Ode to Aunt Jen

Maggie has a woman crush and it is Aunt Jen. She loses her mind when she sees her and when Aunt Jen holds her she just stares at her with a lovingly gaze (we swear she's thinking "you're so beautiful Aunt Jen...take me home with you..."). Last weekend when I hadn't seen Maggie for a whole day she would not come to me since Aunt Jen was holding her. I'm not jealous...do I sound jealous?

It's adorable and as she grows up I hope she knows she can always talk to Aunt Jen about anything she thinks she can't talk to Mom and Dad about. I think kids need that person they feel safe talking to and parents need that person to know that if anything were going on of concern they would tell them but otherwise their child has someone to confide in. So be ready Aunt Jen because she's going to be a handful, I can already tell. She is already strong willed so I can imagine it only gets worse from here.

Examples...

Maggie is definitely following the classic baby stages. "They" say 1 years olds typically have trouble going to sleep because they realize how exciting their world is and don't want to miss any of it. Just recently Maggie has been learning how to work the system and when we sit down to read books before bed, she never wants them to end. Before you get to the end of one, you have to read a different one, then after a few pages of the different one, she wants you to go back to the first one, and, oh wait, I see a book on the floor, can you start that one? But then I want you to read a page of the first one, no the second one, no...AAAHHH!!! It's exhausting! Then when you put her into bed, the sweet little girl that would just lay her head on her hand, slip her binky into her mouth and just drift off to sleep now screams blood curdling screams even though she's exhausted. So we've had to let her cry it out again...it's only for 10 minutes and then she's fast asleep but heart wrenching nonetheless.

If she can't have something she belts out this scream like you just stabbed her. We clearly have not truly baby-proofed our house because we hear this scream quite a bit these days. Why is the Bose ipod docking station so fascinating to her? I can't even play music with her in the room because she inevitably gravitates to the Bose which leads to me pointing her in a different direction which leads to aforementioned scream. Fun stuff. Believe me Maggie, if I could give you everything you wanted I would, but you are not Veruca Salt and you never will be.

She is ADD when it comes to eating these days and if she sees a Cheerio within 20 feet of her forget it...that is all she wants. Unfortunately for me, we eat breakfast together in the morning and since I have to have my Cheerio's we have a constant battle of wills. So I have to pretend like I'm giving her what is in my bowl when I'm really sneaking her oatmeal on the spoon when she's not looking.

The good news is she is more and more fun each day. We take the good with the bad and enjoy the fact that we have a little girl who knows what she wants and will tell you just that.

A couple of cute updates...

I dropped her off at daycare the other day and she was shaking her hips and dancing to the music they were playing. I've never seen her dance and it could not have been cuter.

She says Mom...but she sounds like Cartman from South Park when she does because the little time I see her during the week it's all about maintenance...clean your ears, clean your nose, cut your nails, take a bath...all I hear is MAAAOOOM!!

That's ok, at least she knows who Mom is.

She's no Aunt Jen.