Bossy Bessy

It certainly doesn't take children long to learn the concept of ownership..."My" and "mine" are the most frequent words out of Grace's mouth right now. She opens her closet looks at all of the clothes and tells us, "Mine clothes, not Mommy Daddy's," she worries about "my playground" getting wet in the rain, and she tells us "Mine. I'll do it" and "I do it by myself" all day long. Her newest accomplishments are that she can open the sliding door on the van, push the door back until it latches open, get into her carseat alone, and fasten the 5-point harness. Now we have to allow an extra 5 minutes to get everywhere we go if we don't want to here the grumbling baby sounds from the back seat. She also gets more frustrated with her inability to take care of all of her needs independently. She can climb on the toilet in Mommy's bathroom without having her shoes on, but she gets aggravated at bedtime when she is not quite tall enough in her slipper feet. She doesn't like her sippy cup, because she can't get the lid off by herself to get water from the refrigerator door. Grace changes where she wants to sit at the table daily, wants to hold her own hairdryer, and continues to tell us that she wants to drive the car (which is already a frightening thought)! She wants to have her picture on a license, too, and loves to look at ours. To try to reduce her annoyed grumbling and encourage her to talk, Mark and I try not to respond until she asks nicely. Sometimes to remind her we will say, "Hmmm, Daddy, do you hear a baby crying?" and we will look around for one. Grace always smiles and asks for what she wants in response. Then she tells us, "No, aaaaaaauuuuhhhh! No baby." I can tell she is feeling more comfortable with us, because she is not as concerned about keeping us happy all the time. She is strong-willed and opinionated. Mark says she fits just perfectly into our family.

Last week, she really seems to have learned most of her colors by association. She tells us, "Like a schoolbus...It's yellow" and "Stop, dogs, stop. The light is RED now...It's red." She knows that "the grass is green and the sky is blue," Daddy's truck is purple, snow is white, and George is brown. Now she watches the traffic lights while we are driving and tells us whether we can go or stop. "Stop, Daddy, the light is red now!" which will be cute for another week or so...

She saw hail and petted a dog for the first time with Daddy, too. She didn't like thunder, but Daddy took her out to the screened porch and made a game out of laughing at the loud noises and she was fine. She was amazed at how cold the chunks of ice were in her hands and told Adam about the ice in the grass. After finally touching the tail end of our neighbors miniature schnauzer she now announces how much she likes "little doggies." She loves watching dogs, but still frets about them biting her fingers and getting into our fenced yard. We saw some packs of large dogs in Bulgaria and were warned to stay away from them, so I'm guessing that the children were taught to be afraid. She also has been talking about "tigers" and "bugs" lately. She tells me to "shut the door big" to her room so the bugs can't get in, and she says "the tigers are coming" when it is dark. I don't want to give credence to her fears, so I always just laugh and say, "There aren't any tigers in here...Mommy wouldn't let any tigers in the house" and tickle her. That's usually all she needs.

Grace models everything I do, but prefers Daddy if he is around. Every morning when I open the blinds to get Miss Sleepy Head awake she asks, "Where's Daddy?" and when I usually say that he is at work her response is always that "Daddy works all the time." As soon as he walks into the door in the afternoon, she is attached to his hip and he doesn't mind it a bit. They get the mail, pick up sticks, pretend to drive the car, and fix (imaginary and real) things with the screwdriver. It is so sweet to watch him interacting with her that I find that I continue to fall in love with him in new ways everyday. He was a great dad to Adam, Blaise, and Vince, but he is so relaxed and protective with Gracie. He really is a wonderful father, and I love him more every day.