My Favorite Little Lady

It occurred to me last night that I'm always writing monthly updates on Gerry, but I never do one for Bailey.  Now that she's 3 and not necessarily doing something "new" every month I don't always have new things to write about, but I wanted to take a minute and do a little Bailey update now.  Because she is, in a word, incredible.

She's 3 years and 5 months old now, and smarter than I ever could have imagined.  She loves to draw and, in the last few months, has really started drawing some great stuff.  Mostly people, but she's giving them faces and feet and you can actually tell that they're people and not just scribbles on a page.  I've never shown her how to draw a person, so I can't take credit for her newest artistic ability, but I'm pretty impressed with how well she's coming along.

Our family portrait

Her favorite foods right now are corn and broccoli.  I know...vegetables?  At 3, I think I was horrified at the prospect of having to look at a piece of broccoli let alone eat it, but she loves it and will happily subsist on nothing but veggies.  Don't get me wrong, she loves her sweets, too.  The girl can pound a bag of m&ms like nobody's business.  But when given the choice, she chooses corn and broccoli 9 times out of 10.  Just like me, though, she's not a fan of milk unless it's in cereal.  And don't even think about offering her a sandwich.  That's like a slap in the face to her taste buds and she will shoot you down every time.

I don't know how this happened, but Bailey is turning into a girly-girl.  Her favorite color is pink, she's obsessed with princesses, and she thinks a pair of "fancy shoes" and a tiara complete any outfit.  She's obsessed with lip gloss and LOVES to paint her nails and wear jewelry.  The other day she told me she wanted to go to a fancy dinner.  Then she looked me up and down and said, "But you have to fix your hair, mom.  And blow dry it.  Then we can go to a fancy dinner."

Her very first dance recital...just shy of 3 years old.

Tiara, pajamas, and high heels

She's got very strong opinions and knows exactly what she wants.  I admire that about her, even though it can drive me crazy sometimes.  If she wants to wear pajamas to the mall there's no changing her mind.  If she decides she wants to be a princess there's no convincing her otherwise.  If she feels she's been wronged she's not afraid to let you know it.

But she's also got this sweet, affectionate side to her that I absolutely adore.  Often, she'll stop what she's doing to come over and lay her head in my lap and say, "I love you, mama".  (When she's feeling super affectionate she calls me Mama.  When she's feeling sassy it's Mom)  She says please and thank you without needing prompting most of the time, and she always says things like, "You're the best mom ever!"  When we're apart (which isn't very often), even if it's only been for a half hour, she exclaims "Mommy!  I missed you!"  When Scott comes home from work at the end of the day, she's quick to give him a hug and yell, "Daddy!  My daddy's home!"  She calls Gerry "Handsome Man" and hugs him ALL THE TIME.

A few months ago, I had back surgery and was stuck in bed for a few days.  She climbed up in bed with me that first day and didn't leave my side except to go to the bathroom and to eat.  I was on painkillers and kind of fuzzy for awhile, but I distinctly remember rolling over to find her there with me many different times.  She was perfectly content just sitting there with me and watching tv.  

The other day, I was putting her to bed and I noticed that she had a picture of my grandfather (who is still living) propped up against the jewelry box on her nightstand.  I asked her if daddy had put it there and she said, "No, I did.  I just love Pop Pop and I miss him every day."  A week later, the picture is still there and she adjusts it every night before going to bed.

She has the most fantastic imagination, I swear.  Whether she's playing with her babies or her dollhouse, or building something with tools, she's always got some story about what she's doing and why.  This morning I found her banging on the pantry door with a toy hammer.  "I'm just hitting the door, Mom.  My baby needs a tunnel so I'm making one for her 'cause she's my sweetie."  Last night she was playing with her dollhouse dolls and had two of them engaged in some deep conversation about who was going to sleep in which bed and why.  Complete with tears and everything.

As grown up as she likes to think she is, though, she's still got some "baby" qualities when it comes to her speech.  For instance, she still calls bananas " 'nanas", the computer is her " 'pooter", and she sometimes still adds an extra "s" to plural words ("I'm going to read all these bookses!")  Most of the time she substitutes the y-sound for l-sounds at the beginning of words ("I yuv cookies!").  I don't often correct her because I know that she's going to grow out of it soon and will start saying words correctly.  And I'm so going to miss her "baby speech".  So much.  The day she stopped calling her blanket a "bubby" I was sad and refused to call it by it's proper name until I realized how ridiculous I was being.

My absolute favorite thing about Bailey right now is the way she interacts with her brother.  She is an amazing big sister and Gerry is so lucky to have her.  She's got a never-ending supply of patience, kindness and love when it comes to him and he is the ONLY person that she never gets angry or frustrated with.  She gets excited when he does something new, and her face just glows with pride for him.  Whenever we're out and someone says hello to them she'll tell them, "This is my brother.  He's a baby.  His name's Gerry".  She protects him and she plays with him and she loves him like I never could have imagined.  I don't know why I was so worried about how she'd take it having a sibling.  She's completely awesome.

That's not to say that she doesn't have her moments where she's in full-on tantrum mode and it takes everything in me not to throttle her.  Because it happens.  Not too often, but it happens.  But then she goes and does something so incredibly sweet that it just wipes the slate clean.

I'm lucky that she's my daughter and I love her to the moon and back.  She's sweet and feisty and hilarious and smart and adorable and mine.  I don't know what I did to deserve her, but I'm thankful every single day that she calls me mommy.  I'm proud of her, and I know that she is destined to do some big things when she grows up.  For now, though, I want to keep her "my little girl" for as long as I can.