The many sides of Baby J

My daughter is a walking, well, crawling contradiction.

One minute, she seems the nurturing caring affectionate older (albeit by 2 minutes) sister



and the next minute, she's got him in a fish hook hold.



Most of the time, Evan doesn't take well to her manhandling. He'll cry and screech at her while she will give you the most nonchalant "what...? what did I do? " look and blissfully ignore all the fuss.

But she does seem to exhibit some big sister qualities and will let Evan yank at her hair and pinch her with no real attempt at doing the same back. Evan on the other hand will scream if she yanked at his hair. She will also, as much as it is within her power, try to be gentle with him where she gingerlt touches his face whereas she has no qualms about shoving us around.

Then at bath time, she dumps her mature persona metomorphoses into a cheeky little munchkin eager to soak everyone to the skin. She loves bath time, a far cry from her screaming the minute her clothes got taken off as a newborn to the waterbaby she is now. Here she is waiting in the wings, knowing that her favourite time of day is soon.



This was also how we taught her to sit up on her own. Plonk her in the middle of the bed and prop her up with pillows that she will, slowly and one by one, find her way out of. Often, this escape from her pillow Alcatraz is accompanied by a loud shriek to announce that she is indeed ready for her bath and will not be kept waiting any longer.

Since her discovery that her flapping hands can cause much disturbance in the water, her bath times have inevitably caused us, the bathers, to be soaked. Of course, we indulge her because no one can bear to reprimand her when her face is lit with such pure, unadulterated joy.



Of course, taking her out of her beloved bath tub results in pure, unadulterated rage. That rage can go on if the wrong person takes over and tries to put her to bed. Only Aunty Daisy can. Us mere mortals are chopped liver when dusk falls. It's a pretty big bugbear of mine but I can't do anything about it and I don't want to win this battle at the expense of my daughter being asked all the time if she has a sore throat, a question this mommy, who spent much of her formative screaming for attention from her much older brothers, is quite familiar with. And then, when she is finally asleep on my bed and looks like this, all is forgotten and I'm all in love with her again.



And by that point, the whole household is equally exhausted and ready to call it a day even though it's only 7pm. I'm told I will miss them at this age when they start running around which might be soon since their favourite position is being upright and they can pretty much cruise with support. Well, over the new year, I met some younger babies and realised, I actually miss them being smaller, tinier and sleeping all the time. Of course, Packrat would disagree. He can't wait till they can talk and do stuff. For now, he's happy because he gets to take pretty photos of his little Pixie Princess looking like all proper and ladylike.