Painfully Cute

Our Nikki Dee vacillates between being a cute, near-perfect little girl and a little hellion. We tried to take her on three different walks last week, and each attempt was a miserable failure, and I do emphasize the word, miserable. She has a mind of her own, and she is not easily dissuaded, and sometimes she must be. It's not so bad when she is uncooperative about walking the trail and insists on picking up stones (see photo above). When we try to move her on, she circles back and back and back. She's very determined. But as I say, it didn't much matter in that locale.

While we could stop and try our best to accommodate her then, it wasn't so easy in her neighbourhood when she spotted girls drawing with chalk on their driveway. Since they knew her, I allowed her to bother them for a few minutes by trying to play with their chalk. But as nice as they were, they're five or six years old and not ready to play with a two year old. Getting her out of there involved much screeching and wailing. I had to pick her up and carry her home. Indeed, she put on quite a performance.

A day or two later, we tried another walk, this time in our neighbourhood. She saw some ten year old boys that we didn't know playing on skate boards. Of course, she wanted to join them. And of course, she fussed and carried on in high dudgeon when we wouldn't allow it. As before, just when we thought we had her headed in the right direction she would turn and try to head back — repeatedly. I realize she's just being two, but let me tell ya, it was not a fun time.

On the other hand, she enjoys her bedtime story with Buppa (below), and she gives him lots of voluntary hugs and snuggles in the morning.



And she loves to go to the store with the grands. Yesterday, we went to Wal-Mart and Home Depot where she had a wonderful time on the riding lawn mowers. There was a whole row and most got visited and sat upon more than once. It was very cute, and we even got out without a fuss when the time was right.





The north wind was bitter yesterday, but the kids' front porch is quite protected, so she played out there for quite a while going from rocking chair to door to window where she could say hello to Mom.

Yes, she's very cute. Just as long as we remember to avoid those pitfalls: neighbourhood walks. I guess you could say that she's sometimes a pain but usually cute. And I guess that makes her painfully cute.