Miss Attitude

Pearl has quite the spunky personality and some MAJOR attitude! We are in for heaps of trouble when she turns 16, er make that 3 at the rate we're going! Take for instance the following examples over the past few days.

#1 - I bought Pearl the cutest Hawaiian print dress in Florida and was so excited to show it to her when I got home. She'd been on a dress kick lately and I figured she would want to immediately put it on and spill something all over it. But when I pulled it out to show her the "present" I had for her, she smartly told me "No Mom! I don't like it!" I was crushed! I figured it was just a new phrase she had picked up (which, by the way, has now replaced "I'n (yes with an "n") sleepy" as her favorite excuse for not doing what she is told) but believe you me, when I tried to get her to wear it to church she freaked out!!! I guess the battle between my taste and hers is starting a bit earlier than when my mom and I started fighting about what was cool and not-so-cool to wear. Too bad for Pearl that I'm bigger than her 'cause she's going to wear it!
#2 - Every once in a while we catch her saying "Oh my gosh" to something. I admit, she gets this from me. On Saturday my sister was over (literally saving Pearl's very existence with the fits she gave us that day...and on our anniversary no less) and I said something like "Oh my gosh Kimmy, your car is a mess!" To which Pearl immediately repeated, with a shocked look on her face, "oh my gosh!" It was hilarious!!! At first I thought she was saying that about Kimmy's new shoes she was showing us but later Jeff said that Pearl wasn't looking at the shoes but inside the car. Guess even Pearl was surprised to see something messier than her own room. Just kidding Kimmy!

#3 - We bought Pearl a new bike helmet (Do you know how hard it is to find a girl's helmet without Dora the Explorer or some lame Disney Princess on it?), so she is one, safe when we take her in the bike trailer (and settling my nerves and guilt for not having one before, considering that I now work in the injury prevention field), and two, because she has been jealous that mom and dad get to wear one. Honestly I thought it would be a battle to get her to wear it on our bike rides but the real battle is trying to get her to take the darn thing off! She would wear it all day if she could and would probably sleep in it if we let her. She even wanted to wear it to church and the store. It's the first thing she finds in the morning and has brought it into our bedroom at the crack of dawn since the day she got it begging us to put it on. The only reason I have a picture of just the helmet is because I took it out of her bedroom so it's not the first thing she sees every morning. She loves it, except when Jeff taps her head which she says "no Dad, hurts" or something similar to that. I'm glad my health education nagging has paid off with at least one person!
#4 - Screaming at the top of her lungs "back to nursery" and "go back to church" on Sunday. While I commend her desire for spiritual knowledge (or is it really the snacks, toys, and singing she's after?), it was a little ridiculous hauling a screaming and flailing two-year-old out of the building, especially considering that she was jerked out of sacrament meeting for fake belching, climbing all over the place, and then freaking out because she didn't get a nap.