Gilding My Lily

Is it wrong to say that I think my little girl is smarter than my boys?  It is?  Good, we got that out of the way.  It’s still what I think.  I like your opinion and all, but it’s not like you’re going to comment at the bottom of the post or anything.  That’s not me talking; that’s precedent. :D Lily was eating mashed potatoes out of a little orange bowl a few nights ago with her spoon.  My middle child eschews all silverware, which we are working on.  Mashed potatoes, for him, are a finger food.  After eating about half, she takes her spoon and tosses it and begins to eat Momo-style, manually.  I gave her the “and just what are you doing?” look.  She turns her head slightly, eyes still on me, slowly takes a handful of potatoes, pauses, and quickly jams it into her mouth.  I raised an eyebrow at her.  She then opened her mouth as wide as it would go, as if to say “yeah, what are you going to do about it?” My expression did not change and she repeated the whole process.  I couldn’t help but laugh by then.  Then she proceeded to mean mug me and then applaud. Last night she brought one of Connor’s rain boots into the kitchen just so she could put it on in front of me.  She did.  Then she walked around with it on.  Just the one.  Connor still puts his shoes on the wrong feet.  I asked him if it was uncomfortable and he conceded that it was.  Well, then….?  You’d think the next logical thing would be for him to fix it.  He won’t.  I’m not sure that he realizes swapping shoes would make it feel better.  I hope he does and he’s just stubborn. Connor was walking around the house stomping last night.  Lily started behind him doing her rendition of stomping, which is kind of a Sumo wrestler type move wherein she lifts each leg really high, kind of out to the side, as she walks. Connor will bring me a pencil and the little manual sharpener and ask me to ‘sharp’ it.  Lily will do it herself, almost successfully.  Did I mention their age difference is about three years? OK, so maybe there’s no real concrete evidence that she’s smarter than the boys, but it just seems like it. She can also attach herself to your leg like a koala bear.  She has all the talent of a strip of Velcro.  I forget why that makes her smart.