Monday, October 16, 2006

Well, it's happened

I now have a Daddy's-girl. It happened about this age with Rose but it wasn't nearly as abrupt. It shocked me until I remembered it's part of being a little girl.

Jade will be 19 months next week. First it was Friday night when she fell down and started crying in the other room. I could tell it was more a "I'm tired" than a "I'm hurt" and called to her in a sing-songey voice. "Jaaaaade....did you get hurt? Come here sweetie." I immediately hear her pitter patter coming towards me as she's crying. I turn around as she passes my chair and goes straight to Daddy. He looks at me apologetically and shrugs as he hugs her tight. I admit, I was hurt. But thought that maybe she saw him first when she came in the room since the chair I was in had it's back to her. Yes, I told myself, that was all it was.

Sunday we took our annual fall drive into the country and found our favorite pumpkin patch, even though there are hundreds between here and there. She wanted Daddy to hold her hand on the gravel and carry her. This was fine because I had my camera bag, camera and purse, overstuffed with snacks, already hanging around my neck. Jade fell in LOVE with all the pumpkins and came home with a little decorative one that entertained her all night. [I'm having video card issues so I hope the lighting is OK on these pictures!]










As I started dinner last night, I needed some items from the garden and sent Hubby out to get them for me. Jade started calling for him, "Daaaa..eeee.....Daaaaa....eeee" and would follow up her calls with a fake sputtering cry. She continued on in this fashion until he came back in, despite my telling her that he'd be right back. At this point, I'm still thinking it's all 'cute'.

Then, THE sting of all stings. I made a fabulous chicken roast recipe from allrecipes.com. I cut her up chicken, cooled it, cut up her veggies, mashed them down a little, put some butter on for flavor and, letting my dinner get cold, started to feed her. She violently shook her head "no" at me. I knew she was very hungry - we'd done all that walking at the pumpkin patch, she didn't eat much for lunch and we were eating a late dinner. So I tried a bite of something else. Still, violent head shaking continued. She cried and whined. Finally, Hubby said, "Let me try something". He took the same fork I used and tried to feed her. She opened wide and happily accepted the food. I was shocked. Heartbroken. Stunned. When did my little girl turn into a Daddy's girl? Then I started remembering that Rose had done the same thing around the same age. It just wasn't as fast and didn't sting as badly.

Don't get me wrong - I'm happy for Hubby. He gets less time with the kids than I do and I'm happy that she loves him and loves spending time with him. But I have to say that it still hurts a little.

Of course, on Saturday, I took Rose out for some garage sale exploration and then took Matthew out for grocery shopping later that day. Maybe Jade is jealous??

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