My Four-Year Old

By Melodee

My daughter thought 6:12 a.m. was a fine time to wake up. I thought not, so I rocked her for two minutes and put her back to bed. I think she woke up because she was cold. She was cold because she refused a blanket last night because she is four years old and very silly.

She also plays in the backyard without a jacket, even when it’s less than fifty degrees. How a child with absolute no body fat can stand the chill is a mystery I have yet to solve, but perhaps it has to do with her constant motion. She is a child who cannot be still.

My other children were so easy to distract with the magic hynoptist, the television set. She has no favorite show, though she does watch Spongebob every night before falling asleep. I can’t depend on any show to catch her attention during the day. My boys were a different story–turn on the television and they’d go into a trance when they were young.

When my daughter takes off her clothes, she is careful to take remove them without turning them inside out. Then she lays them out on the floor, smoothing them flat and straight. She even does this with socks and underpants, which is an endearing quirk. (I also make sure my clothes are not turned inside out when I remove them. What? Doesn’t everybody?)

I love to call her “sweetie pie” and “baby girl” but she always corrects me and says, “I am not a sweetie pie! I am Grace!” She has no idea she has a middle name or a last name and refused to believe me tonight when I suggested the possibility.

She stopped napping for four months when she was a year old. That about killed me. She was the kind of baby who insisted on being carried all the time. She did not tolerate bouncy seats or swings. She did not allow anyone to hold her but me. She cried when people looked at her too closely.

The fact that she begs to go visit her friends or her grandma is something of an unexpected development. I never thought she’d want to leave my side, even for a couple of hours. Then again, I never thought she’d sleep through the night.

But she does. And one day she’ll know her middle name and she’ll pierce her ears and go on a date and pick a graduate school and buy a house.

When that happens, I am going straight over where I will ask for a banana, eat one bite and discard it on the coffee table. Then I am going to yank all the cushions off the couch and jump onto them as if I am a world-class gymnast. I will also wake her up at 6:12 a.m. and ask if I can watch television and then sneeze in her face and drink her Diet Coke.

Then, maybe, we’ll be even.

Originally posted at Actual Unretouched Photo.