Meet Miss

A major thing that has happened since we last chatted, Peanuts, is Little Miss. 

 

Last we chatted, Miss was just creeping out of babyness, toddling a few chubby-toed steps into becoming Her own fully-unique character.  Well. In the time since, Peanuts, She has arrived.  Would you like to get to know Her toddler self?  I'll try to introduce you as best I can. 
It will be a very long introduction, I'm afraid, since I missed Her 18 month post and (as I'll explain later) will also be missing Her 2 year Birthday post.  Plus there's such an awful lot to say!  
Little Miss is a lovely little paradoxical creature.
She is a bit shy, rather sensitive.  She peers out from behind me in new situations, She observes cautiously a long time before joining a new friend to play.  She's terribly easy to frighten.  She is just now in the process of overcoming a plethora of little phobias; the vacuum, motorcycles, snakes, worms that look suspiciously like snakes, all sorts of bugs or specks of fuzz that resemble bugs.  She no longer shrieks in terror and cries buckets of tears at the sight of a beetle or the roar of a sports car.  But She makes for me like a homing torpedo with enormous eyes and a trembling lip, "Mama!! Mama this scary me!" 
On encountering a New Thing- a different sort of shopping cart, a petting zoo chicken, an oddly shaped carrot- Miss finds a parent or sister as calmly as She is able, points at New Thing, and in a voice of tenuous self-control says, "This, nice."  It's really a question.  She needs to be reassured; "Yes, Missy, the Roomba is nice." She will still be leery.  But She trusts (from behind your knee) that it won't eat Her.  For now. 
On the other hand, She will bust ahead of Her sister and anyone else for that matter to climb things that are too steep, balance on things that are too teetery, jump from things that are too high.  She is the child that childproofing was created for.  She is the one who could not possibly care less if Mommy says, "Ok, Missy.  I'm leaving then! Bye!"  Missy loves this tactic.  It's just what She wanted.  Permission to run in the opposite direction and do Her own thing. "Bye-bye Mommy!" She grins. Off She goes.
She is very independent.  She's not only happy to play by Herself for long stretches of time, but now that Little One has been in school I've realized She sort of needs a certain amount of alone time.  She loves attention like any child, of course.  But She's perfectly happy to sit quietly with crayons and paper for up to an hour, or have the playroom all to Herself.  Sometimes, no offense meant, She'd rather build Her block tower without any amateur assistance, thank you. 
And whatever there is to be done, She'll almost always prefer to do it Herself.  "MY do it!" is one of Her most common and emphatic phrases. 
While She has bloomed into an avid little snugglebunny (for every "My do it", there is a "snuggle me!", a "cuddle up Missy time!"  or a "Hugs! Hugs kisses me!"), those words are pretty new.  Before (and sometimes still) it hurt Her pride too much to outright ask for affection.  And so She would pretend to be a kitten.  A poor little kitten always needs to be held and cuddled. Not a big strong girl like Missy, no.  But if She dons a pathetic little face, looks up beseechingly and plaintively mews... we will surely be fooled into thinking She is a kitten, scoop Her up and hold Her tight, and never know it was Her.
Alternatively, She might come up to me, looking very sorry for me.
"Mommy sad?"
"No, Missy, don't worry! I'm not sad love."
She stares a moment. "Mommy sad."
"No...no Missy Mommy is happy!"
Her eyes narrow into a forbidding glare.  "Mommy.  SAD."
It takes me a minute to get it.  "Aaaah.   I see.  Oh, yes, I'm so sad.  Boo hoo." 
Miss grins and runs to me with hugs and kisses and pats on the arm.
"Aww, Mommy!" She purrs, "Ok, Mommy.  Missy here.  Hugs. Kisses. Snuggle all up. No cry, Mommy, no cry."  
It wasn't Miss that needed hugging, you see.  It was me.  She just does Her best to help out. 
Her pride, after all, is so easily wounded. She'd rather yell at the doll's high chair, "Aaargh! You! NO WORKING!" throw up Her hands, and walk away, "NO highchair me!" than ask for help closing the tray.  We are working on this.  She doesn't take well to correction, either.  She cannot believe I'd be so cruel as to suggest that Her shoe is on the wrong foot.  Fine then, forget it.  "NO shoes, me!" We are working on this too. 
At the same time, She has a heart-melting sweet spirit.  She can't stand to see anyone have an owie, or to hear anyone cry.  To Miss, all things are to be showered with love.  They will want kisses and cuddles, and probably to be rocked, fed a bottle, and cooed at "awwwww...BAY-beee!"
NOTHING is as wonderful as a baby.  Oh, how Missy loves babies.  Caring for Her baby dolls is currently Her main purpose in life.  Like a real, veteran mama, She has only to see, hear, or imagine a baby of any sort and Her whole body begins to sway as if She were rocking something to sleep.  When we are out in public She is on high alert in case She might see a real baby. 
