I don’t know where she gets it.

Mallory continues to have this unbelievably stubborn streak. If you want to get her dressed and are already on the floor ready to do it, she wants to do it “riiiiight….HERE” and it’s ALWAYS just out of reach of where Rick or I happen to already be. Same with fixing her hair, or brushing her teeth, or putting her shoes on. My new trick is to tell her I don’t think she can put her own pants/shirts/socks/shoes on and BAM – she’ll do it herself. Let’s hope that works for a while. ;-)

She is also really really bossy. When we are walking into the house, she’ll want to be first and then she’ll turn around and tell me “YOU STAY RIGHT THERE. STAY!” while she goes up the stairs by herself and opens the screen door. Then I am allowed to walk up the stairs to unlock the door. There are a million more examples I could give you but they escape me right now.

Same with going potty. I know that I need to let her go potty first when we walk in the door, what with her getting potty trained and all, but for crying out loud – she has a diaper on and I don’t and when I have to go, I HAVE to go. And I really think she has better bladder control than I do right now. So God forbid I beat her to the toilet – plus I’m faster with pulling down my pants (remember, I don’t have a diaper on) – she gets sooooooooooooooo mad, yelling “I GO POTTY FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!”. Basically I’ve stopped telling her that I’m going to the bathroom because then she doesn’t think she wants to go either.

* * *

Mallory & Rick were running around the house playing yesterday – Mallory yelled out “YOU BETTER CAN’T CATCH ME!!!”, which I think was supposed to be “Bet you can’t catch me!”.

* * *

We listened to part of the Michigan hockey game on the radio on Friday. You know, the one where Michigan lost to #15 Air Force. Mallory was able to understand that we were listening to the hockey game on the radio but thought Michigan was playing “Airport”, not Air Force.

* * *

Spresaway = expressway. Mallory always wants us to go on the spresaway. It just kills me. We have the opportunity to go on the spresaway fairly often but not all the time so she gets a little salty when we say we don’t have to go on the spresaway.

* * *

Rick took us out to dinner again last night (never know when it’s going to be our last meal before the baby comes) so we went to Fridays after his hockey game. At one point all the servers came out clapping and Mallory looked at us and said something about it being someone’s birthday. I was shocked because they weren’t singing “Happy Birthday”. She really is a genius.

* * *

Here is some more sap on the baby front.

I was talking to one of my sister’s friends who has a daughter a few months younger than Mallory, and she is also due any day now with her second. I was asking her if she was ever sad about having another baby, did she feel like it was going to screw up her daughter, etc. She made a really good point.

And here it is.

She reminded me that I am an older sister and then asked if I remember a time where Emily wasn’t around as my little sister. Of course, I don’t ever remember a time that Emily wasn’t around (even though there were plenty of days weeks years I *wished* she wasn’t around…ha ha, just kidding). But it helped me realize that I was never mad at my parents for having another baby after me. And now that I’m all grown up, I am so glad that I have a bratty little sister, especially since she isn’t so bratty anymore.

So I hope that whatever Arlo turns out to be – whether it’s a baby brother or a baby sister – that s/he and Mallory will grow up to have a great relationship like I have with my sister now.