(Photo courtesy of Brittany Brooke Photography)
Why is it so hard for me to write posts about my kids? I plan on it and plan on it, and when it comes time to actually write one, I stress so much about it that it almost never gets written.
I suppose it’s a sign that I still have maturing to do as a writer… but that’s okay. Hopefully I’ll get there someday. I’m doing it now, though. I’m doing it. Really, here we go.
Lucy.
She’s got about a bajillion nicknames, but I think my favorite one is Luey. Or Kabluey. We joke that if she ever gets into roller derby when she’s older, her name should be “Kabluey Bonk.” If she does in fact become a roller derby enthusiast, my new nickname will be “Constant Almost-Heart Attack Bonk,” or “Nervous Nellie.”
I’m not going to spend the whole post comparing her to Charlie, but I will say that I expected my second child to be, I don’t know, just a version of my first… but slightly different. I was toooootally wrong.
Lucy is (duh, Lauren) a completely different kid. She is equal parts bulldozer and sweetheart. I mean “bulldozer” almost literally. When she’s feeling particularly surly, she will stick her belly out and knock people over… simply because they happen to be sitting on the floor, minding their own business. When she’s feeling sweet, she will put her hands on my chin, turn my head toward her face, and plant a big fat kiss on my lips. Or she’ll wake up in the morning and throw her arms around my legs, sighing “Mommy!”
She has also started talking much earlier than Charlie did. Charlie waited until he felt he had a handle on a word before he even uttered a syllable… Lucy just goes with it. Sometimes she’ll let out a long jumble of words, looking me straight in the eye, and I will have absolutely no idea what she just said. She also has these weird pauses before certain words that are surprisingly consistent, regardless of the word order. Here are some of my favorite Lucy-isms right now:
“I’m… not… a kitty. All right?”
“Two… meenits… Chawwie. No more eengy buds.” (Two more minutes, Charlie, then no more Angry Birds.)
“Happy to you. Happy to you, ah Mommy. Boo it?” (Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you dear Mommy. Blow it?)
“Hot… chockit?” (She sometimes likes to play a game where she makes hot chocolate and offers it to people.)
“You going Mommy? I meeeeess you. Hug me. Hug Chawwie. Hug Daddy.”
“Uh Bamma.” (This means “call Grandma,” but sounds REMARKABLY like “Obama.”)
I’m finally starting to realize that she’s going to grow up and be an adult human being, too. As Charlie grows up, visions of him as a teenager are starting to appear in my brain. His face is starting to collect expressions and traits that will be with him no matter how old he gets, and that blows my mind. What blows my mind even more is that I’m going to have to clear room in my brain for teenage Lucy, too.
Lucy’s always been a sparsely-haired kid, and that has perpetuated the idea in my head that she’s still a baby. I still call her a baby, and dudes, she is NOT a baby. She is a full-on two-year-old… which will probably help me a lot when it comes to imagining what teenage Lucy will be like.
Her feisty, sometimes surly nature makes her sweet times even more wonderful to me… and her (rare but increasing) moments of empathy always make me all gushy and syrupy. Sometimes she’ll ask kids if they’re okay, patting their head firmly and giving them a hug. If I mention that I’m hungry while she has food in her hands, she’ll say “Want Cheerio, Mommy?”
I’m curious (but not in a hurry) to see what kind of a human she’ll turn into… but from what I see now, I know she’ll be a human who cares and a human who gets things done… and that’s a pretty awesome place to start, I think.