Sunday, March 29, 2009

Raising Her

This past Friday we had the Beaver Sleepover where 15 or so kids (and most of their parents) slept over at the local community centre. It was quite fun (for the most part) until the kids decided that sleeping was NOT going to happen and their respective adult guardians were either asleep or pointedly ignoring their lovelies traipsing around the room. I'm going for the latter.

A few of the moms have boys only and they sign and say how lucky I am to be raising a boy and a girl. "Oh you're so lucky... to have a GIRL." They cast long looks over to their boys, rough-housing and making 'spisht' noises with spittle flying. Pow! Zap! Zing!

Now, don't get me wrong. I LOVE raising my daughter. Just as much as I love raising my son. I can't believe how similar and how different they are. How unique. Gee, almost like they are two different people.

After I'd had my first child, Army Boy, I used to marvel at the excellentness of my parenting. He was a good kid. Therefore, I was a good mother.

Then my daughter came along and Pow! Zap! Zing! I was pretty useless.

She's had her head glued twice, stitches once. She knocked her tooth backwards in her mouth and this past week she actually knocked herself out. She's two and a half, people. I should have known that it would go this way... when she was 3 months old she fell off the bed. I swore that would never happen again, except it did... three weeks later.



I've taken her in to get her head checked out and the doctor said all the accidents were just a product of her walking early and having an older sibling to keep up with.

But the grey-hair inducing accidents aside, raising E is like raising myself. My mother calls her "payback". She's stubborn (stick-to-it-ive-ness), loud (extroverted), demanding (sure of what she wants) and never stops moving (energetic). Sometimes Major Man just looks at the two of us and shakes his head. "Apple... Tree."

Which of course means she's going to grow up to be most awesome. :)

She loves books, running around naked, refuses to say sorry when she's in time out, can stare a hole in your forehead when she's mad, believes completely that you WILL do what she wants and never goes down without a fight. She's also tough as nails physically and soft and mushy inside.

When the other moms look at me and tell me how lucky I am I know they are thinking pink bows and princesses. Yeah, I got your princess right here.

3 comments:

Lydia said...

Someday she'll rule the world! I stumbled this. :)

TC said...

THAT last one is one of the Best Photos Ever. I'm LOLing!

Carolyn said...

Ha! This is so funny--that last picture in particular.

She *does* sound exactly like you. And that means she will grow up to be quite awesome.

Although you two might knock heads a time or two, at least both of you will know there's someone else on this earth who understands you. :)