Category: Maddux

When I was four, I imagined that I would become a doctor and marry my next-door neighbor, Matthew Marlow. We would live in a white colonial and drive a station wagon with awesome wood-paneled sides (I’m not sure if this is because that was the very height of grown-up coolness in 1981, or if it’s because that’s what my aunt drove). We’d have a little boy, and then a little girl. From time to time, I attempted to persuade him to wed me in our townhouse complex’s big sandbox. Occasionally, he agreed.

My daughter Maddux is slightly more ambitious. No neighbors or suburbs or sensible cars for her. She plans on marrying a prince and living in a castle. Her ride will, naturellement, be a coach.

Her most recent royal fixation is Sleeping Beauty, on whom she insists dressing as for Halloween. But is dressing as a princess enough for our little girl? Nope. ‘Fraid not.

“Mommy, after we go trick-or-treating, I want to lie down in my Sleeping Beauty dress,” she told me today at breakfast.

“In your bed?” I asked, thinking she was so excited about her costume that she didn’t want to take it off. (Silly me! Nothing is ever that simple with Princess Maddux.)

“Yes,” she replied, “I’m going to lie in my bed and wait for my prince to wake me with a kiss.”

Seriously? Seriously? Is there some kind of home DNA test I can get to make sure they didn’t give me the wrong kid?

“Should I put Thomas in your bed and let him give you a big slobbery kiss?” I asked.

“Ewwww, no!”

“How about Daddy, then?”

“No, it has to be a real prince,” she insisted.

Great. I will just call up my old buddy Prince William then.

Luckily, her definition of prince is very loose and includes boys who sleep in castle beds or who pretend to be princes with accoutrements found in the preschool dress-up box.

“I think Prince Alex or Prince Mason will come and kiss me,” she said after thinking for awhile about it.

I kind of doubt it. I can just imagine calling another mom and saying, “Hey, what’s your son doing after Halloween? Maddux wants him to come kiss her and get married immediately afterward, and have two sets of twins.” And what little 4-year-old in his right mind would dress up as a prince, climb up in a dollhouse bed and plant a wet one on Sleeping Beauty?

Then again, in a playground in the Denver suburbs, I may still be considered legally married to Matthew Marlow. Twice.

Before my darling wee daughter was born, I imagined what she’d be like. In some scenarios, she was an obedient, eager-to-please little girl — a smaller version of Kaija. In others, she was a feisty little firebrand like her dad and I were — in short, the way she was up until her 30th month. Never, however, did I imagine her clad in a spacesuit, leaping from furniture in her attempts to defeat her archenemy, the ruthless emperor Zurg. No, I never envisioned giving birth to Buzz Lightyear.

And yet, there he is, in my living room, each and every day, yelling “Buvv Wightyear!” before tackling me in midair from the ottoman. Resisting my hugs and kisses and protesting “I Buvv Wightyear” when I say “I love my sweet Maddi.” And even in dance class, my little space explorer insists on being called Buzz.

But that’s not all. Oh, no. Because should you call Chris anything but Woody or me anything but Jessie (from Toy Story 2), Maddi will quickly correct you. Baby James, depending on how affectionate Maddi is feeling, is alternately Zurg and Zurgie. In the morning, she will trot out into the office and cheerfully hail her father with the words, “Hi, Woody!” When we go into James’ room to retrieve him after a nap, it’s “How my Zurgie?”

The first day, it was cute. The second day, it was grating. Now, when I awake each morning, I wait to see how long it takes before our dear princess remembers that she is not Maddi, but actually Buzz Lightyear, sworn to defend the galaxy. It has been about a week and a half since she watched Toy Story 2, but each day it continues. In fact, so used to the Buzz Lightyear regime have we become that I find myself correcting myself pre-emptively before she can remind me of her identity.

So I was relieved beyond the telling today when she put a sticker on her upper lip, said “I have mustache,” and then pronounced, “I Poppa. You Nana, Mommy!” and insisted on being called Poppa all evening.

Unfortunately, as I asked her by name to pick up her shoes on our return home, she looked at me reproachfully and stated, for the 37,865th time, “I Buvv Wightyear, Mommy!”

In other news, at the 30-month mark, Buzz measured a healthy 36 inches tall and 31.5 pounds in weight.

