21 months going on 13 not 2

It seems like just yesterday that I was scooping my little peanut out of the bassinet to rock her and nurse her or to just stare at her beautiful little kissable lips. Ok I also would just kiss and kiss her and smell that soft baby smell. And then I blinked, (not even a full blink) and I don't have a teeny tiny little 6 pound infant. I have an almost 21 month old, 22 pound ball of lovable sass. Who yells "Hey come get me" when she is ready to get out of her crib in the morning or barely sits in my lap long enough for me to do her hair, let alone kiss and smell... Although that soft baby smell is now only present on bath nights and usually lasts just a few hours :0)

We are approaching my chickadees second birthday and I thought that I probably should start thinking about how I was going to handle the Terrible Twos and then just this weekend it occurred to me: My daughter thinks she is going to be 13 not 2! I think that we skipped right over the Terrible Twos and the Horrible Threes we have gone straight to Tween years! This really shouldn't surprise me all that much since my lovely little peanut has always chosen to surprise mommy and accomplish things a little early: crawling at 5 months, walking at 8 months, first 3 words at 9.5 months (ball, bear and balloon) sentences at a year and full blown conversations now where she will use words like ridiculous and either or appreciate and hilarious.


Recently I was involved in a conversation where it was stated that boys are easier to raise then girls. It was said that when they are younger little girls are easy but as they get older (the so called dreaded emotionally havoc wrecking teen years) they get harder. In fact there was even talk about me being involved in a study and in 15 years at the BFCO they were going to see if I (who currently has just a girl) or my sister-in-law (who currently has 3 boys) was faring better on the aging front. It was said as a hypothesis that my sister-in-law would indeed age less rapidly. I countered the theory by saying it was not necessarily girls that were harder BUT those sweet little faces (like the one to the left) were used to capture their Daddy's hearts and lead them to get away with everything with their fathers leaving the mother to have to argue and stand firm by herself when it comes to a daughter. Anyway I digress back to skipping straight into the Tweens for us.

This weekend brought it to light on several occasions for me. First when her father came out of her room greatly offended because she told him to "get out of here, I'm busy" then there was the "Ella what are you doing" that brought on the shout of "NOTHING!" while the bathroom door was slammed shut, the outfit she chose for her date night (a dress, cowboy boots and a headband) and REFUSED to let me put on anything else (I tried since the boots are still 2 sizes too big but nope) and then the thing that brought it all home was the fact that she spotted a boy. Not only did she spot a boy but she spotted him coming out of Target where she insisted that she 'NEEDED new glasses". She saw the boy turned her mouth up into a shy smile and then posed on the wall behind him begging me to take her picture. She then spent the next 5 minutes looking back at him and smiling. When we finally got her in the car I asked her if she had been flirting with that boy. The reply a sly look at her father and then a yes followed by the girly giggle. You know the giggle all little girls get when they see a cute boy...
That was when I realized holy cow temper tantrums and refusing to eat or anything else associated with the Terrible Twos are the least of my worries...I have myself a teenager at 21 months!