Mama Thursday: Outkide

I just know that one of these days Lily is going to look up at us and start speaking in complete sentences.  She talks plenty at home -- just not in English.  This morning was a little bit of a breakthrough though.  She said, "outkide" and pointed at the door.  This child is always wanting to go outside.  Any time of day, rain or shine, cold or hot.  She wants to climb down the front steps, run down the sidewalk, and sit on the retaining wall three houses down.

She has a little sandbox in the backyard now, and that has been just awesome.  I wish we had one of those climbing cube/slide thingies for her but that will probably have to wait until next year.  She's a slide junkie.  She also loves to be swung around in a circle by her arms but Husband and I get nervous because we feel like we're going to rip her little arms out of their sockets when we do it.

She's got such a strong personality.  That's our fault, I suppose, because Husband and I are pretty stubborn people and her obstinance is as much as we deserve.  She has a very short attention span for books being read to her, but she will "read" them to us in her own babbling language.  She's still hitting me when she gets overly frustrated (I read that she hits me because she trusts me -- WTF?) but when she does this (or when she grabs the kitties by their tails) she looks me straight in the eye and gives me a devilish smile.  It takes everything in me to not yell or grab her hand and smack it.  The other day she hit me but then I could see in her face right away that she knew she had done something bad.  I was angry.  She stood up, got her face right in mine, and gave me a big kiss right on the mouth.

I melted.