Early signs of a 'tude.

We have had a very busy last couple of weeks, explaining the lack of blogs...I know, I know the hundreds of you who read this and check back expectantly every hour of every day have been severely disappointed...for this I apologize. Now if only a few of you would comment and make me feel like my time and energy I put into this doesn't go to waste, my world would be changed! Anyhow, I don't need to kid myself into thinking that the second sentence was actually true but I would love just a couple comments...is that asking for too much? maybe

Now everyone knows that time flies but being a mother has just increased the speed by a lot. I always thought it was at least 2 years old before children started throwing their bodies to the floor and giving you dirty looks. Recently I have found that this is yet another one of my misconceptions of children. Our sweet, perfect daughter has been trying to prove that she is not so agreeable and is trying to explore her independence as of late. I must preface this to tell you that yes she is teething and yes she has been fighting a yucky cold/cough in the past couple of weeks, but I don't think that these are fully to blame. She wants to feed herself. This sounds like a wonderful idea because the end result will be that I don't have to do everything for her when it comes to meal time. However, as I give her the cup of yogurt and she proceeds to feed herself a few spoonfuls, she then gets distracted by the fact that she could put it in her mouth a lot quicker if she just dug her little hand into the cup. The painful part for me is the fact that I know who will be cleaning this up because I don't already have enough cleaning to do.
Secondly, who ever taught my child to lay down on her back, roll over quickly and throw her arms above her head because she is mad? It just cracks us up because most of the time she is quiet the whole time and just lies prone until she gets over it.
Ok, ok so young toddlers will throw fits...but whoever thought that a 17 month-old could glare at you and give you dirty looks? NOT ME! It started with her closing her eyes and looking away from me in disgust, but below you will see the way her attitude shows up in her facial expressions toward you as well. As I silently giggle, I wonder "Where did she learn that from?" Surely it was from dad...;o)I guess this is an inevitable fact of parenthood but maybe I just thought that my child was immune. I don't think that it is ever too young for a child to learn respect and kindness so I am trying to learn how to do that especially in these first stages. I will end with a picture of one of her favorite pasttimes...getting herself into small spaces. I rounded the corner to our kitchen and found that she had gotten herself into a 9 by 13 pan... she still is pretty sweet and makes me laugh.