Sadie's Stubborn Streak

Sadie is stubborn on most days and today was, for some reason unbeknownst to the rest of us, a particularly stubborn day.  It was also a fussy day, but I don't think these two facts were unrelated.  

The day started out with Sadie refusing to take her nap.  She does this periodically, usually after deciding that everything that is going on around her is more interesting than falling asleep on Mommy's chest and having sweet little bunny dreams.  At eleven o'clock I loaded her up in her stroller and started to walk.  She fell asleep by the end of the first mile.  An hour an a half later I decided that she had slept long enough and went back inside, hoping that her mood would have improved (by the way, I walked over six miles today, so Sadie's fussiness is helping me along with my new years resolution).  

After the walk Sadie was her usual cheerful self, smiling and giggling and wrestling with Kitty (the stuffed cat).  There was also an incident where Sammy (the tortoise shell cat) got a little bit too close to the baby and Sadie almost taught herself how to crawl so that she could chase after Sammy when the cat corrected her mistake and inched farther and farther away.  It started with Sadie grabbing her tail (which Sammy tolerated remarkably well) and ended with Sadie grabbing a giant handful of fur and Sammy twisting around and running out of the room.  

Before long it was time for Sadie's afternoon nap, but for a second time in twenty-four hours she just wasn't interested in going to sleep.  After about an hour and a half of "singing" (the little baby whining sound that she makes when she's tired), she finally passed out and slept for a little over an hour.  Even after the nap and dinner she was still fussy until bath time.  

Bath time was the second time that we had an example of Sadie's stubborn streak.  When Sadie got in her tub she reached up and picked out her favorite rubber duck out of a line of rubber duck.  It never ceases to amaze me that she can tell them apart and repeatedly picks her duck out, whether they're in the water or on the wall.  Lately we've added a bath time story as a part of the routine, because Sadie gets so frustrated when I read to her.  I thought she might be less likely to try to grab the book and try to shove it in her mouth when she was surrounded by her precious ducks.  

While we have made some progress (she didn't try to rip the book out of my hands and deconstruct it), we still have a ways to go.  Our nightly reading routine goes something like this:  Sadie looks up, sees the book and then, very pointedly, looks away.  While I'm reading she will look at her ducks, or at the side of the bath tub, or down at the water, but she absolutely refuses to look at the book (or the reader of the book!).  As soon as I stop reading, she looks up and smiles.  Apparently this is hilarious.  Today I did extra crazy voices and she actually glanced at the page three or four times.  Baby steps!