Devil's Making Her Do It

For every new word Grace adds to her vocabulary, her comprehension of language seems to expand ten fold. Sure, she can’t speak to me in full sentences, but she certainly understands them.

This is becoming abundantly apparent in her comprehension of ‘no’.

Ahh, the dreaded ‘no’. I’ve talked about this before.

Recently, she has begun to ‘no, no, no’ us with her index finger stuck out, accompanied by the appropriate waggling back and forth hand wave. She does this as she looks over her shoulder to see if we are watching and systematically inches towards the off-limits target. You know, the dogs water bowl on the floor (which then promptly gets a hand stuck in it), the garbage cans (whose lids are attempted to be pried off), the fireplace (with its dirty hearth that makes for grand play surfaces).

Then we have the ‘no, no, no’ when she realizes what my exclamation of ‘all done’ means after 30 minutes in the bathtub. Completed by the wiggling screeches of a wet child being forcibly removed from the tub.

Or my new favorite, the ‘no, no, no’ to the prospect of a diaper change. Despite my best efforts to start introducing her new potty training toilet (in the middle of the living room), this new battle makes it quite clear that she has not reached that point yet. Instead, we are tasked with chasing a toddler around the 2nd floor until capture, then enduring kicking/ squealing/ flipping/ fighting (in no particular order) of Grace perched on top of the changing table. God forbid that there is then anything more than pee...

It is so hard to really be mad at the exploration of boundaries though. Sure, it’s annoying, but it is so cute too. The look of curiosity. The look of tenacity. The look of determination.

It’s the draw of the forbidden. The draw of the devil.

And it leaves such a satisfied smile on her face, and a smile that Matt and I seem to be increasingly forced to hide.