thoughts and FEELINGS out there.

Her thought? That the Princess Cozy Coupe is AWESOME

As if you had any doubt, she remains one of my favorite people ever and she has officially solidified her spot in my small circle of trust (even if she does rest her keppie on her dad’s shoulder when he holds her, whereas when I hold her, she tries to push me away.)

She’s doesn’t walk yet (which I know you all know, but for some reason, in most peoples’ worlds, one year = she must be walking, but no, she’s not.) She has no interest in walking and has altogether stopped standing, which she used to do if we’d prop her up on the couch or her music table, but honestly (honestly), I am not worried and I also don’t care.

LG is a lot like me in that if you tell her to do something, she’ll just do the opposite. “Fuck you and your ideas of what I’m supposed to do and who I’m supposed to be!” In the words of her dad, “I do what I want.”

What I want is to hold her like a baby, but she’s having none of that

Side-note: I don’t know when Chris first said this to me — I certainly wasn’t asking his permission to do anything — but whatever it was, he responded with, “You do what you want!” and I thought, “Yeah, I do!” And so does he. And so does LG. And somehow what we all want individually is what everyone else also wants and so it works. (Well, there are probably a lot of things LG doesn’t want or does want, but she’s one, so she can’t really have an opinion about anything, now can she? Except standing. She is firmly in the no standing camp.)

Despite that, she seems to be fairly on-track everywhere else. Eats anything and everything, still. Steals other kids’ food at daycare. Stole her cousin’s sippy cup of juice at a family reunion in San Diego a couple weeks ago.

I didn’t even know she really could drink out of a sippy cup, willingly at least, until she stole the juice. And then after all my, “She only drinks perfectly-temperatured milk!”, she drank ice cold milk at a rest stop on our drive home.

It was crowded, the three of us driving nine hours in that thing…

I am finally realizing that everything I think I know about her is wrong…That she’s much more sharp than I give her credit for…That perhaps my “baby” is not, in fact, a baby any longer, but an actual kid with thoughts and opinions.

In the words of MTV’s Diary, “You think you know, but you have no idea.” (Diary: LG Edition coming to an MTV2 near you.)

Poor little plum has a wicked molar coming in, which despite looking bloody (sorry), hasn’t seemed to tamper her spirits at all, as she still goes about her daily biz acting like nothing is wrong.

And, well, that seems to be LG in a nutshell: “I’m going to take this tooth and I’m going to tell it what’s what and then I’m going to crawl over here and chew on your flip-flop and oh, look, I can climb the stairs! You suckers think I can’t stand, but I caaaaaan!”

She now sleeps on her stomach and wakes up pretty suddenly when we go in there to look at her/pet her face/pat her tushie before we go to bed. She takes her baths in the actual tub and splashes around like nobody’s business, even holds her breath when we pour water over her head.

Her hair has started to curl at the ends and it’s SO ADORABLE. Is there anything better than baby curls? I do not believe so.

I am dying

They teach the kids sign language at school and before we leave in the mornings, I’ve noticed her signing “eat” sort of subconsciously. Then we when get to school, she KNOWS it is breakfast time and starts squawking from her car seat. She actually reminds me a lot of a neurotic cat I had growing up, Ivey, who we rescued and believed to have been separated from her mother too early. Ivey’s first meal at our house consisted of moo goo gai pan and I don’t believe she ever stopped eating after that. She’d bleat for hours on end if her food bowl got too low and, well, I just compared my child to an animal — I WIN AT ALL THIS.

All in all, she’s a happy girl. Always has been and I hope she always will be. Hey, if that’s all I do as a mother — raising a happy kid — then I’ll consider myself a success. And comparing her to a cat can’t hurt, either.