From the time she got engaged, Melanie was insistent that Lucy be a flower girl in her wedding. I was skeptical. There were no kids in our wedding because a) we had no little kids that needed to be included and b) I couldn’t handle the panties-showing, tantrum throwing x-factor. Nini, however, is a pro. She likes kids (not just ones she’s related to) and she accepts their eccentricities. So, we agreed, when Lu was a tiny squirming infant, that she would be Nini’s flower girl…someday in the distant future, when she was capable of scene-blocking and taking direction.

So, some things did not happen in the year since her anointing as flower girl:
Did not learn to follow simple commands.
Did not learn to walk in straight, focused line.
Did not learn to be quiet.
Did not grow much hair.

And yet, to Nini’s credit, she let none of these failures disqualify Lucy from her post. We did lots of training in that meringue of a dress: “Look at Lucy, so pretty!” She would see her dress hanging in the closet and say “Dess Nini dess ohh!” We’d put it on her and she would gasp with excitement. Nini even gave her a pearl necklace and bracelet to wear, which she exclaimed over all day: “neck-ice bace-it ohh.”

Except in the moment of truth. We put her dress on at the very last possible second to avoid having it smeared with…whatever. And instead of “ohhh” we got “oss oss oss,” which is Lu for “Dude, this shit is hot and itchy, get it off me.” Which, despite how gorgeous we looked, is pretty much how we were all feeling.

Yet she carried on, performing her official duty as godchild/showpiece and causing limited embarrassment. She walked up the aisle with me, and when we got to our post, she exclaimed, in a medium volume, the names of every single person she recognized, fixating ultimately on Emily and Debbie (“Mimi? Debbie? Mimi? Debbie?”). When the string processional ended, she clapped and said “Yea!” She lasted until the homily, when she began to wander around to greet the guests. I gave Granny the signal and Lucy made her exit.

She was the belle of the reception, running around like a crazed creampuff. She even managed to horn in on the first dance, which Melanie and Adam were gracious enough to let her crash. The only person prettier was our Melanie, who took my breath away. This bride couldn’t possibly have had the show stolen from her, despite being generous enough to share it with a hammy, disruptive child.

This is what they call the “pre-verbal” stage. Despite the fact that she talks pretty much from waking (“Mama bear blanket duck birds diaper”) until sleeping (“night night prayers mama dada lucy mama geggy baga opa go sleep duck night night”), we seem to have a communication problem. The kind of communication problem you would have with a small, type A cavewoman. Wants it how she wants it, when she wants it, but can’t really describe her particular vision for how it should be. As in:

“Moosk. Again. ‘gin, ‘gin, ‘gin, ‘gin. Algator. ‘gin, ‘gin, ‘gin” = “Mother, that ‘Alligators All Around’ song is delightful. Let’s listen to it 30 or 40 more times or until I can sing all the words. And you sing along. No listening to NPR, please. Thanks.”

“Nini hello Nini hello Nini hellooooo.” = “I want Nini’s cell phone, which I see very clearly in the armrest. I can still see it. You’re not fooling me. Hand it over.”

“Type! Type, type, type.” = “I have a great idea for a screenplay if you’ll let me use your laptop for a while.”

“Nooooo-wa. Nooo-wa.” = “No, that won’t do.”

She is driving us a little crazy. And the feeling is mutual. She looks at me sometimes, her eyebrows lowered, and I KNOW she is thinking, “I am surrounded by idiots.”

Lucy ate dog food for the first time a few minutes ago. She was crunching on something with a curious look on her face, and when Jason fished it out, we saw that it was dog food. It’s amazing it’s taken her this long.

Right now, I am warming water on the stove for her bath. I feel like a pioneer woman. We have intermittent cold water and no hot water because of some mysterious leak in our foundation (pipes? undiscovered spring? the fountain of youth?). I think tomorrow we are going to have a distressing conversation with a plumber. Until the problem is resolved, if you encounter a dog-food-eating, unwashed toddler, she is not a Katrina refugee. She lives at our house.