She kills me...

If you've read my blog for more than a week, chances are you can guess which of my daughters this post will be about. My how-does-that-much-attitude-fit-into-one-little-person two and a half year old, Lila. That girl is just a firecracker from the time she gets up in the morning until well after the sun goes down at night. She knows what she wants and doesn't take no for an answer. Unless she's in a contrary mood, then she won't take yes for an answer.

We started off the morning by locking horns over some trifling matter. I think it was which side of the car she was willing to get in on. I got right down into her face and let her know in no uncertain terms that I was in no mood to put up with her stubbornness. I had a rip roaring headache and we were going to be late to get the kids to school. I must have looked particularly fierce because she backed down for once, and was an angel for pretty much the rest of the morning.

In fact she spent most of the morning playing quietly by me while I finished watching Sense and Sensibility, without even whining about not getting to watch Mickey Mouse instead. She was even following the story pretty closely. At one point she climbed up to sit on my lap and watched intently as the heroine cried because she found out that the man she loves is engaged to marry someone else. Lila turned to me and said in a sad, little voice, "Oh, she's lost her Edward."  Then she got after me for laughing when it was clearly an unhappy moment.

We were driving out to Brian's uncle's house tonight, and we passed a man out jogging wearing only a pair of fairly short shorts. Lila yelled out, "Hey! There's a naked guy! That naked guy is running!" We all laughed and laughed, which normally would make her keep on saying the same thing over and over. But she didn't really notice because she was still contemplating why someone would go running around naked. I kept trying to explain that he wasn't actually naked, but gave up when she asked in a tone of disgust, "Who would ever want a naked guy?"

My absolute favorite moment of the night came on the ride home. As we started home she realized that she had lost the hair bow out of her ponytail. She started to cry about it, but quickly calmed down when I showed her that I had the bow stuck in my purse. She asked for it, but we told her no and I would just hold it until we got home. She decided no wasn't the right answer so she kept asking, over and over, until finally Brian had had it and said very sternly, "LILA FAITH! That question has been asked and answered. Several times! So STOP asking!" Without skipping a beat Lila responded with, "First of all, Dad, please I need to get my hair bow back. And the number two thing is, give me my bow!" I was caught so off guard that I laughed, even as I was horrified that she thought she could talk to her dad like that. Brian and I looked at each other and said, "We are in so much trouble." And we are, she just kills us.