Mischief Maker

Mischief is finishing up her first year of school (Pre-K) and I am beyond thrilled that we've made it through the year without any episodes of nudity or hair cutting or "artistic creativity" beyond the scope of the teacher's acceptance. And just like with Drama Queen, watching her grow and change is fraught with both sadness and wonder.

Her curls have grown long and beautiful and unruly - and so has Mischief herself. She is tall compared to Drama Queen at this age and she smiles and laughs freely - in a way I'm afraid Drama and I never will. She loves to dress herself in a velvet dress, red cowgirl boots, pink camo tights and a purple quilted jacket. And mommy is having to learn to be comfortable accompanying her in public in just such an outfit. She is quite capable of coloring in the lines and yet perfectly happy to color outside them. She doesn't just march to the beat of a different drummer - she goes marching through her day with a song in her head that most of us would assume wasn't music at all.

Her smile is amazing, lighting up her entire face, the entire room, sometimes I think the entire world. Often her smile appears for only a split second, before it travels to the light in her eyes, and breaks wide open into a loud, tonsil-baring laugh that can cause even me, in the weariness of the end of the day, to find my own smile.

She loves princesses, kittens, and caterpillars. Her favorite colors are pink, purple and black. Cupcakes, tootsie rolls and grape tomatoes. She is 100 percent little girl cliche and yet somehow 100 percent against the grain.

But beyond all of these marvelous traits, the thing that I love the most about my little Mischief maker is her unbelievably sweet nature.

Far too early in the morning, when I still reside in the land of Nod, she often stumbles into my room, her curls tangled into a halo, her sleepy face back lit by the hall light she has turned on as she traveled from her bed to mine. She climbs in next to me and somehow melts against me into the most comfortable snuggling position ever imagined. She turns up to look at me and with a look of absolute adoration that I have done nothing to deserve she whispers, "I love you mommy. You are the bestest." She will then begin to pepper my face with kisses, taking a break every so often to doze back off, and then wake back up to kiss me again.

Eventually we'll have to get up and get ready for school and work and she will find her way back into her unknown rhythm that often frustrates me. But as I drop her off at school and dash away - my mind already starting to think about what waits for me at the office - she turns and throws me not just a good-bye kiss, but a hug as well. She wraps her arms around herself, makes a little squishy noise like she has been hugged a bit too tightly and then flings her arms open in my direction. And her hug hits me squarely in the heart. Every time.