At a year-and-a-half she didn’t show any interest yet in potty training. She and her daddy – who she was able to distinguish from her mommy by accurately pointing out who was who – would stack blocks together (their record was five before she knocked them all down).
She could get round pegs into round holes but grew frustrated with those shapes that had angles.
More independence and defiance would come, and soon, way too soon, but, for now, she was able to get her message across with a one word “no,” she would not eat her broccoli, and she would emphasize her disgust by shaking her head no matter how fun daddy tried to make the delivery of the broccoli with the spoon approaching her tight-lipped mouth, the spoon coming ever nearer like a plane heading in for a landing – a crash landing in her case.
There would come the inevitable when she’d ask a whopping 288 questions per day, one question every two minutes, thirty-six seconds her daddy figured, whereupon he’d suggest maybe she’d like to play dress-up. This is where her mommy came in and the two liked the frilly, lacey fairytale type costumes.
Next thing you knew though she was outside in a pile of dirt in that pretty-in-pink pastel with spoons she’d swiped from the silverware drawer.
Exchanging pinafores for pajamas was a fight every night, not to mention the preceding bath necessitated by the preceding pile of dirt.
Too busy for a bath, too busy for bed, busy, busy, busy was this little toddler, aka tomboy. “Born with wheels on her bottom,” whispered her mommy, as she joined her husband at their daughter’s bedside, the tyke having finally succumbed to slumber following her daddy’s own yawned reading of Peter Pan, and Snow White, and Cinderella.
Quietly then they closed her door and retired to their own bedroom. And there in his own big shoes – tucked neatly and placed carefully and lovingly – were her shoes, perhaps her way of saying ‘I love you daddy, thank you for loving mommy, and giving me life.’