Maddi has been quite the obstinate and tantrum-prone one-year-old, so it would stand to reason that if two is supposed to be terrible, we were in for quite a year. Luckily, rather than things getting worse when Maddi turned two, it seems Maddi simply hit her “terrible twos” a year early and is now on the road to becoming a happy, helpful and well-behaved little girl.

Shortly before her birthday, Maddi began learning new words every day and putting them into longer and longer sentences. They’re still not the impressive complex sentences Chris and I were using at her age (or, let’s face it, a lot younger), but she can get her point across much more easily. Consequently, situations that used to result in screaming tantrums can now be defused by asking Maddi to use her words.

Maddi’s independence has long been a mixed blessing. On the one hand, she doesn’t need me to entertain her every second of the day; on the other, her lack of fear means that I do have to closely supervise her every second of the day. But now, the same independence that has led her to climb furniture and run away and hide in the gym parking lot has blossomed into a desire to do grown-up things herself — which is something that I’m able to channel into activities that will either divert her or help me (or both!). For instance, Maddi is delighted to put her sippy cup in the refrigerator after meals, which means I have five seconds to rinse her bowl and I have one fewer cup to deal with. And since she understands complex instructions, I can ask her to go fetch me James’ striped overalls that are hanging from the laundry-room doorknob and Maddi will happily comply.

Maddi is about 50 percent potty-trained (depending on the circumstances) and is eager to sit on toilets at the mall, at the grocery store — even at Daddy’s favorite card shop. Often, she uses the big toilet, but when she uses the little potty, Maddi will even empty it out herself and hand it to me to rinse.

At two, she’s become very coordinated physically. As you may recall, she has long enjoyed leaping from the sofa to the ottoman and then to the other sofa. She now jumps in place (and can be heard doing so, while narrating with a chorus of “Jump, jump, jump,” in her crib during naptime), spins in circles, walks backward, kicks a ball well, and can climb as high as she pleases at our friendly local McDonald’s PlayPlace.

Even though she’s made dramatic improvements on the behavior front, I wasn’t sure I wanted to throw a big blowout party for a dozen 2-year-olds while watching after my own active toddler and newish baby. So I decided to decorate with dollar-store balloons and streamers this year and pull out all the stops next year when she and her friends will be old enough to enjoy it more. Maddi celebrated her birthday Sunday afternoon with a low-key family party — just Mommy, Daddy, Maddi, James and Nana and Poppa.

While the party was small, that’s not to say it wasn’t fun for Maddi. Our wee one’s eyes lit up when she entered the dining room and spied streamers festooning the dining area and a heap of grass-green balloons surrounding presents piled on a barn-red tablecloth. Using her intense love of our neighborhood horses as inspiration, I decorated her cake using plastic ponies from her favorite mall toystore. We’d practiced blowing out flames in the days leading up to her birthday, and when the time came, Maddi was delighted to snuff the candles on her birthday cake.

The biggest hit of the day, however, was the outdoor play equipment Maddi received. Our little climber is the proud owner of an adjustable rock-climbing toy and a sandbox, both of which were promptly put to good use. The climbing toy is for ages 3 and up, technically, but we figured that if she can climb a dresser and surf on a rocking horse, our little princess should have no problem navigating ladders and footholds. We figured correctly. Not only does she climb the ladder and the rock wall with ease, Maddi also can scramble up the slide in two seconds flat.

All in all, she had a marvelous birthday (even without a dozen of her little friends running wild) and what we can only hope is the beginning of a wonderful year!

Of course, this post wouldn’t be complete without a picture of Maddi enjoying her grass-green birthday cake:

Imagine a world without DNA. A world in which there was no way to test for paternity or maternity. How would we tell our kids from those of other people? Thankfully, in Maddi’s case, it’d be no problem. Not only does she look a lot like Chris and me, there’s an even more telling indicator of her lineage — her unmitigated love for shopping.

While each of us has our different style — Chris loves to buy rather than browse, and I live to browse rather than buy — there’s no doubt that both of her parents are shopaholics. Many of our daughter’s formative days have been spent riding through the local mall in her stroller on one of Mommy’s mega-jaunts or perched in the seat of a grocery cart while Daddy fills the basket with goodies. And all this retail goodness hasn’t failed to rub off on Maddi.

