It's genetic

In the last two months, I've spent virtually every waking ( and sleeping!) moment with our new daughter. She is beautiful, just like her big brother, and she's a living, breathing objection to the notion that small babies are nothing but squirmy, milk-filled poop machines. This girl has PERSONALITY! So much personality, in fact, that it makes me a little nervous.

No pre-teen princess could be so decisive about what she wants, or so vocal when she doesn't get it. What brought a smile yesterday will surely spell disaster today. What lulled her to sleep in the morning will bring her to violent, hysterical tears in the afternoon. When she is happy, she is radiant, funny, engaging, curious, but when she's upset, she's deafening. How can anyone who has only been on this earth for two months, and whose main life experience has happened in our living room, be SO SURE about what it is she wants?

I remember shopping for a winter coat with my mom, and I couldn't have been more than 10 or 11. I knew exactly what I wanted in a coat: charcoal wool, flecked with pink, matching scarf. My mother pointed out countless coats, none exactly right. Right shape, wrong color, right color, wrong flecks, right flecks, but with pinstripes (gross). I remember telling my mom that one particular coat was the "cousin" of the coat I wanted, another was the "sister", but none of the coats we saw were THE ONE. My mom was so patient with my diva self, and yes, we did finally find the right coat. For better or worse, the trend of wanting exactly what I want, has followed me into adulthood. Just ask my husband what it's like to pick out a Christmas tree with me. I guess our daughter comes by that fussiness pretty honestly.

Until she can talk enough to let me know what she wants, I can only do what my mother did for me, and practice patience. I'll work methodically through my checklist of things that have worked before, and sooner or later, I will hit on the right thing. All I can hope is that she understands that when she's hungry, I'll be there, when she's tired, I'll be there, when she's hurting, I'll be there, when she's happy, I'll be there.

And I'll give my poor husband an extra kiss when we're trekking through the cold next month, shaking the snow off yet another tree, because the last thirty-seven options weren't quite right.