That's My Girl

originally published Oct. 27, 2008 at aliasmichelle

I knocked on my daughter's door to wake her up around 7:30 one morning last week and there she stood, already dressed, complete with baseball glove on her hand. A few days before, we had been watching the Red Sox during dinner and somebody slid hard into second.

My son said, "He should watch it. He could hurt somebody."

Nina said, "Yeah, like Ty Cobb used to," and went on to explain that Cobb used to sharpen his spikes for just that reason -- to discourage a play when he was stealing a base. That's my girl.

Sometimes, it's like living with Mini Me. I backed off a little early on, when at age 2 or so she spent as much time arranging her crayons in a very precise, very straight line as she did coloring.

I must not have tried hard enough. Nina's as cynical and sarcastic as they come. Which is saying a lot since she's not quite 10. She constantly rides her brother, correcting and challenging almost every sentence out of the poor kid's mouth. She loves sports and books and animals and exploring.

She's fascinated by finding things out, always wanting to learn something new and she gets distracted halfway through a project and moves on to what's next. She'll finish it eventually. She likes games and competing, though she's more interested in beating her brother or her parents than, say, the other soccer team.

In other ways, she is as unlike me as she could possibly be. Not particularly organized. Much more, um, relaxed in the neatness department. She's built like a Russian tennis player. She has her own pace, own agenda, and I'm not quite sure what color the sun is in her world, but I believe it's a happy, girly color like cotton candy pink or a luscious lilac.

Admittedly, these things often want to make me want to scream loudly and rip my hair out. But I know if I did, I'd hear Nina's voice saying, "You know Mom, that's really not a good look for you. But at least it's not gray anymore."