Daisy Josephine—or “Deedee” as I more commonly call her right now—turns two-years-old today and, bless her heart, she’s a spitting image of me in more ways than one.
Our girls fulfill many of the birth order stereotypes you may see among young children. Maggie is relatively conscientious, steady, ordered, and the like. Daisy is…not. Daisy is more spontaneous, mercurial, and expressive. Maggie is prone to being shy when entering a room. Daisy, by contrast, often becomes the center of attention. Maggie has naturally straight hair. Daisy’s hair is a curly, wavy tangle at all times.
Since she started walking around the beginning of this year, I’ve taken to occasionally referring to Daisy as “Bamm-Bamm” after the classic Flintstones tot known for swinging his club around and causing a ruckus.
A cliché for this kind of kid would be “a bull in a china shop,” which Daisy can certainly be. But despite her relatively tough, rough-and-tumble disposition—especially in contrast with Maggie, our oldest—Daisy is undeniably sensitive and fragile.
Daisy is the porcelain bull in our little china shop.
Let me give you an example.
Take Maggie. For most of her life, when I have had to sternly tell her, “No,” or give a firm instruction to “Stop,” Maggie tends to either listen to my instruction or stubbornly disobey. This is typical, of course. These two responses are normal.
Contrast that with Daisy. Despite Daisy’s tough demeanor, she often struggles to be truly stubborn.
Sometime in the winter or early spring, something odd happened for the first time—at least it was odd to me because Maggie never did anything like it when she was little.
We had somewhat recently begun to let Daisy start feeding herself in her high chair. One morning, Daisy, Maggie, and I were sitting at the table while the girls had breakfast before Susie was out of bed. Daisy was stuffing far too many pieces of pancake into her mouth at once, and I simply said, “Daisy…no. Slow down,” not raising my voice, but perhaps using a bit of a stern tone.
Daisy stuck out her bottom lip, covered her eyes as if she had just seen a monster, and started wailing in despair—as if I had just screamed at her that she will never have another pancake for as long as she lives. To my shame, I busted out laughing, and I eventually had to get Susie as I could do nothing to comfort Daisy. I had betrayed her beyond immediate reconciliation, I suppose.
Since then, such a crumbling of Daisy’s will has become a somewhat normal occurrence, though I would say it may be waning as of late. It’s sort of adorable because it’s not a proper temper tantrum characterized by flailing and screaming and the like. Rather, it’s a sort of resigned, demoralized defeat to the decree of Dad (She only does this to me, not Susie, who is more likely to see her stubbornness, I think.).
As tough and demonstrative as Daisy seems, I have had to remind myself that she is quite fragile. A bull in a china shop, yes, but a porcelain one to be sure.
So much about Daisy is simply adorable. She’s a cute kid. Her curls are incredible. She has a deep voice for a two-year-old girl. She’s got gorgeous, big, brown eyes, and olive skin like my own. She has a sort of spunky confidence to her that I can’t wait to see develop in her as she ages. One of her favorite things to do right now is to walk up to me, get my attention, and say in her sweetest, most sugary voice, “Wook…pitchers?” as a request to look at the pictures of our family in our shared Apple Photos album on my phone—an activity she could do for hours on end if she was allowed.
We enjoyed celebrating Daisy’s birthday with friends and family this past weekend, and we’re excited to celebrate her in the year to come. She is so much fun.
I can’t wait to see how Daisy continues to grow and develop, and to see if she remains a porcelain version of that bull or if, perhaps, she develops a bit more of a tougher shell that matches her other more demonstrative qualities.