Developmental Milestones

I don't want to brag, here, but I'm convinced that my little girl is way ahead of all the other toddlers. In fact, she's almost a teenager. Here's my evidence:

1. She's learned to say "no" in a way that combines sarcasm and "well, duh" better than most teenagers. It's more like "nuhoooh" and features a little head tip. I laugh helplessly whenever she deploys it, which is either going to damage her self-esteem forever or reinforce the behavior until she's using it on everyone, not just her mom.

2. Some mornings, when I pop my head in her room to see if she's awake, she lies in her bed and frowns at me, then points at the door and says, "Get out." I laugh at that, too, with probable ill effects as noted above.

3. Her dad is teaching her to tell time (on an analog clock, of course) so that I can never again lie and say, bedtime in 15 minutes and then put her in bed ten minutes later when I'm tired of waiting. Or when I say, time for Quiet Time and it's an hour before the usual time but mom's getting sleepy.

Thanks, dude. Thanks a lot.

4. She's fascinated by shoes and her favorites are, no kidding, flipflops with inch-thick soles. I find that style of shoe hard to walk in and I'm an adult. Also, she puts her shoes on the correct feet, managing complicated buckles on her little sandals. Parent Hacks had a hack for reminding 4-year-olds which shoes go on which feet. Apparently, my girl's a shoe prodigy. She'll be striding around confidently in 4-inch wedgies in time for the first grade.

5. At the salon, where mom and dad got haircuts, she was puzzled and amused by a guy with his hair in permanent rollers. As was I. And she lowered her voice to a whisper to observe that another customer had gunk in her hair. When Brittany (who cuts our hair, beautifully, I have to say) said, she's getting her hair colored, she did a perfect, does-she-or-doesn't-she "ooooh."

I suspect that she was fully aware that she's cuter than most of the women in there.

I'm pleased that we're apparently gearing up to skip the preschool and 'tween years, but am not sure if I'm ready to parent a teenager. We'll see...