Rosie-Posie

I need to get back in the blogging saddle again.  Our lives are moving so quickly, and my memory just can't hold everything that happens.  So, my goal is to blog every day in March.  I know it's traditional to take that project on in November, but I'm non traditional like that.  And I'm not even going to try to make these posts good.  I'm just going to write them.

I'm sitting on the couch with Maggie, who is playing games on my phone.  Rosie is currently demolishing everything she can reach, which is a lot.  Finally, at 16 months, this little girl is really walking.  Thanks to my third nasty cold in three months, I've been spending a lot of time on the couch the last few days.  I'll look over and see her cute little head bobbing behind the couch, or hear the deliberate slap of her footsteps on the tile.  And she is just so excited and proud of herself with every step.

This Rosie girl is a charmer.  She generally has a smile and a wave and a, "Hi-ah!" for everyone she sees.  She goes out of her way to greet people, racing towards the door as soon as it opens, pausing to wave as she moves.  Just last night she mastered actually puckering her lips for a kiss.  And her kisses tend to last a really long time, and often include a hug with pats on the back.  I tell her all the time that she is a love.  She tells me I love you regularly, her words clear in the inflection if not the articulation.  She enthusiastically nods yes when you ask her a question, or when she wants you to do something.

And Rosie is busy.  Oh, so busy.  I think regularly that I am just too old for this.  But being sick over and over sure doesn't help my perception.  She makes laps through the house, emptying the drawers and cupboards in the bathroom, rummaging through my nightstand for cough drops, crying when I take them away, unshelving all the books, throwing all the clean sippy cups on the floor, wiping her nose with my discarded tissues, shredding tissues into miniscule bits and dropping them all over the house, bringing me packages of dry pasta from the cupboard, every once in a blue moon stopping to actually play with a toy.  There are not enough child locks in the world to slow this one down. 

Though she is generally a ray of sunshine, beware the mad Rosie.  She can yell and writhe with the best of them when she doesn't get her way.  And she is stubborn, very confident in her own decisions and wants.  She furrows her little brow and glares at you.

When Rosie is tired, she pops her left thumb in her mouth.  Her cute little teeth (8 on top, 6 on bottom) are starting to show the pull of that thumb on them, but it seems to early to try to make her stop.  But maybe I'm too attached to keeping this final baby a baby.  We still nurse, morning and night, and she screams if I attempt to change her or take her out of the room before sitting down to nurse.  Though I'm not entirely it's the milk she's most interested in.  Because it's in those quiet moments that she has very serious conversations with me.  She drinks for a moment, then makes eye contact with me and tells me very important things, nodding all the while, then drinks some more. 

Rosie is flexible.  Because of her position as number four child in the family, her naps get interrupted more than any of the other girls' did.  And yet, most of the time, when I pick her up from where she is soundly sleeping, bum high in the air, hoping against hope that she will stay asleep, she immediately awakes with a smile, and a "Hi-ah!" and points the direction to our next adventure.