Preparation

Samantha is such a girly girl. She loves pink. And flowers. And sparkly shoes. And princess skirts.

But she also loves to play outside. In the dirt. And the mud. And the leaves. With dump trucks. And rocks.

This is one of the many things that I love about her. That she can embrace frilly, girly things. And embrace tomboyish things, too.

Lately, though. She is taking it to an excess. For example, today she wanted to wear her sparkly pink shoes and white ruffled socks to play outside. No problem. I let her.

What was I thinking?! Apparently I forgot that this is the child who takes her shoes off EVERY SINGLE TIME she plays outside. That's right, she walks barefoot on the rocks and leaves and baby oak trees. I must admit that I go barefoot a lot. But even I wear shoes in the yard where we are currently living. But not my daughter. I have just about given up trying to get her to keep her shoes on. And I just hope that she doesn't step on anything that will cut her feet. Or bite her.

Anyway...back to today. It was no surprise to look outside and see her without shoes on her feet. That is a normal occurrence. But normally she is wearing sandals. That's right...without socks. Today, however, she had those white ruffled socks on. And she did not take them off when she took her shoes off. So when I looked outside, she was walking around with her no-longer-white socks still on her feet. In the mud left from two solid days of rain. Yes, they are just about black now, and will probably never be white again.

Oh well...I guess I could look at it and say that she will probably outgrow them in a few months anyway, and for now the weather is still warm enough that she basically just wears sandals, so no socks are necessary. Yes. That is what I will do. I am starting to feel better about the whole thing already. This might even last until tomorrow morning when I am doing the laundry and trying to turn black socks back to white.

(And just in case you are wondering, no, I did not yell at her about her dirty socks. In fact, I did not say one word about her socks. All I did was remind her that she is supposed to wear shoes when she is outside. Not that I expect my reminder to make any sort of difference the next time she is outside. Oh well...)

I think she may be preparing me for Jacob's toddlerhood. After all, we all hear that boys are much more into things and much more messy than girls. I never really gave any credence to things like that when I heard them before.

And then I had Jacob. And he is into SOOOO much more than Samantha ever was at the same age. I wonder what on earth he will be like when he is 2. I could have heart palpitations just imagining it. So I won't. After all, he gets into plenty enough right now. Maybe I should just tell Samantha thank you for the extra preparation that she is giving me.