Maybe time for a little status update. Let's see, what's new... Baby Girl watches a fair amount of TV because we're bad parents. The Backyardigans and Blue's Clues are big in our house. She knows the words to a lot of their songs and even their dance moves. The melodies, not so much. In general, only the lyrics, not the music, matter to her. She loves Hello Kitty. Her HK dress, her HK table and chairs, her HK banner on her wall, her HK bandages for her booboos. I'm okay with it. Better Hello Kitty than Barbie. She loves to wear bracelets and necklaces. Not real jewelry, but she doesn't have to know that. She's finally growing out her hair and looking less like a boy. She'll tolerate a pin in her hair and sometimes a tiny ponytail. She's been dancing a lot like Beyonce from the "Single Ladies" video. I don't remember ever showing it to her. But she does this thing with her hand on her hip and one leg sticking out, wiggling her hips. She says she saw it on TV. It's borderline obscene. The battle to keep this one off the pole may already have been lost... She and I take walks around the block sometimes just after sunset. And it's weird to say about a three-year-old, but we chat. It's eerily quiet in our neighborhood at that time. So I start talking to her, and she talks to me. Just to fill the silence. Random crap. The way parents and teenagers talk when they go for a drive somewhere and they don't have to look at each other. Baby Girl insists on holding hands. She likes the crunch of dry leaves under her shoes and loves the sight of a full moon. She's rebellious as hell sometimes Hates to be scolded. Hates to be told she's wrong. Spits occasionally, though it's more like blowing a juicy raspberry. Stomps her feet. Screams her head off. Spends a fair amount of time in the corner of the room. I'm told this is normal for her age. I cling to that belief, so don't tell me I'm wrong or I will start to blow raspberries. She likes to draw. Faces with eyes, irises, eyebrows, noses, frowns or smiles, ears, hair, arms and hands, legs and feet. All except a torso. She writes letters and numbers. Draws different shapes. Gets frustrated by the limits of a toddler's hand-eye coordination. This is usually where her perfectionism shows. All of a sudden, she lets out a grunt like an animal or a pirate -- argh! -- and a crayon gets tossed across the room. Drawing time doesn't last very long. She loves cranberry raisins, lollipops, gummies, oreos, popsicles. She's usually not ticklish, but if you make her laugh once, she's ticklish everywhere. Like violently ticklish. She wasn't like this as a baby. This makes bathtime very difficult. I have to keep it very serious. No laughing, no funny business whatsoever. Otherwise, there's just water everywhere and nothing gets clean and there's this half-washed kid with a big grin on her face, giggling like mad. Right now she's trying to brush out the kinks in her doll's hair. Once again, off in the hopeless pursuit of perfection. But at least she's quiet, and without the aid of a TV cartoon. | 
