So for three days now, Anonybabe has been a freaking blast. I'm glad; I was really starting to worry after 3 odd weeks of just feeling distant and alienated from the chick. I felt guilty. I felt panicky that the alienation was going to last. I obsessively fantasized that we were already that mother/daughter combo - the one that just doesn't get each other. Ever.

Apparently fate is offering us at least a little respite. All of her oddities are now charming to me instead of grating; I'm not sure why. Today we went on a walk and Anonybabe brought Francis her stuffed cat. She kept chanting "Super Fwancis, meow, meow, meow, MEOW!" and on the last meow she would toss him down the sidewalk. If he got particularly good air she would giggle and say "Oh! Fwancis! Dat was good fwy!" and pick him up to do it again. She also freaking delights in walking under or over chains used to separate sidewalks from strips of grass. I know that doesn't sound charming, per se, but somehow Anonybabe makes it work. We both know she couldn't have done that particular trick 2 months ago without doing a faceplant on the sidewalk. She'll straighten up, eyes shining and trumpet "Mama! Mama! I go ober de chain! Can I do it again?"

Anonyhub gave me some food for thought that I haven't quite figured out how to digest yet. I mentioned last night how much more I'm enjoying our daughter and how it helps that she hasn't tried to bite, pinch, hit, or flaunt her disobedience in a fuck-you manner for three whole days.

"Yeah..." he started a line he's tried to start before with me. "Sometimes I think with the biting and hitting, you should just let it go." This is the point where I usually launch into a diatribe about those kinds of things always being unacceptable and how I want firm boundaries around them, and on and on. This time I waited to hear Anonyhub out.

"You get yourself so worked up about disciplining her...I think you work yourself into a corner where you make it impossible to like her very much. You might do more damage to your relationship to her than the good you do trying to teach her to act nice."

Humph. And Hmmmm. How right is he?