This girl.

I am in awe of her every day. I don’t try to tamp it down at all because it really, really helps when she’s seriously pissing me off. She’s two. She’s frustrated and mad and figuring out exactly how little power she has, mostly by trying to see how much she has and being disappointed when she runs out. but anyway. It’s been a rollercoaster of a week. With our friend Cassandra in town, her evening routine has been completely disrupted. We’ve been getting her to bed late, but still have to get out at the same time in the morning. It’s been rough.

Last weekend was the first time since starting the super water babies (no parents in the pool with her) swimming class where she did NOT want to get out. Yay! I am counting this as a win because it means she is comfortable with her new instructor. And also because it means that Papa T. can take her swimming. Without me. And I can stay home, and luxuriate in being totally alone in my house. I’ll sleep. Or cook? Or watch tv? Maybe take a shower! Oh, the possibilities!

Potty training is progressing well. At school they are taking her to the potty every time the “big” kids go, to get in the habit. She’s been asking for panties and I’ve picked up a few pairs. I think we’ll run the current box of diapers out and then give the switch a try!

I was changing her diaper and she said, “wahn… doooo… feeee” and I waited to see if she said four. She did! Yay! I thought she might be able to count to four! But then she kept going to five. Then ten. Then 14!! Then I was so flabbergasted that I distracted her and she stopped. I was so excited! She started counting again for me… “Wahn… dooo…. feee…. footeen!” I wasn’t as excited about those counts :). But later in bed she counted to 16. She counted to 16! I’m not even kidding. I have no idea if this is normal or way above the curve or way below it, and frankly I don’t care because to me it is AWESOME.

She has also started telling me more about her body. The other day she said, “My tummy hurts” and I was able to comfort her (although I didn’t know what to do for her). She had eaten a lot of sweets and I wasn’t surprised that it hurt. I told her it was probably all the sweets, and I was sorry it hurt, and I could rub it for her if she wanted or we could just snuggle for a while. We snuggled. It seemed to help. Snuggles fix everything. I’ll be sad when that stops.

I am letting her play games on her pad, and from time to time watch some Peep and the Big Wide World. I have let her watch a couple episodes of Shaun the Sheep, too, one of which has a storyline about a baby sheep whose teddy bear gets taken inside and the other sheep go to retrieve it for him. In the beginning of the episode, right when the teddy bear goes missing, the baby sheep cries. I tell you all this to set the background, because when the baby sheep started crying J got a very concerned look on her face, and told me that, “Baby sad.” I told her that yes, the baby was sad because he was missing his teddy bear, and she responded, “When baby sad, mama come[s]! Baby happy.” I about melted right there on the spot. It makes me so deeply, totally, completely… content with my parenting choices so far. I haven’t really doubted myself (more than any mom, anyway) but I know that I fall pretty far into the gentle/attachment/hippie/whatever end of the spectrum. And if she cries, I do come. Every time I can. It makes me feel so good to think that she’s internalizing that. I asked her if her mama came when she was sad, and she said, “yeah!” and went back to the show, completely oblivious to what she had done to me.

In short. This girl.