I don't wanna.

As it turns out, we are no longer the bosses around the house. Lily has definitely started to exert her influence on the mechanics of our daily toil. She is an enormous proponent of the status quo, as it turns out; and when we attempt to make changes to that, there is some serious vocal opposition. Oh yes.

In short, she hates to be told what to do. Particularly grievous offences include: changing clothes, changing diapers, giving baths, that sort of thing. I'm not sure if it's the fact that she doesn't want the change to occur, or that the act itself is undertaken without her explicit approval. I'm almost sure it's the latter, as she normally snaps back into cheery mode once the status change is over. I guess I can understand the psychology behind her reaction; I would be none too happy if I was happily going about my day and an 18 foot leviathan lumbers by, rips off my clothes, and sticks me in some footied jammies. It's offensive, frankly, and totally insulting for us to manipulate Lily to bend her to the needs of our daily schedule.

But, of course, that's life. We're her parents. We get the final say.

So right now, the battlefield is set. I am smart enough to know that this fight is just beginning, that the rules of the game are being lain out. It will get ugly. It already is ugly. Tonight, for example, she did not want to take a bath. She kicked and flailed when I dragged her upstairs. She melted out of my arms, wailing away, fought us tooth and nail with every fiber of her being. The bath went predictably bad - I'm amazed I got her in at all - for the first five minutes. Eager to move quickly, I got her clean in about three minutes. After that, though, she started to calm down a bit. Then she started to almost enjoy herself. Of course, this came as the bath was starting to get cold, the night was getting long, and it was time for her to come out. So while getting her in the bath and cleaned was a disaster, she cheered up just long enough for me to start the process all over again trying to get her OUT of the bath. Sigh.

Hooray for the contest of wills! We'll see who wins...

Day two hundred and ninety.

I actually tried to get photos tonight, I did. Picked up the camera, turned it on, and the battery died. Typical.

"I'm cleeeeaaaaning!! Yay!"

The tongue is out. The tongue of concentration.