Lilly On a Mission

Lilly was on a mission today. She went to get something from the other room while I was at the computer. I heard her moving something and then I heard her say "Mommy. Hep me?" I went to find her near the bathroom with Emma's wooden stool with her name carved in the face of it. "You want this?" I said. She said "Yeah." So I started moving it down the hallway, and when I went the wrong direction, she cried. So I kept changing my course until I was headed back toward the office, which is where she apparently wanted me to go. I set it down near my desk, and she bent over and arranged it right next to the filing cabinet that is my desk's fat table leg.

She then stood on the stool, and started to look at me out of the corner of her eye, slowly, like she was suddenly on stealth mode. This is when I knew she wanted something on the desk that she wasn't allowed to have. "Do you want this?" I offered her the musical stacking toy. "No," she said. Still looking sneaky. "This?" I pointed at the water glass. "No," she said. Then I kept typing and saw her looking at the thing that was still just out of her reach. An open pack of Trident gum.

That little buggar had decided she needed to reach that gum, and had gone somewhere ELSE to find the stool so she could drag it half a mile back down the hall to set it up to get the gum, right in front me. She only had trouble because she miscalculated (at 23 months) how heavy that stool might be to heft for someone who weighed about 25pounds, and how long the actual journey would be. Not to mention that she'd have to reach the gum which was about two inches from Mean Mommy who says gum isn't for babies. She still thought it was worth the whole plan. In fact, all she foresaw was success.

I picked up the gum and said, "Is this what you want?" and she said "Yes!" and I had to say, unfortunately, "You can't have gum, though, baby," and then her whole face melted slowly into sad jello. I tried putting the gum on another box, away from her, and she got off the stool, going over to that box, deciding that once it was over there, she could get it and it would be okay. I had to pick it up again, and her face registered the trauma of Not Having, yet again. Her chin wrinkled up. Her eyes watered. "But Lilly," I started to say. I can't give her gum, right? I couldn't. I put the gum in my pocket. The pocket made everything real to her. There was No Gum Getting. She started to cry, as her plan fell to pieces. Then I remembered something.

"Hey, do you want to unwrap the pieces for Nathan and Emma?" She looked up, through tears. "Yes," she said. I had found her opening every piece of gum in another pack the other day. She liked gum, but most of all she just liked the little wrappers.

I took it out of my pocket and let her pick out a piece and unwrap it. She was carefully industrious. "Here, Mommy," she handed me the wrapper, then tried to give a piece to Emma, holding it way up to her standing nearby, saying "Here Emma. Here Emma," but Emma didn't feel like gum. I took the gum. I let her unwrap another piece, and Nathan felt so sorry for her, he took it. I could see I was going to have another pack of gum, all the pieces unwrapped, sitting on the kitchen counter in a snack bag next to the other naked pack of bubble gum.

This baby isn't even 2, and is a planner, a thoughtful chatterer, who tells us everything that comes to her, greets everyone with a wave and a "Hi," (She said "Hi Chris" casually to the janitor at school the other day) and repeats everything we're saying, especially the last word of whatever sentence we're finishing.

She got knocked over today at McDonald's. She was just standing there eating a little of Emma's ice cream, and some kid came by and flattened her, running into her, and I had to pick her up, she was crying, choking on her breath, I wasn't doing anything was her shocked breathing. Then she wanted to "nursing" (or nursey as it sounds like)and snuggle with me at those awkward plastic tables.

A wonder baby. She will stop nursing to say "Bess You" and smile if I sneeze or cough. A wonder baby.