Rebel, Rebel

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my daughter is six, right? S-i-x? You'll forgive me if I seem a bit confused because she's been acting like she's 16 lately. Case in point:

Wrig and I were headed out for a walk in a bloody downpour the other day. In general, the rain in Portland doesn't actually get you wet. It just sort of mists you, kind of like the spray bottles they use at the barbershop. Damp? Yes. Dripping? No. Well, this was real rain, not Portland rain, and I insisted Wrig strap on the rain pants, which are, of course, the worst thing ever invented. She has a mild-to-major hissy-fit but, with Mom's assistance, we make it out the door. On the way out, Mom pulls Wrig's hood onto her head for her. We aren't two steps out the door when Wrig, with a defiant flourish, throws the hood back. I look down at her, smirking a bit, and say, "I bet that felt pretty good, huh?" She didn't say much, but I'm pretty sure she agreed.

Less than two blocks later, she puts the hood on. It takes every ounce of my minimal will power not to snark, "I told you so."

Or how 'bout this:

Wrig is making strawberry milk at breakfast by pouring some juice from some frozen strawberries into her, duh, milk. She then spends the next fifteen minutes stirring it, banging her spoon against her glass, creating the most jarring, clanging, annoying sound you can imagine. Since the adults haven't been sleeping well at our house lately, clanging, jarring, annoying noises are not so welcome at the breakfast table. We politely ask her to stop - well, as politely as cranky parents can manage - and, because the child in our house hasn't been sleeping well lately either, she throws a mild-to-major hissy-fit. We lay out her options and she prefers option 3: take your milk into the bathroom, shut the door, and stir to your heart's content.

Our darling angel stomps to the bathroom, muttering something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like "those frickin' parents" (though she might have said "flippin"). She spent the next five minutes in the bathroom, stirring away, muttering quite loudly to herself about the injustice of it all.

I can't wait until she has her own blog, so she won't have to complain about us in private.