While she’s not one to turn down a toy horse when we stop at her favorite mall shop, thankfully, she’s not some acquisitive “conspicuous consumer” who strives to amass all manner of earthly goods. But it’s obvious Maddi does share my love of window shopping.

Even last year, when she didn’t have all that many words, I could ask Maddi “Do you want to go shopping?” and she’d be beside herself with excitement. That went double for the magical words “Do you want to go shoe shopping?” Like her mom, two of Maddi’s great loves are footwear and basking in climate-controlled retail goodness.

Now that she’s got words to go with all those thoughts in her little head, Maddi has some definite favorites, and “shop” is one of them. All it takes is Daddy pulling on his “going out” clothes and grabbing the keys and Maddi runs for the door exclaiming, “Shop?! Shop?!” If she should see me tear the grocery list from the pad on the refrigerator, there’s no hiding the fact that we’ll be going to the store. Should she see a shopping cart or the logo for either one of the two groceries we frequent, Maddi begins squealing in paroxysmal glee.

She not only has finally begun to understand that when she gives her book or toy or frozen dinner to the cashier, she will, indeed, get it back; she actually insists now on handing it over or placing it on the belt herself. Thanks to the prospect of shiny dollar-store stickers, she no longer grabs random items off racks (much). And we’ve spent so much time in the mall’s parenting room that she now feels completely at home in it — to the point where she’s jumping off furniture and literally climbing the walls (not as difficult as you might think, since they’re decorated with plywood cutouts). Yeah, the feeling at home in the mall bit’s not such a good thing …

Luckily for Maddi, she has two parents who have no problem indulging her craving for shopping cart and stroller rides. Now, when she’s older and starts asking for more than two-for-a-dollar stickers, that’ll be another thing.

And here’s our little power shopper, purse in hand and ready to go:

Statistically, one of the leading triggers for child abuse is potty-training incidents, and with Maddi in full potty-training mode, I’m beginning to understand why people find this phase aggravating. Luckily for Maddi, the worst treatment she can expect is Mommy’s patented Glare of Death, or if the infraction is particularly grievous, the “What in the name of all that is good and holy happened in this room?” bellow. (Much as I hate to admit it, on a bad day I can occasionally be mistaken for Jane Kaczmarek’s character in “Malcolm in the Middle best site.”)

Despite the never-ending trips to the bathroom that culminate in nothing more productive than a small toot or, if it’s one of those days, the pulling of towels and washcloths out of the linen closet, we expect that our toils will one day be rewarded with a toddler who can excuse herself and use the bathroom independently — and consistently! In fact, things are already better in some ways. For one thing, her diaper pail stinks a lot less when most of her poops wind up in the local sewer system instead. For another, her clothes fit much better over Pull-Ups than they did over diapers. And the cost savings we anticipate when she is finished potty training will be enough to pay for swimming classes for both Maddi and James.

About a month ago, Maddi began asking to use the potty (or, as she calls it, “pobby”) multiple times a day. After about a week and a half of consistent potty use, I bought her a package of disposable “big girl” training pants. Much rejoicing on Maddi’s part ensued. She quickly dubbed her new Pull-Ups “girl pants” and insisted on wearing them at all times — even to bed. All of a sudden, she wanted to use the potty every 10 or 15 minutes. Amazingly, although the false alarms are many and there are plenty of “misses” as well, she produces something the majority of the time.

If she is feeling bored, the first words out of Maddi’s mouth are “Pobby! Pobby!” Her little potty is great, but the big potty is even better. Maddi particularly loves to visit other people’s potties. She likes to potty at the mall, and delighted in using Nana’s toilet (which has a squishy seat and embroidered moon and stars, which delighted her to no end), and was eager to let her favorite teacher at the gym daycare escort her to the loo there.

Unfortunately, this past week Maddi has developed a new potty-related behavior, which is changing her own Pull-Ups after accidents. This is vexing after a pee accident because we’d rather she didn’t race about the house bottomless considering that she’s not very consistent on the toilet just yet, but it’s downright horrifying when she’s made a poop.

The first time it happened, Maddi was standing in the middle of the living room when she started yanking down her pants as usual, frantically gasping “Pobby! Pobby!”

“Maddux, wait until you’re in the bathroom!” I said from the sofa where I was (of course!) nursing James. “Oh, crap!”

“What?” Chris asked from the office.

