Bailey

It looks like Bailey has made it her mission in life to slowly unravel what little is left of my sanity. She is a mischevious little imp, full of sheer will and determination. I am no match for her, really.

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We wonder if she has a Napoleon Complex. She has always three or four inches shorter than her triplet sisters. One night she asked me, "When am I going to get biggest, since I'm the big sister?" Ironically, she has convinced everybody that she is indeed the oldest sister, despite her lack of stature. (And despite the fact that she was actually Baby C- the last one out!) What she lacks in height, she makes up for in attitude. Or as one of Quinn's coworkers put it, she has a "high will-to-mass ratio."

She is a force of nature, and I wonder sometimes what makes this little one tick. She is like a cat: independent, affectionate only when she wants to be, and completely unpredictable. We never know what's going to make her pounce!

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Bailey refuses to wear anything but dresses. She accessorizes to the hilt with any headband/necklace/hair scrunchie she can find. She drags her mini tea seat with her everywhere she goes, and she is convinced that she is a princess. Her favorite game to play is "pretend" where I am the mean stepmother and she gazes longingly at a photo of Quinn and I (her "real parents who are very dead.") She could play that game for HOURS, and has even worked up a tear or two as she wishes that her "real mom and dad" hadn't been "zapped by Ursula the Sea Witch."

This morning I left my glass of water on the coffee table. As I walked back in the room, I was directly behind Bailey and, not seeing me, I watched her lean over my glass of water and peer inside. I was about to intervene (I hate it when my kids drink out of my glass), but instead watched in amazement as Bailey deliberately spit in my glass. A lot of spit. Then she peered inside, grinning. As she walked away she spotted me and smiled. "Bailey!" I said, incredulously. "Did you just spit in my water?!?" "No," she said, sweet as can be. "But I just saw you do it!" She shrugged. "I didn't SPIT in it," she explained. "I was giving you floaties. I always give you floaties."

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To think how many, many times I have left a glass of water within her reach . . .

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Lucky for her, she's pretty darn cute. A friend from church insists he could never discipline her because she's so adorable. I told him that it's her primary survival mechanism. She can turn on the charm when she needs. She loves to say in her prayers: "Thank you that Mommy is beautiful" and then she cracks open one eye to peer at me and make sure that this had the desired effect of making me smile. It always does.

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She was helping put a bandaid on Riley the other day and I said, "Wow, you're good at this, Bailey. Maybe someday you'll grow up and be a doctor!" "No," she said. "I want to grow up to be a Mommy, just like you." My heart started to melt, then she continued, "Cuz then I can wear your lipstick and you'll have to let me wear all your Mommy clothes and I'll have a real purse and a cella phone."

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And to balance out any compliments she doles out in her prayers, she always manages to get in a few digs to my self-esteem. Last week when I came home from jogging, she ran up and gave me a big hug. "I love you, Mommy... even when you're all sweaty and ugly."

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Beneath all her bluster and bravado, however, our mini-dictator isn't as tough as she thinks. She still sucks her thumb (though she hides it under her blankie). She is still the only one afraid to swim without floaties (the inflatable arm things, not the spit). She is scared of Sid "the mean kid" from Toy Story and refuses to open her eyes if he's on screen. She's terrified of thunder.

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Somewhere beneath the mischief and bossiness lies a tender little heart... if only she'd let us catch a glimpse of it more often!