This is my girl...

This is my girl, my Antonia.  She's woken up screaming the last few mornings, just enough too early that we're unsure whether it's two oclock or six, sometimes it is two and we hold our breaths, hoping she falls back asleep on her own.  Her molars are coming in, and it's showing the dark side of toddlerdom.

She knows when Daddy is getting ready to leave for work and grips his hands as tight as can, ensuring that he can't leave without her.  Breakfast is a mix of deciding whether she needs pain medicine (or just cranky) and trying to convince her to sit in her seat and eat something.

Daddy's actual exit is heart-wrenching.  She tries to get out the door when he does and screams when she realizes he's going to leave us.  Some mornings she flips a switch and waves a cheery, "Bye-bye!  Wuuu you!"  Those mornings are better.

Her teeth coming in have amped up the toddler destruction.  She bites, hits and throws things with a vengeance.  The biting is usually her teeth hurting, and she tries hard not to get skin, but timeouts have abounded for this either way.  The hitting usually means, "Please, please cuddle me.  I just need you."  This is always the balancing act of filling her little love tank and redirecting the hitting.  She tries so hard.  The throwing things, well, that probably has nothing to do with the teeth and everything to do with the fact that it's fun to throw things.

This afternoon we washed all of the bed-clothes, and rolled around on the bed while we waited for everything to dry.

Well, she rolled, and tried to show me that she could jump, but my heart nearly stopped when she tried to step too close to the edge.  Stay in the middle, baby, I feel like I said a thousand times.

Everything in our little world was right for the afternoon, and the world smelled like fresh laundry.

When she started to wear out, she laid her head down, and I lay next to her and we had a little chat.

She told me all of the important things she needed me to know, and I told her some too.

I told her she could always talk to me, and that I would always love her.  I told her that she was beautiful, but that she would be beautiful no matter what.  I'm glad my parents told me that, I think I would be a much unhappier person if they hadn't.  She told me a story about all of her favorite people, and gestured with her little hands, always ending her toddler-speak sentences with, "Yeah?  Yes!"

I told her I hoped we would talk like this in fifteen years, and that she would know I would want to listen.  She said, "Yeah," and patted me on the back.  I still find that comforting.

You are my Antonia, and while many things will change my sweetheart, that never will.