“Literally! There’s CRAP!” I cried, “Quick, grab the baby!” I whisked a poopy, diaperless Maddi into the bathroom, soiled Pull-Up in my other hand, to finish her No. 2, had a discussion about how it is Mommy’s job and not hers to clean up poop messes, and foolishly assumed that was the end of it.

But alas, a few days later, we opened her door after naptime to an all-too-familiar odor. If you recall Poocasso’s Brown Period, you will understand what I mean by “all too familiar.” After some 100-odd times (no exaggeration) of opening her door to that, I think I know a poop mess when I smell one. Sure enough, Maddi’s fingers and one foot were stained brown. After her bath, I surveyed the damage. There was a poopy Pull-Up on the floor, a sizable portion of crusty carpet surrounded by soiled Pampers wipes where she had tried to clean herself off, and some suspicious smears on the closet door. We had the don’t-change-your-own-diaper talk again and I vowed never to sleep during the children’s naptime again.

Then, this morning — when I shouldn’t have had to worry because she hasn’t had a morning poop in ages — Chris opened the door to yet another Poocasso masterpiece. Maddi had a thorough scrubbing and I again surveyed the catastrophe that was her room. Another diaper, with sleeper still attached and covered in filth. More carpet. More wall. Her dresser(!!!!). And in the absence of wipes (thanks to my removal of the wipes from her room because she pulls them all out of the box), she had used a bath towel and a sock.

Needless to say, we will all be very happy to see this potty-training thing over and done!

And now, for some non-potty-related cuteness:

One of the many things we call Maddux is Mad-Mad — not only because it’s an obvious and easy nickname, but also because she is completely insane. Don’t get us wrong; we love our crazy little daughter and we mean her no disrespect in saying that she’s nuts. But she’s bonkers, and it goes beyond even what one would expect from a little girl of almost 2.

Current “expert opinion” on the crib-to-big-kid-bed transition is that once kids are climbing out of the crib, they should be moved into a bed so as to save their wee skulls from possible concussions. However, I’m increasingly convinced that this advice has been influenced to no small degree by the children’s furniture industry. Maddi clambers about on furniture both low and high with the ease and agility of a mountain goat. And the few times she’s fallen — such as the time she went racing across the sofa to be kneecapped by the arm and tumbled out of sight, head over heels, over the edge — Maddi has barely been fazed.

Had we thought the matter through thoroughly, we would have realized that a) Maddi has no problem navigating the perils of tall furniture and would remain perfectly safe in her crib and b) giving our daughter a big-girl bed would be like turning over the asylum to the inmates.

Maddi was very excited by the prospect of her big-girl bed and had no fears or reservations concerning the transition. Knowing her as we do, this should have been our first indication that our wee girl would use her newfound freedom for evil and not for good. But, naive parents that we were, we figured what could she possibly do in her newly babyproofed room?

Cue maniacal laughter

After picking out an adorable toddler bed for our adorable toddler, we spent two days organizing and babyproofing Maddi’s room. Medicines and ointments were stowed away; furniture items were tethered to the walls; childproof locks and knobs went onto doors and closets and special childproof outlets replaced the old hardware; the room was bare but for her bed, her outgrown crib, her dresser and selected toys. In short, we thought we had it covered. But pride cometh before a fall, and we were in for quite the surprise.

Maddi managed to pull everything out of every drawer in her dresser, as we had expected. What we had not expected was that, from the headboard of her toddler bed, she would manage to climb atop her dresser-slash-change-table and, inserting her fingers into minuscule cracks in the vinyl changing pad, begin eviscerating said foam pad. (Among sundry other unforseen acts of terrrorism perpetrated in that blackest of weeks.)

Then there was the issue of naptime. Her first full day in the new room, Maddi romped about for an hour or so and was eventually discovered slumbering in the space underneath her old crib, where she had apparently succumbed to the sandman mid-play. The next day, she napped in her big-girl bed. We were delighted — completely unaware that this was the last nap she would ever take in her big-girl room. For the next several days, naptime was ushered in by the sounds of revelry and mysterious banging and thumping noises from Maddi’s quarters. And the noises didn’t stop. When Maddi grew tired of playing, she would bang on the wall and scream blue murder for hours on end. We removed her toys in hopes that she would sleep better, but our darling princess merely turned to the heating intake grate, the spring door stop and her dresser drawers (and their supply of diapers) for entertainment.

