Lily's been...active, these past couple days. She wandered into our bedroom and started pulling the covers off of me. "It's light outside. Time to wake up,daddy."

In the bathtub, she found her nipples and asked, "What are these?" Fortunately, Jen was there to field that one.

Jen found some measuring tape and said "Lily, we're going to measure your little body so we can buy you a belt."

"Don't measure my little body!" Lily exclaimed.

The other evening, she want wanted to play on the computer because she saw daddy doing it. I put her on my lap and held her far enough away that she couldn't touch the keyboard.

Lily: "I can't reach it."

Me: "That's a feature, not a bug."

Lily: "I don't know what that means"

I think, as she gets smarter and more independent, the trick is getting her to behave without dampening her spirit. I've always thought the saddest song I've ever heard was Flowers are Red by Harry Chapin. It's about a boy who colored his pictures of flowers in all these different colors. The teacher punishes him until he gives in and tells the teacher that "flowers are red, and green leaves are green." When he goes to a different school, he continues mechanically painting flowers red and green, to the dismay of his new, kind teacher.

(In the live concert versions, Chapin extended the song's ending to: "There still must be a way to have our children say..." before featuring the little boy's chorus again and bringing the song to a better conclusion. A version of this is featured on his album Legends of the Lost and Found.)

According to wikipedia, The idea for the song came to Chapin when his secretary told him about her son who brought his report card home from school one day. The teacher had written a note in the card saying: "Your son is marching to the beat of a different drummer, but don't worry we will soon have him joining the parade by the end of the term."

And I'm happy to have a smart, inquisitive little girl. I just wish she didn't have a photographic recall of where I hide my cookies.

Cross posted at:http://jugularjosh.livejournal.com/7716.html