Molly and Her Opinions

 Molly has very definite opinions about the way things should go.  Depending on my mood, this can be entertaining, exasperating, or both.  Example one:  Picking an outfit for the day.  It use to be we could put her in anything and the main struggle was just getting her wiggling body into the outfit.  Now, she has an opinion about what she should wear.  I prefer dresses (see the part about wiggling body), she prefers shorts and shirts.  Not because she is a tomboy mind you!  For she has started to accessorize most outfits with necklaces and bracelets.  I think she just likes to be difficult.  If I do manage to put her in a dress, she will quickly discard it and run around the house in just her diaper.  Which is fine until we need to go somewhere and then we just replay the earlier experience.  Only this time we add shoes and on occasion our differing opinions on what my footwear should be...

 She also has an opinion of what plates, bowls, utensils, cups, and straws she will use.  Namely anything with a pinkish hue to it.  What is amazing to Eric and me is the fit she will throw if you attempt in your uncaffeinated stupor to give her a bowl of cereal in a bowl of an unsanctioned color.  Actually, it's not so much the fit as the immediate giggle delight and the "Thank you, Mommy (or Daddy)" that comes as soon as you rectify your grievous error.  For all of her opinions, she is very forgiving.  Thank goodness!

I'd like to add that the pink thing is not isolated to eating events.  We have two water bottles we use to spray her hair to brush it each day.  A green one and a pink one.  Don't even attempt to use the green one.

Grandma Liz brought back the perfect mug for Molly from England: "Keep Calm and Be a Princess".  I'm not sure about the keeping calm part.  Perhaps it should read: "Keep Calm and Remember I am a Princess".  Molly loves it and likes to drink from it as Eric and I are having our morning coffee.  And by "likes" I mean "insists" :).

One other story for Molly, about two months ago we switched her to a regular twin bed as she had developed the nasty habit of climbing out of her crib.  She was thrilled and immediately dubbed it: "My Bed!" and got a little upset any time she found a family member laying in it.  So naturally, this became the joke at night.  Dom, Will, and I would lie under the covers as Molly finished up her teeth brushing.  I loved her little voice exclaiming:  "Hey!  That's My Bed!"  She would laugh along with us, though her laugh was a little in the way of: "Ok, you had your little joke, now get out of my bed..."  The really funny thing is that as possessive as she is she has probably slept in her bed a quarter of the nights since we moved her into it.  The majority of the time she sleeps on the floor.  We have also discovered her in Will's and Dom's beds.  To keep her from wandering the house in the wee hours of the morning (something we caught her doing a couple of times), we put a child safety knob on the room side of the door.  Dom and Will are able to get out, but our Sleeping Beauty is safely contained until morning's first light.