One of the small kind

Middle does her own thing. Every day, all the time. Mostly with a smile, always with a purpose. She hardly ever walks, almost always skips, and every now and then trips. She has this lower lip that trembles when she feels she is right and the world is wrong. And eyes that melt the meanest of hearts. She is something, that Middle.

The other morning, after breakfast, I sent the kids upstairs to get dressed, like every day. This is the routine. It should be robotic by now. I'm busy making lunches, dressing small ones, getting dressed, saving Russian cows, all my normal stuff, so I am only glancing in the room as I walk by, shouting reminders to hurry and get ready. I never defined the whole "You better be ready to go." phrase, after all, we have been doing this for how many months, it should be ingrained in my child's little brain by now. 7:40 hits, and we need to be walking out that door. I'm grabbing shoes, and see Middle, sitting on her bed, reading books, in her PAJAMAS! Remember the whole part about her being sent upstairs to get dressed, etc? Funny, because she couldn't. Er... she chose not too. And well, when you make choices like that, life isn't going to pick you up and get you dressed, no sirrreeee, it's going give you a boot to the butt and send you on your merry way. Time for life to show Middle the way.

I jingle the keys and tell her to go get in the car. She glances up, and I could just see the fear oozing out of her face. It was almost laughable. She hopped off that bed like it was the gates to hell and spun around the room wildly. What do you think she did next? MOST children would frantically grab at their clothing and run. But this is Middle, and Middle detours off the "most children" beaten path and blazes her own trail. She walked out of the room,flung herself on a laundry basket in the hallway and started wailing. "Mama Mia, Mama Mia, mmmmaaaaamaaaaaa mmmmmiiiiiaaaaaaaa.!"

I am not joking. I wish I was. I felt like I was at an Italian funeral for Chef Boyardee or something. Whose kid does that? The whole wailing and who the hell is Mama Mia? Are we Italian? The kid throws up when she eats spaghetti sauce, so really? What the holy canoli!

I handed her a pair of shoes and she wails all the way to the car. Life sucks when you don't get dressed.

My first hurdle of the day was solved. Later as we did her sight words, she was getting frustrated, and kept insisting that "as" was pronounced as "ass". Which, to a kindergartner, I could totally see why you read it as "ass." It is an "s" and not a "z" . I tried to teach her "az", please, Mrs. Teacher, know that I did not purposely teach my child to read it as "ass".

But just now, as I started typing, she was playing with cars in the hallway, singing, "She wore them Apple Bottom jeans, boots with the furrrrr..." She only knows so much of the song, but even I have to admit the chorus is catchy. I take a glimpse and she has her sister's diaper cover on her head. On her head. Because you never know when that will be the latest style.

I love that kid.