Da Brat

There are many words for what has happened to our child in the past couple of weeks. Some of the euphamisms include "spirited" and "head strong". A really nice one was "dripping with personality". That's the South for you - three more words and 8 more syllables to say what was intended - BRAT.

She's even on the BRAT diet right now for God's sake.

If you've been reading you know that she's been sick for over two weeks now, first with a respiratory infection and then a stomach virus. The genius parents (that's me and David by the way) took her off of all of her medicine including her ZANTAC. Let's try a hard one...what's Zantac for? Oh...I know, I know (picture me raising my hand Hermione Grainger style while receiving withering but still sexy looks from Snape) - REFLUX.

Thank God for my mother. I was too much of a dumbass to figure out that she wassn't really throwing up anymore! Her reflux had gotten so bad off of her meds that everything was just coming right back out again! So...we add back in the Zantac and low and behold - no more exorcist baby.

The problem now is that she's used to being held, coddled and clucked at. She's grown accustomed in a VERY princess way of being spoken to in phrases like "does the wittle babies tum tum feel bad?" and "ooooh, did you thwow up? It'll be okay baby!" She's been held for pretty much two weeks straight now. Everyone's physically tired of holding her yet that is all she wants. She's even WAVING like a princess.

It's little things that start with crying when you put her down. It's subtle manipulations like the fact that she doesn't want to hold her own bottle now. She has an entourage by God - why SHOULD she?

Then there is the oh-so-Zha-Zha slapping. She slaps your face. You say "NO Zoe". She smiles that sweet smile and looks at the hand your holding. Then she rears the other one back and slaps you silly AGAIN! That one got her put in her crib. Ooooooh did she scream. She did NOT like being put in her room.

Saturday, on a trip to go shopping with Mom and me, Mom decided to sit in the backseat with her. Zoe screamed for at least 20 minutes while holding out her arms to be picked up. Mom stuck to her guns and said no. That's when the staring started. Zoe stared so hard at her Mom finally had to just turn away and look out the window. I could see her in the rearview and was honestly afraid flames might shoot out of those eyes and smite my Mom right then and there. She looked a little like that asshole baby from "Who Framed Roger Rabit". All you needed was a cigarette and you would have had a damn fine villain on your hands.

So, the staring continues. And continues until we finally figure out about a half hour later the little lady has fallen asleep with her eyes open! That's my girl! She's studying up to be a part of the circus already!

The last straw was last night, right before bed. We fed her applesauce, her first real food she could stomach in a week. David couldn't get it in fast enough. I tried to tell him, I could see the shifting beneath her eyes and then it happened....




GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr



She effing GROWLED at him! It was hysterical. It made me wonder what I'd do when her first curse word came out. It was sooo hard not to laugh. But we made it. Baby Monkey went down for the night. But not, as you can imagine, without adding her two cents.