Birdie in May

Birdie as a baby was so laid back. She was a walk in the park kind of baby. Since about 18 months old, she has really come out of her shell. She doesn't hold back, and freely hits and fusses in her own gibberish to get what she wants or to express her disapproval. When she's on the red towel for one minute for time out, she sits there and goes through this sequence...
1) smiles while I'm putting her on the towel and smiles as I tell her why she's in timeout
2) cries when I walk away and sometimes moves off of the red towel while making "I'll show you" eyes - Then I move her back and tell her to stay there in timeout.
3) remembers about her thumb and her belly button and pacifies herself for a few seconds
4) takes out her thumb and begins saying, "Mama, come here!" over and over
Through all of this, I have to remind all the bunch to not look at her and not let her see them laughing. All the rest of us are laughing because she is so funny going through all of this in her one-minute timeout.
Finally, when the timer goes off, I go over to her and remind her not to hit/jerk/swat or whatever and then ask her to say, "I'm sorry." When she says I'm sorry, she says in the sweetest, about-to-cry voice, like she's acting upset when she's really completely over it. Then she gives me a hug, and she initiates putting the red towel back in place and out of sight. That's the funniest part of all! She's ready to get rid of that thing!

She loves to sing and dance, but once when me and all of the kids were singing some songs with her, naturally we wanted to quit singing and hear her sing. I told them that I would sing the song really softly so that they could hear her and they could just listen. She usually does good and sings along for the first few lines. Then, she remembers her thumb and belly button again. She pops her thumb in her mouth and begins forcefully nodding her head up and down as if to say, "Carry on with your singing:)!"

Since having a few red towel timeouts, she has mostly quit hitting (at least me anyway) and resorted to swatting with a cross look on her face. It's like she's still hitting me in her mind, but figured out a way to do it without getting in real trouble. What a character!

Future for Birdie: Who knows?

When it's time for family prayer, she's the one who determines who's not there and begins calling them loudly to tell them to come downstairs to pray. When it's her turn to pray, she just says, "Daddy, daddy, daddy!"