Now if Maddi was not the type of child who needed naps, we wouldn’t have minded her naptime frolics. But while a well-rested Maddi, if a little spirited, is an absolute delight to be around, an ill-rested Maddi lives up to the nickname Mad-Mad, whether you define “mad” as angry or crazy. We had planned on giving the new bed a two-week trial period, but after six days of hitting, scratching, deliberate use of crayons on furniture, spitting, biting, tantruming and other insanity, we decided that it would be to the benefit of everyone to move her back into the crib, where she would theoretically begin napping again.

While the kids and I were at the gym, Chris — blinking back tears — dismantled the beloved toddler bed and moved everything back as it had been before our fateful decision to move Maddi from the crib. We’re still working on getting her to stop vaulting out of the crib 20 times an afternoon, but she’s been operating at only 20 percent insanity instead of full-tilt crazy as she had been during “Dawn of the Bed.”

And here’s a picture of our little sweetheart assessing her new big-girl bed, before everything went horribly wrong:

And 15 minutes later, when we came in to lock her childproof light switch in the off position:

It’s said that moms have many jobs, including maid, chef, waitress, daycare attendant, nurse, taxi driver, teacher, etc. But one of the things the people who write these lists seem to consistently leave off is the job I find myself assuming most often — that of interpreter.

The difficulty of this job rivals that of any such position at the U.N., for what language is more rare than the one that belongs exclusively to one person and is evolving almost hourly? Maddi has a unique patois in which most words sound remarkably similar and in which the last consonant — and often the last few syllables along with it — is completely unnecessary.

“Ba,” for instance, means ball — unless it means “bear,” “bottle,” “box,” or “bath.” Much like Mandarin, inflection is key. Depending on the subtlest nuances, “tchee” could mean “cheese” or “Cheerios.” “Bwuh” could be “brush” — but is equally likely to mean “bracelet.” Of course, the interpretation must be quick and accurate lest we incur the wrath of the toddler; thus, Chris and I have become quite the experts in translations from the Maddish tongue.

To the uninitiated, there’s very little difference between her words for “Daddy,” “James,” “Sticker,” “drink,” “pacifier” and “What’s this?” — yet we can tell you in a millisecond exactly which one she’s using.

Like Trekkies who learn the Klingon lexicon, Maddi’s fans find great joy in learning new “words.” For instance, today, as she was digging around on the floor with a giant upside-down fake flower and saying, “Shuddo ‘no! Shuddo, shuddo, shuddo!” I was delighted to figure out that rather than spouting gibberish, our daughter was actually saying “Shovel snow! Shovel, shovel, shovel!” as she imitated what Chris was doing that very moment outside the window.

Maddi can also be seen cooking breakfast for her dolls on any given day. She’ll sit the doll in her toy high chair and say “Ghoogey?” (“Yogurt?”). Then she’ll cook up a bowl of something in the play kitchen’s microwave and serve it up to her doll, admonishing, “Hot, hot!” (We’re not sure why yogurt would be hot — perhaps her baby opted for oatmeal instead and we weren’t privy to the order as it was given telepathically. After all, oatmeal, like anything else that comes from the stove or microwave, except for “paba,” or pasta, is called “hot-hot.”) Her doll will often utter an appreciative “Mmmmmmm!”

She’s also working on her table manners. Maddi has the cutest little “please” you’ve ever heard. When prompted — or if she remembers — she will smile and yell a very enthusiastic (and persuasive) “Peeeeeeee?” Occasionally she will also say “Thank you,” which, like her words for “pacifier” and “sticker,” still sounds a lot like “Dada.”

One of the cutest things she’s done recently is name her first doll. Among the decorations for her baby shower was a bathtub with a tiny kewpie doll in it. Maddi recently discovered the doll and immediately dubbed the doll — her smallest by quite a bit — “James.” (Or as she says, “Dzhay-dzhay.”) I thought it was a one-afternoon thing, but she has continued calling him Jay Jay, and has persuaded Chris to put the little doll in James’ bouncy seat when James isn’t available to fill it.

She continues to dote on James, sharing tummy time with him, trying to brush his hair and adjust his pacifier, and burping him (she has actually produced a few good belches!). Today, since James is doing much better in the head-control department, I asked her if she’d like to hold James in her lap. Maddi beamed the biggest smile you ever saw and held James for a good several minutes until he began crying (through no fault of hers — she did a stellar job and was very gentle!). For the rest of the day, she pestered me for the baby, patting her outstretched legs and begging, “Dzhay? Dzhay?”

