Wrapped Around Her Finger

The past few weeks I have been wrestling with my two year old to go to sleep, be it a nap or straight up bed-time. The fact that she doesn't want to sleep is so frustrating! It is literally a battle to get her to stay in her bed. Today is no different that the others except my realization of what's happening during this time.

To her the ritual of going to be is one big game. I put her in the bed and tell her, "now go to sleep and take a nap." She lays down like she is going to cooperate with me. A few minutes later I hear her pitter-pattering feet heading for her bedroom door. Then she cracks the door and peers out, looking around for me. When she meets my gaze she smiles. I try to firmly tell her to get back in her bed. She looks at me, still smiling and inches the door open a little wider. I act as though I am about to get up and she slams the door and makes for the bed. I settle back down, attempting to relax. I get good a cozy then I hear the door open yet again. She is peeping back at me, with her mischeivous little smile. I am getting a little frustrated because for 4 hours I have been at her beck and call, playing with her, and pretty much there for her personal amusement and all I want to do is sit back, relax and read a little before I have to do it all over again.

I walk to her door and she slams it in my face and high tails it to her bed again. This time I open her door and fuss at her, "you need to go to bed. Mommy needs to catch her breath. Do not get back out of this bed again!" She starts covering herself up with her "Princess and the Frog" blanket and pulls it over her head. I tell her, "that's right! Cover your head up and go to sleep." I then walk out the room, settle myself back on the sofa and pick up the book I started at 9 this morning while she was eating her breakfast and amused by "The Little Shop of Horrors."

Moments later the door cracks again and she glances out with a big smile on her face. This time I try a new tactic, I ignore her. She slowly creeps out of her room towards the sofa, expecting any minute that she is going to be caught. I continue to ignore her. When she has successfully reached the sofa and climbed into the cushion on the very end I look over at her and she just smiles.

This smile reaches into the depths of her eyes and that's when it hits me: How can I be seriously firm with this child when it's so hard to be angry or annoyed at her for very long? One look into her eyes is enough to melt even the most bitter person. Her eyes are so dark brown they are almost black. I search my entire mind for a comparison to her eyes and the closest similarity I find to them is Hematite. A blackish stone that is so polished and shiny that it takes on a metallic hue. The gleam in her dark eyes when she smiles at you looks just as beautiful as Hematite. Her eyes give the ordinary face of any other ordinary child a uniqueness that is all her own.

Her eyes add to her character in so many ways. Even when she was itty bitty strangers would stop and dote on her. I remember when he had to take her to Children's Hospital for the acid reflux tests and we had to walk down this long, crowded hallway to get to the area we needed to be. There were dozens of people in front of us carry babies down the hall and I watched this one woman walk from the end of that hallway past all of them and when she saw my little one she stopped and did a double-take proclaiming, "that is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen!" Other's who complimented her often said she has so much character in her face, one even said they felt as though she was looking directly at her soul.

I know parent's spend a lot of time bragging about their children, but I feel in my case, I am not exaggerating anything. This child has a power in her, a power that I cannot myself match. When she smiles at you, with her gleaming little eyes, it's hard for anyone to tell her, "no." The moment you have a flash of anger, it's immediately canceled out by amusement. She is a force to be reckoned with and if you try to challenge her, it's definately her that will win. That realization has me thinking about the future we have with her: is she going to be so spoiled that no one can reign her in, or will we learn to develop and immunity to those beautiful eyes of hers?