My Good Girl

I really think Amelia is a good girl but there have been a couple of comments lately by strangers that leave me unsettled. The first occurred in the post office about a week ago. (It wasn’t our usual, local office). Amelia was her energetic self and wanted to run around. I didn’t want to turn my back on her so I put her up on the counter to watch the transaction. She was still a little fidgety and the clerk asked me if I had fed her a lot of sugar that morning. I thought that was rude!

Then today at lunch Amelia wanted to feed herself her yogurt at a very informal restaurant (Mexican fast food at 11:15 am, no lunch crowd at all). I was trying to help her a little to ward off a big mess since I forgot her bib. She got a little insulted, which she also does if I carry her up a flight of stairs rather than letting her walk up them, and she did her fake little I-am-insulted cry. The people at the table next to me who were waiting for their take-out order with their 4 month-old baby immediately said, “Oh what a faker. You can tell she gets her way all the time.” I glared at them and they were like, “We have two older girls. We know how hard they can be.” Whatever. Maybe I am cutting her some slack since I’m her mother but I know that she was trying to tell me she could do it herself. Her cry wasn’t long or loud either, it was just a little expressed frustration at her overbearing mother.