A few years ago, I would visit my grandparents for lunch and they would watch baby Ella play on the floor so quiet and content. There were jokes that my next child would be a wild boy. In my head, I named him Peter and pictured him swinging from the curtains. Well, they got it half right – I have a wild child, a girl named Lillian!
This just happened out of no where. Within the last week, pants are becoming optional.
Our neighbor classifies her as a “helper bee” – the kind of person who loves to care for everyone and everything. It means our house will eventually become a repository for squirrels with popsicle stick splints on their legs, dragonflies with missing wings, stray cats, baby birds and eventually bad boyfriends who she thinks she can fix. Yay. Such a caring heart in such a little girl.
I always explain her this way: she’s not naughty, but she’s very busy. Very curious and gets into a lot, but not out of a place of malice. It’s rare that she’s outright naughty for the sake of being naughty – and yes, she may have squished a peanut butter cup into the wall today (totally naughty) but she is almost two…
Lillian is just busy, sassy and a class clown. Always on the move, not content to just sit and read books. She needs to DO, SEE, EXPERIENCE! She’s busy climbing on and over everything, figuring out how things work, opening, closing, hiding objects, falling off of things, bouncing off of things, escaping, disappearing, spilling, chasing. She’s just one giant verb.
People who see me during the day must assume I’m extremely sleep deprived. I get 7-8 hours of sleep nightly, yet a few hours with Lily and being on my toes constantly and I have that haze of a new parent. I lack a certain spunk and energy as of late. I’m just worn out by Lillian’s spirit. Thankfully, she’s a happy girl, so others are happy to spend time with her in church nursery, ECFE and MOPS. I do often hear about how busy she is in those classes, but so happy. And thankfully, I have a wonderful husband who cares about my sanity. Granted, Lillian has half of his DNA, so this spirit may have come from him… This last weekend, he took both girls to the children’s museum to give me some rest from Lillian. She’d already made me cry twice on Sunday. Once when she spilled an entire container of seed beads and sequins that will hopefully someday be on her Christmas stocking that I’ve been toiling over for over a year. Maybe this Christmas it will be ready for her, however, seeing all of those sequins and beads fly through the air was the moment that put me over the edge. The self hug of a straitjacket seemed welcoming. But, three childless hours were calming enough for me to regroup and form smiles again. When they returned (with dinner!) I was able to enjoy my wild curly girl the rest of the night – despite the fact that she (and Ella) thoroughly drenched me during bath time (even though I was across the (8 foot) bathroom) and later found our carbon monoxide detector crammed full of cat food! I’m going to assume she wasn’t maliciously trying to make the detector useless and then vent the car exhaust into the house as we slept but rather saw a hole and, conveniently, saw the dish of cat food next to it with morsels that would fit in the hole. I know it was Lillian because she’s the only one who is obsessed with being near the cat dish. (Typically, we find bloated cat food in the cat’s water). So despite trying my patience and cat-like reflexes, she also has the ability to make me laugh to the point of tears. She’s easily the funniest person in our house. From her facial expressions to her timing, once she can speak, we’re in big trouble!
Apparently, our town is overrun by spirited children, as evidenced by the wear on the copy of Raising Your Spirited Child that I checked out from the library. It claims to be “a guide for parents whose child is more intense, sensitive, perceptive, persistent and energetic.” They’ve got our number! Let the learning begin.
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