My little doll has a mind of her own. A two year old mind. One that is confident and brave, fearless, innocent and pure at every moment.

A beautiful, smart, adventurous, quick mind that makes me marvel every day. One that wants me to be a better person.

Sometimes too…one that makes me want to be a more profound person. I consider myself a quick thinker, yet Gigi requires me to think quickly differently. 

She also gives me timelimits. You need to puzzle out her little requests. Fast. Being her Mother doesn’t mean I get special treatment in this respect, no concessions or extra added bonus time! Oh no! She is fair as fair can be (another reason she would be a good politician see My daughter, the dream politician. We all get the same 15 seconds (less depending on time of day), regardless of who we are in her world, before she is frustrated. Toddler style. I have some brains. I think. I have the ability to logic and apply rationale. I thought. I have met my match however. This is largely due to the baffling logic (to me) Gigi applies to situations on occasion. If I were more profound, possibly I would cotton on more quickly. .. possibly. There is no Bachelor in Gigi’s Logic or Diploma in Toddler Thinking. I am on my own here!

Mostly I can see what she wants from me but then on the other occasions, when  ‘Toddler Boss ‘ is in charge I get me warnings.

Like this afternoon for example. She was eating lunch. Lots of lunch. Gigi likes lunch. After sweet potato and chicken, a small yogurt and bowl of fruit pureed, she asked me for ‘keg’. ‘I need keg Mammy’, over and over as I scratched my head. Cake?? Why would she want cake?  She doesn’t really know what it is. It is never here. Why is she looking in the fridge?  I asked myself the million questions trying to solve the puzzle that so many parents do on a daily basis, try to work out their toddler’s clingon version of words. I wonder how many people all over the world were doing something similar at that time? Scratching their heads in confusion as their little person tries so desperately to be understand. Anyhow, turns out she meant eggs.  Did you get that already?? Took me a bit longer! My own logic told me it couldn’t be eggs as we were on the dessert. Gigi’s logic doesn’t care about courses. Eggs after yoghurt? Why not? It put me in in mind of my first philosophy lectures in college where they tried to teach me to question everything and I dutifully wrote down every word they said as gospel. Thereby questioning nothing. Our lecturer (a friar) blew my mind by asking us to think about civilisation and how we eat meals, what order we eat them in and why we want new plates for each course etc. It felt as if he were criticising this method of our civilised world. It took me 15 years to realise that I think civilisation rocks and I don’t feel we should plop our trifle into our lasagne. I was a very nervous 17 year old boasting cripplingly low self-esteem and self-worth. A by product of my earlier education. It took Gigi two years to realise the opposite to me. She would eat whatever, whenever the mood takes it and it was up to me to order this tiny chaos.  As I pondered ‘deep’ philosophical questions, inspired by my daughter, in the meantime she had settled for a quarter piece of Liga. Which brings me to the real reason you are reading about this non event.  Gigi’s logic.

Liga lives in a larder press. On top of a fresh box, I had laid the last packet from the old box on top. For those of you who don’t know Liga, it is a rusk and  come in plastic wrap with two portions in each wrap. Gigi wanted to open the new box. I showed her the piece we should use first. No, no. I was told off. I needed to open the new box.  So here is one of these ‘pick your arguments wisely’situations where I chose not to fight. Just let it happen. I opened the new box. She then took the older packet from me, wedged it into the new box  (corners being mashed right and left) took a minute to pause, then took it out again saying ‘here Mammy!’handing it to me to open.

She wanted the action of taking it out of the box.

What? I really didn’t see that one coming.

Or the other day. I put her water bottle in the fridge. She saw it there. I got dragged over by the little hand of power. We opened the fridge. ‘No Mammy’, she raised a dictatorial finger. ‘No. Don’t put water there. Not there’.  She carefully and clearly pointed with her ‘teaching’ finger into the space on the drinks’ shelf. ‘Don’t put there. No. Not there.’. She was very in command. Very pleasant. Very clear. Super Nanny eat your heart out. I was in no doubt as to where not to put her water bottle.

I still don’t know why!

In moments of clarity, I can clearly see reflections of me in her ways, my mannerisms and my way of thinking mirrored in her actions. You can see where I am going here…

Then again maybe you can’t. Thereby proving the theory that us parents are probably the baffling ones. Baffling each other all the time but thinking we are crystal clear!

How much I learn from my Gigi.

The water bottle is still in the fridge by the way. It is OK to be there today.

I am nowhere near figuring out this logic!