Day 434: The thing about Maddie

Maddie is really coming into a fun age, because there are so many things she loves to do: splash in the tub, swing at the park, muck about in the sandbox, explore her toys. Of course, she loves these things so much that she never wants to stop doing them. Ever. And god help the person who tries to make her. The wonderful thing about Mads, and the challenging thing for the rest of us, is that she is so full of life and always has been. She is full of curiousity and activity and emotion and yes, even a bit of piss and vinegar, as they say.

Even as a tiny newborn, she filled every moment with emotion, with movement. She never lay still in our arms, constantly wanting to be bounced, jiggled, bumped about. Always hating and forcefully resisting the restraint of the bouncy chairs, swings, carseats and strollers that cluttered our house and sat unused.

When she is happy, it vibrates out of her. It escapes in glass-shattering shrieks of glee and fits of giggles. She is so full of joy and excitement that she often literally shakes from the strength of it. It’s as though her tiny body is too small to contain the emotion that erupts from it. When we're out and about I never have to worry about losing track of her because her squeals and exclamations echo constantly throughout the store. But of course the flip side is that when she is sad, she is very sad. Ditto angry and frustrated. She never does anything halfway.

She is never still, very rarely calm or quiet. When in her stroller, she doesn’t sit back and watch the world pass her by. She is upright, grasping the edges, straining to see what is just beyond each corner, to grab what is just beyond her reach. Yelling, pointing, screeching, she is aware of every falling leaf, every bird, her face turned into every passing breeze. She never wants to go to sleep, I think because she is worried about what she might miss out on. She dropped down to one nap a day by 9.5 months, and is gleefully threatening to give up that one, too. I saw a baby t-shirt recently that read, "Sleep is for the weak." I didn't get it because I didn't want to encourage her.

So yes, she will be the 2-year old pitching a fit at the grocery store while I, ever the frantic mother, try hard to pretend that I know how to handle her. But I think she will also be the 4-year old who keeps her pre-school classmates in stitches with her antics, the 7-year old who stays up late with a flashlight under the covers to finish a book, the 12-year old who knows more about so many things than her parents ever did or ever will. She is a challenge sometimes, to be sure. But she is also joyous and strong-willed and captivating . I guess it's a pretty fair trade-off.