Princess

Every weekday morning is the same: I open the door to her bedroom and smile as her head of curls lay resting on her bed, her body curled in a funny position or her butt sticking up in the air. She's the air I breath, my sweet Lovie.

I turn off the sound machine and push open her closet door to let the yellow closet light seep into the room.

"Morning sweet girl!"

If she doesn't stir, which she normally doesn't (it's 5:30 in the morning after all!), I go to her and rub her head, feeling the beads of curls on my hand. This morning, however, she popped right up and said, "I wear pink princess dress!"

"You wanna wear the pink princess dress today?" I asked, smiling as I noticed how her hair was all crazified (as it usually is in the morning), her binky hanging from the side of her mouth like a cigarette, one eye still shut while the other eye tried to open.

"Yes! I wear pink princess!"

"Okay sweet baby, you can wear the pink princess dress," I say as I reach for the fugly pink tutu skirt thing I got her for Valentine's Day.

"Mama, ithinkimaybereadyto throw da binky in da garbage."

I paused for a moment to reflect on our discussion last night as I gave her the binky before bed- the only time she uses it- and remembered how I said that the binky was getting old and soon it would be time to throw it in the garbage and then there would be no more binky. And when I saw the panic on her face, I quickly added that it was totally OK for this to happen because binky's are for babies and she's such a big girl now- in a really upbeat tone.

"You want to throw the binky the in the garbage?" I ask, wondering if I heard her correctly.

"Yes."

"OK honey, if you're ready to throw the binky in the garbage, we can do that."  She just sat there in her crib in her yellow sleeper one piece footed jammies, her hair in every crazy direction, her eyes being rubbed open, her binky still dangling like one would a cigarette. "You can throw it in the garbage but then that's it; we don't don't have any more binkies."

"OK."

Yeah, right!

Smiling, I sweep her out of the crib and she latches on, putting her head on my shoulder. She's gotten so big so fast that it's hard to believe that just three years ago she didn't exist.

"Mama I wanna wear da papull princess dress," she says as I lay her on the changing table.

"Oh I thought you wanted to wear the pink one."

"Papull."

I get the purple skirt down and bring both to her and ask her to choose.

"Dat one!" she giggles, pointing to the purple one.

"Alright lets get you in the purple dress," I say.

"Pink!"

"Honey, you picked the purple one, you can wear the pink one tomorrow."

"Oh."

"Which shoes do you want to wear?" I ask. "The brown or black ones? Or the boots?"

"No I wan' da red ones, peas."

"Sweetheart," I say bringing one of each shoe and boot for her to see (excluding the red ones- bad mama). "Which of these?"

"Dat one!" she says pointing to the black shoe. "Brown!"

I can't help but to chuckle.

My girl. The pink-loving fashionista.

I can't wait to see if she throws the binky away tonight. Ha!

1.) Capture what it’s like to spend a day or a moment talking with your kiddo. (inspired by Big Mama Cass)