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long days

Since then it's been a book you read in reverse So you understand less as the pages turn Or a movie so crass And awkardly cast That even I could be the star.

 

summing it up: tessa

I have been meaning to devote a post to the whirling dervish that is my second daughter for some time, but it's been really hard to find the right words.

[As if to illustrate this point, I keep coming back to this post and trying to edit it and then just going back to my original version. It really is hard to capture her.]

I think I was spoiled in some ways by what Lucy was like as a toddler. She was my first kid - I didn't know that most kids aren't completely content to look at their books for an hour at a time, or line up their dolls, or whatever. So in some ways, Tessa the toddler is twice the shock.

She is always misbehaving, and yet somehow I can never really get mad.
A few days ago at the park, Tessa was eyeing a bouncy toy that a three year old was also moving towards. The three year old gave Tessie the hand, in classic Heisman pose. Tessie slapped that big kid's hand out of her way, and then bitch-slapped the kids hand back and forth a few times more, for good measure. I didn't know whether to give her a time out or high five her. She just hopped on the bouncy toy and never looked back.

I think that pretty much sums her up. Always moving, never deterred. And if she is deterred, you will hear about it. Loudly. And for quite a while. Or maybe, you will get smacked. Even when she's happy, her favorite way of showing me affection is to grab my neck and dig her nails in -- laughing delightedly as I scream in pain. It seems wrong to give her time outs when she bites and pinches, because when she attacks she always does it with so much joy.
So many words here, and I'm still not doing you justice. You are unlike anyone I've ever met before, kid or grown up. I think my job as a parent will be to figure out a way to tap into your passion and clear brilliance (whatever, it's true) and reign in your baser impulses. You could be a recipient of a Genius grant or multiple restraining orders, it's really a toss-up as to which way it will go.

But whatever else is true about you, please know this: no matter that my neck is covered in your claw marks, or that I woke up this morning with you tackling my head and then bouncing on my face -- you never, ever did anything to deserve what I did to your bangs a few weeks ago.
I'll make you a deal: I promise to never ever cut your hair again if you promise to stop gouging my neck.

 

for this post

 
Blogger Stephanie Says: 3:44 PM  

Beautiful post. Beautiful girl. I'm not sure who's more lovable, Tessa or her mother.

Neck gouging sounds like a world of fun compared to my daughter's obsessive stroking of my hair and tyrannical demands about how I wear aforementioned hair.

 

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