Anything small is surely a baby crayon, a baby rock, a baby bite of spinach.  Her voice shrinks into a tiny, high-pitched trill.  "Oh! This baby one! Awww, BAY-bee! Kiss. Hug kisses." All things are personified, and all belong in families. Give Her four grapes and before consuming them, She must inspect and allocate them each.  "This, mommy one.  This one, Daddy one.  This sister one gape, this one baby.  Aww! BAY-bee!" 
Aside from Her precious baby dolls, She's very good at sharing. Pretty good at taking turns.  Terribly patient, most times, about being constantly bossed around and dressed up and hustled about by Her sister.  She loves and longs to do anything Her sister does, after all, and pines to be a part of the Big Kid games when Little One's friends are over.  Not that She doesn't have Her very own interests.
She LOVES bath time, She loves to eat "Hot! Soup!" and to pretend to make it. She is, despite being a member of this family, a total cat person.  Not particularly fond of dogs, even Her own.  LOVES kitties of all sorts.  She adores anything art-related. Crayons, markers, paint, stamps, stickers.  She could "color me" all day.  She loves to be outdoors and can hike like a trooper.  She loves the playground as long as you swing Her very gently, and Her sister accompanies Her down the slides. 
She likes books, and gets hooked on favorites that She must read until the rest of us are ready to burn.  For a good six months it was "Mrs. Wow Never Wanted A Cow" every night.  Then it was a sign language book which we have now all memorized entirely.  Currently it is a story about a boy and his drum.  Maybe because it has a cat in it.
Adopting a "usual" for storytime isn't surprising for Her, though. Miss is a fan of habit and routine.  If She is on a schedule, She will never fail you.  If She is in Her bed each day at 1pm, She will nap each day at 1pm.  But heaven help you if you mess Her up.  At 1:15 she is weeping on your pant-leg, "Sleeeeeeeep! Sleeeeeeeepy me!  Nap-time!" 
She's fastidious about all things, really.  As long as it wasn't your idea, She is very good about cleaning up Her toys, and likes everything to be in it's place.  She loves to help clean with a little dustcloth and the toy vacuum, and will not tolerate being dirty for long. She loves to wash Her hands.  She loves to wash everything.  She helpfully reminds me if I have left my shoes out or missed a spot mopping.
Not that She's all work and no play.  She's actually quite the comedian.  Little Miss will very literally go head over heels for a laugh.  She has a sense of humor beyond Her age I think, pointing out ironies and cracking jokes that sometimes really are funny.  She has patented a pouty face that is so pronounced it typically evokes chuckles, and so She employs it for comic relief more than to actually pout.  Not everyone gets it.  But when they do, She is delighted.  A special joke of Missy's developed  around Thanksgiving after Her sister came home from learning about Squanto at school.  Little Miss thought the sound of that name to be pretty funny. She began to sing "twinkle twinkle little SQUANTO!", the absurdity of which made us laugh out loud.  Thereby cementing it into Miss's repertoire, and now when we're all getting a little too serious or boring, She breaks out that song to liven us all up.  It typically works, too. 
Miss is coming into Her own in terms of communicating, and can be pretty creative about it. For example, recently we were getting ready for bed and She began to fuss.  "Piggies no stick-outing! Piggies NO-STICK-OUTING! Piggies! PIGGIES!!!"  crying out quite desperately at the end there.  This was all I could get out of Her.  When I asked Her what She meant, of course She only repeated Herself with a growing frustration that I was the stupidest possible person, until I finally asked Her, "what piggies?!" and She pointed to Her right foot.  Ah.  Those little piggies.  No-stick-out-ing.  As in, Her toes had gotten caught on Her pants, and She couldn't push Her foot through. Her piggies were not sticking out. This sort of Yoda-Jedi syntax is a special distinctiveness of Little Miss's.
"Please clementine me more!" Asking for more of Her favorite treat.
"This car, Missy Miss, turn-time! Yeah, blue one!" If She wants the blue car.
"Banana-ing time!" If She wants a banana.  
"This blocks, build up sky, big tower!" Planning to erect a duplo sky-scraper.
"Jacket-ing me, Mama please!" If She needs help with Her raincoat. 
And of course, the quintessential Little Miss classic when She is crossed in any way (accompanied by the Scowl and folded arms): "NO happy, me!"
Little Miss does love to knit Her eyebrows and give that very intimidating Scowl to, well, just about everyone until they are proven innocent. She also loves to laugh, loves to create laughter, and has an all-out, soulful giggle and grin that could probably light Times Square.  Her incredible stubbornness tests my patience to the extreme sometimes, but those mega-smiles shoot straight through my heart and radiate sunshine out my fingertips and toes on even my gloomiest days.  She is a second sibling but in no one's shadow, managing to be at once our delicate violet and our bolt of lightning.  Somehow Little Miss has been in our family for only just two years.  Think of that.  But none of us, if we try our hardest, can imagine what life was ever like without Her. 
And now that you've been properly introduced, I'll bet you won't be able to, either.