Toddlers Until Teenagers

Chapter 50

picture of liane above
at 7 months

   5 years later

     "Oh, God. Liane, what did you do?" I groan, running my hands through my clean, fresh and soft hair roughly before turning to my bedroom door and speeding down the hallway into Liane's room. She sits there, splashing water at me from her tiny plastic cup. The whole wooden floor is wet, and she's sitting in a stupid puddle with a huge grin on her face.

   "Bath time!" She squeals, although it pretty much feels like she's mocking me. Obviously she isn't, being a four year old who only goes to montesorri.

   "Liane, Liane, Liane." I shake my head, making a tsk sound with my tongue, as she squeals even louder, her chubby hands expressing herself clearly, waving in the air and pounding in the water as mini splashes of water bounce over to me.

   She loves when I make the tsk sound. I forget every time. It just makes her naughtier and more energetic. She reaches for my mouth, placing her fingers on it, examining it. I take her hand off my lips and pick her up, balancing her on my hip, as I walk over to her closet and grab a cute little light purple skirt and a matching flowered shirt. I quickly change her, which involves screeching  and a lot of energetic hands.

   Finally, I grab her wet clothes and hang them up in the deck, returning to her bright and colorful room. I dry her shoulder length hair with a towel, and carry her to my room. Her room is basically filled with her toys and her small bed, but most of the time she snuggles up with me.

   She isn't heavy, not at all. I pick her up because I still feel like she's small, I still feel like she's my baby. She was a premature baby, which makes her a bit shorter and skinner than other kids her age, but other than that, she's perfectly healthy.

   "Now, you're going to stay here, right? Or do you want to watch Mr.Maker? Or maybe the big comfy couch? Backyardigans?" I query her with cartoon shows. She bites her lip gently, something I also do when I'm thinking.

   "Um...Mr.Maker." She finally decides, and walks behind me to the kitchen and family room area. She plops on the couch as I search some old episode of the show and play it, going over to the gleaming silver applianced kitchen and grabbing an apple for Liane.

   I wash it and cut it into big enough chunks, and then pass it to her as she munches on it while watching TV. Before she was studying, aka coloring inside the lines and solving addition problems. I go back to her room with a mop and mop away the water, humming as I walk back with her plastic cup and mop in hand. After washing it up and stuffing the mop back into the little storage area in the kitchen, I plop on the sofa beside my daughter, raking my fingers through her soft, light brown hair.

   "Mommy," she starts, her attention averted towards me as she finishes her apple piece. "Can we go to the park? Or can Aunt Fi and Amy come over?"

   "Sweetheart, they might be busy today." I take the bowl from her mad wash it, placing it in the cabinet and making myself some coffee. It's around 11 am in the morning, on a Saturday. Liane only goes to Montessori on weekdays, and I also work on weekdays.

   "But mom-y!" She whines. "Fine. Can you play with me? I wanna play."

   "Okay, what do ya wanna play?" I ask her, kissing her chubby cheek as she looks at me with her light blue eyes, the color of the sky and clouds.

    "Hide and seek?" She giggles, and I give her a mischievous smile.

  "Okayy. Are you sure, though? Mommy is bad at that game." I fake a tear down my cheek with my finger and Liane grabs my hand with her small, pale little finger, and kisses it sloppily. It takes everything in me to not just shower her with kisses until I die.