These Teens

My daughter is now 14. Months. The past month has been a very helpful one, both in my relationship with her and in my understanding of her in a more global sense. Intimately, I feel as though we have our own cues, our own little games and that only I, the maven of all games that include expired credit cards and crevices of couches, get.

On a more macro level, I feel that I am starting to grasp what it is I am supposed to be doing in her character development. I see what areas need attention, improvement.

For example, Big Girl was really FAILING with a capital EFF at the notion of "gentle hands." I care for another little boy with outrageously gorgeous curly hair one day a week. This little boy has suffered week after week from the clutches of Baby Girl. She has been absolutely incorrigible to master gentle hands. She would see those luscious locks and instantaneously become one of those arcade games with the revolving claw that grabs busted looking stuffed bunnies that you finally scored after inputting $7 worth of tokens. She could not unlearn grabby hands.

Until yesterday when she was just almost completely reproved of it. She stroked those angel tresses with the gentleness of a caterpillar sneezing. I was so proud of her, and we all had a much happier day. It sounds strange that a 14 month-old would finally be disabused of a habit that causes harm to one of her peers, but I am just so proud to say Mama ain't raising no dummy.

***

The 14 month-old flex

You can almost hear it, can't you? What are you doing in there, Baby Girl?

...NOTHING....