Perfectionists

I've been accused of a little perfectionism here and there throughout my life. Some might classify me as a typical over-achieving, straight-As-in-high-school, slightly obsessive-compulsive type. As I've gotten older, I think these traits have mellowed a bit - well really who am I kidding? I've just maybe refocused them from school/career to other aspects of my life. I'm not the type to line up soup cans in my cabinets a la Sleeping with the Enemy. However I HAVE been known to: arrange my socks by color, use plastic hangers in colors that match the shirt hanging on it and obsessively record every expenditure in Quicken right down to cash paid for lunches at McDonalds. My parents tell me that when I was a baby I used to crawl around on the floor, pick up lint, dirt whatever and hand it to the nearest adult. Yup, not a lot of worrying about me eating foreign objects - I just wanted to keep the place clean.

And now we have Lily. And in so so many ways she is Gordon's daughter. She's social, vocal, loves motion, has tons of energy and likes taking risks. But lately, she's been adding to the general prefectionist wackiness around here. Maybe she's going through one of those "normal development stages". But knowing my own leanings, and that we share a fair amount of genetic material - I doubt it. Her newest, most-frequently used word now is "uh-oh". One day I would love to do a mental count and see how many times it's used. My guess is definitely in the hundreds. So what does Lily classify as an "uh oh"?

- yogurt has dripped from her spoon onto the plate, table, her hand, lap, whatever. "uh-oh!" She will repeat it until someone appears with a cloth to remedy the situation. Gordon has started giving her a cloth during yogurt sessions so she can take care of it on her own.

- baby/quack-quack/bear/puppy/monkey has fallen out of their swaddle. Now keep in mind that we have no blankets that are really appropriate for swaddling these creatures. The blankets are baby-sized and the swaddlees are stuffy-sized. So they are ALWAYS falling out of the blankets. A typical session goes like this:

Lily: Mah-ee (Mommy) quack-quack (her duck stuffy) blan-ee (blanket)
Me: Oh you want quack-quack wrapped in the blanket?
Lily: Yeah
[I swaddle quack quack, hand her to Lily. She looks delighted and runs off clutching him]
[2 minutes later]
Lily: Uh-Oh Quack-Quack! Uh-oh! Ma-ee! Uh-oh! Quack-Quack
Repeat
A BAZILLION times

- there is a stick/leaf/rock/trash/ANYTHING lying on the sidewalk outside. Yes, our walks now take even longer than they did before (how is that possible?) because every 2 feet we have to stop because "Uh-oh!" there is SOMETHING on the sidewalk. She then bends down and hands it to me. I need to remember to bring a bucket or something to collect these items in. Hey at least she's working to keep our street and the bike path free of debris.

- something is just in the wrong place. She definitely has an internal dialogue going on about how things should be in our house. And if something is not where it should be - she'll let me know - "Uh-oh Mah-ee!"

- Gordon or I or anyone in her vicinity has dropped something.

- something is in her way. My favorite example of this one is the time that she was on her rocking horse in the living room and I was behind the kitchen counter getting lunch together or whatever. She's happily rocking away and then "Uh-oh". I had NO idea what the issue was so I said "oh you're fine". Then: "Car!". I looked around and couldn't figure out where she saw a car. So I said "yeah, honey car" and went back to what I was doing. But she wouldn't be deterred "uh-oh car! uh-oh car!". I finally went over there. Her ride-on car (previously hidden from my view) was positioned so that the end of the rocking horse was hitting it when she rocked.

So here we are - like I didn't have enough of an INTERNAL dialogue going on telling me when things are "wrong" or "out of place". Now I have Lily to point out all the ones I may have missed. "uh-oh Mah-ee! uh-oh!".

Uh-oh indeed!