Hangin’ with V.

[This is one of those kid brag blog posts for posterity where I get all touchy feely and mushy and stuff.  You have been warned.]

Victoria and I had some quality time today.  I climbed all the way up into the McDonald’s playplace with her this morning, and hopefully the one other parent there thought I was mom of the year.  I certainly thought I was mom of the year.  That’s not an easy feat for a tall girl like me.  We also snuggled while Charlotte was dancing her heart out in dance class.  I just want to cry when I get these cuddly moments from my kids.  It’s been a good day with Victoria.

And she has said some funny stuff too.

She kept bugging the crap out of Charlotte tonight and when I would say “Victoria!  Stop hitting your sister!  Come here and talk to me.”  Her answer was always “No. I’m hungry.”  Does she think I’m going to interrupt her regularly scheduled discipline to fix a sandwich?

Then I was changing her buns later in the night and she was stinky.  I got the diaper off and she said “I can’t breathe.”

Yeah, neither could I.

When Charlotte was 2 and a half I did a big post commemorating all the wonderful things she said and did.  I totally skipped that glory moment for Victoria.  Such is the life of a second-born.  Sigh.



I hope Victoria knows how rad we all think she is.  She is so beautiful and spunky and she seems to grow up a little more each morning when I get her out of her bed.  Some of the things I want to remember:

• When I go to get her up in the morning she says “five more minutes.”  Already like a teenager, and I’m her human snooze button.
• When I’m trying to get her to go to bed at night, she says “four minutes!”  I don’t know why it’s four but it makes me want to sing that Justin Timberlake/Madonna song (We only got 4 minutes to save the world!).
• She is so independent that I can’t even get her to sit through a whole book.  She wants to read it “by mySELF”.
• Also so independent that she doesn’t like me to teach her anything.  If I try to ask her to name her colors, or to count to ten, or do the alphabet with me she’s not having it.  “I don’t know” is her standard answer.  I was panicked that she would make it to high school without knowing her colors, but fortunately she is happy to learn when Charlotte is the teacher.  Charlotte helps her pronounce things correctly too.  Just today they were working on “uMbrella, not uNbrella.”  Charlotte will probably have to teach her how to read too.  And potty train her, por favor.
• She has the stinkiest, nastiest stuffed pink bear in America.  That thing definitely has the funk.  She bites the paws and then rubs them on her nose.  So if you reach to pick it up off the floor it is damp and sticky and smelly.  I wash it about once every week and a half, and it never really comes out looking any better.  One of these days it is going to disintegrate. 
• She’s starting to get very lovey with everyone around her—aunts, uncles, grandmas and grandpa.  She is very sweet and is finally starting to warm up to some of the people she has been too busy to stop and squeeze until now.
• She is very good at playing independently and she is very imaginative.  She likes little figurines and things that are miniature.  She usually carries 2 or 3 of her little toys around for a couple of days at a time.  She makes them talk and play and has them say the funniest little things.  Wish I had an example--that would make this more interesting wouldn’t it. 

I love my Victoria Ruby, little second-born booger snot.  That girl knows who she is and where she’s going, and I think she’s lucky for that.