kiwords

A few days ago I was getting Sophia dressed for the day. Everything was going fine until I grabbed her brown shoes and started fitting one onto her foot. She let out a shriek of protest and squirmed out of my grasp.

"No!" she bellowed, "NO! Hoose! HOOOOSE!" She pointed across the room.

"But...these ARE shoes," I said, confused. Then I looked over my shoulder where she was pointing.

She wanted her OTHER shoes. The black patent leather ones. Totally impractical, but as I told Clay later, she was right. They WERE the right shoes for the outfit. Plus, she was just so very CERTAIN.

So mark it. Nineteen months old and she's got shoe opinions. The boys have yet to care about which shoes they wear, except to always prefer ones that don't need to be tied. This means that flip-flops and snow boots are in the same category of footwear for them - "awesome" and "what do you MEAN I can't wear these to church?"

(That's not entirely true. Tre surprised me a few months ago by campaigning heavily for a pair of Converse. Not only did they have to be Converse, but NOT high tops. I don't understand. But then, I'm still surprised that he's fifteen too, and you'd think I'd have seen that one coming.)

That night, Clay was getting Sophia ready for bed, and I overheard them having a small skirmish. Actually, Sophia was waging a shrieked-earth campaign of sorts, and Clay was trying to reason with her. I poked my head around the corner to see what was happening.

Sophia had one pair of jammies on (the pink kitty ones), and was insisting - INSISTING that she needed a second pair on top. Clay pulled the second bottoms on, muttering, "you're not being reasonable, little girl." She was unpreturbed by his assessment and scooped up the purple flowered top and shoved it at him. She offered him her head, so he could pull the top over it. And he did.

She looked a little...padded, with both pairs of jammies on. But she could not have been more pleased with herself. She trotted away, and we watched her go. She is not, in fact, reasonable.

But she is entirely her own self.