Speaking of new experiences, on Friday, for the first time ever, Maddi put her own shirt on without any help from Mommy or Daddy. Then today, she did it again, but also put on her own pants unassisted. She was extremely proud, needless to say, and uttered a happy “I-didit!”

And here, for your viewing pleasure, are some images of pure Maddi cuteness!

Oh, boy! A “pane”!

Hot dog! (If you don’t “get” the caption, take a look in the microwave!)

Walking a mile in someone else’s shoes

Tummy time with Jay

Ever since the day she was born, we’ve been planning for the day when Maddi became a sister. The minute I delivered our purple, coneheaded, colicky insomniac after nine intense hours of hard, fast back labor, I knew I would do it all over again, and soon. There is something about newborn babies — even screaming, inconsolable ones — that makes you want to have 10 more just like them. And so, there in the delivery room on May 6, 2005, it was determined that Maddi would have a younger sibling as soon as possible.

Of course, babies take time, and by the time her brother arrived, Maddi had had us almost entirely to herself for 18 months. Naturally, Chris and I were concerned that our pampered princess might see her baby sibling as an intruder rather than a future playmate. So a few months before the baby was due, we gave Maddi a baby doll and some miniature nursery accoutrements to get her used to the idea of infants in the house. Maddi spent many happy hours strolling her dolls around the living room, serving up meals of imaginary oatmeal (and meticulously “washing” the high chair tray in her big sister’s play kitchen afterward) and laying her babies down for naps. She almost always carried the babies head-up and was very tender with her tiny charges. Of course, the real test would be how she treated Mommy’s baby.

I am happy to report that Maddi has done spectacularly well thus far at adjusting to the new baby. Even the hospital stay was easier. She slept better for Chris and didn’t treat me like a stranger during hospital visits, although she still did (and does) seem to be under the impression that everybody has babies in their tummies, including a much-thinner Mommy.

Luckily for Maddi — not to mention for Chris and me — James spends a lot of the time sleeping, so we can devote sizable chunks of quality time to our little girl. Perhaps all the playing and cuddling has made Maddi blissfully unaware that some of our attention is now going to the wee interloper, because she hasn’t seemed to notice that she has a little competition in the quality-time department. In fact, when the baby’s cries ring out over the monitor, Maddi is the first to head for the doorway and down the hall, urgently pressing us with the refrain, “Baby? Baby?”

She also begs me to lower him for kisses at least 10 times an hour, and is always excited to help put him in his bassinet and bid him goodnight. She has helpfully offered him sippy cups and chicken tenders, as well as her favorite books and toys.

And while she’s definitely grown-up next to the tiny baby we brought home, she’s also getting bigger in ways we’d notice even if we weren’t looking at her compared with a newborn. In the past few months, she’s been bought and subsequently outgrown several pairs of pants. She’s regained all the words she lost in the language regression that happened after the move, and is adding new ones each day. She will now sit still long enough for ponytails and barrettes, and can both remove and put on her shoes lipitor medication. She’s inches away from being able to don her own pants and shirts, and has become proficient at stripping herself of all manner of clothing, including things that zip, button, or snap up the back and then are covered over with a layer of duct tape.

Maddi can also jump in the air, bellyflop, kick a ball, spin in circles, operate the Diaper Champ (albeit abusing the tool to dispose of pacifiers), clamber in and out of her high chair, and scale the arms of the sofa to drop, catlike, over the gate into the forbidden but enticing fireplace area. She also uses the potty when the inclination strikes her, and can apply her own lotion and hand sanitizer. Over the past few months, she’s been honing her skills with a spoon and fork, and now uses utensils like an old pro, often keeping her face entirely clean (if not her lap!).

She can point to nearly every part of her body — not just arms and legs, but wrists, elbows, knees and ankles too — and can mimic dozens of animals including tigers, snakes, seals and dolphins. After just a few singalongs at the library, she began doing all the motions (correctly!) to “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “Itsy Bitsy Spider.”

And to top it all off, a few days ago I was combing her hair and she snatched at the comb with a big scowl and snapped, “No! Mine!” Our little girl is, indeed, growing up!