A Girl Who Knows What She Wants-- and how to get it.

Mary is going to outsmart us all. She comes up with new words all the time. Her latest words are Elmo, baby, and happy. Everytime I get her out of her crib, she hands me her empty bottle, then hands me her shoes, and runs down the hall and says, "SHOW!" She goes to the portable DVD player where the Elmo show lives and presses the play button. When we go down stairs, she will hand me her coat if she plans to go out. She goes into the kitchen and will hand me a cup with the matching lid and request juice or water. Sometimes when she's hungry, she gets out her personal plate and sets it on the table. When we're at the play area in the mall, she plans elaborate strategies to escape the play area and run for the coin operated cars and animals. For example, she'll pretend that she's taking particular delight in an object just inside the play area, while feasting her eyes 0n her real objective. Then, when it seems that she can get a healthy start on me, she takes off, laughing with satisfaction. I bought her one of those things that looks like a child's backpack, but is actually a leash. Garrett put his on with total glee. His looks like a dog. He immediately wanted to pretend that he was a dog and I was the dog walker. Mary's was shaped like a monkey. As I approached her to put it on, she screeched and ran away. It was like she was saying, "I'm not a fool. Get that restricting contraption far away from me." I should have known that you can't leash a monkey. I told Chris, "We have to watch out for this one. She's going to sneak out of her bedroom window when she's 13. She will know how to avoid the creaky stairs. She will learn to hotwire a car." I'm really hoping that it will be possible to put GPS tracking devices on your children before Mary hits puberty. Her will and determination is both the best thing and the worst thing about her! Unfortunately for Mary, I know her type very well and I'm ready to take her on; the person she is named after was just like her! Fortunately for Mary, the fact that she is like her namesake means that she will enjoy many passionate, fulfilled, and humorous moments in her life.