By Paul Lane
CNHI
NORTH TONAWANDA —
The sequence of events began innocently enough. Penny said my name, hugged me, smiled and asked, “Are you happy?”
“Sure, sweetie,” I replied with a beaming grin.
She leaped off of the chair and inched toward her toy box.
“Are you still happy?”
“Yes.”
She took one toy out and set it on the floor.
“Are you still happy?”
“Yes.”
She grabbed the sides of the toy box, flipped it and — without ever breaking her smile — sent every toy hurdling, as though Buzz Lightyear, Elmo and the Little People dog had enlisted as Olympic gymnasts.
“Are you still happy?”
Such is life in the Lane house of late. Penny has decided to push nearly every limit we’ve set on her (and, by extension, Rigby’s doing the same thing — or at least encouraging her to continue her insubordination with his infectious laughter).
Potty training? Going well, but every so often she’ll venture into Grandma and Grandpa’s kitchen, bend over and test the durability of her Pull-Up right then and there just because she can.
Bedtime? No matter how much the fatigue shows on her face, Penny will defiantly declare “I’m not sleepy” until she passes out from exhaustion (and this is well after the Battle of the Big Girl Bed has concluded for the evening).
The aforementioned toys? She’ll help clean them up — at least until Rigby decides he wants to sit in the toy box and pretend it’s a race car.
She’s even defiant when it comes to showing pain. Her pride apparently starting to develop, Penny tries with all her might to hold back tears when she gets hurt. Ask her what hurts, and you get back a terse “Nothin’!” Ask what you can do for her, and you get an even more terse “Nothin’!” I’ve been too afraid to ask her a third question after that.
Not that I want to — or could — hold her back, mind you. She needs to become as much of a young woman as a 3-year-old can be. So if she wants to hop out of the wagon and help me pull Rigby around Niagara Falls State Park, I’m all for it (once we’re not near the cataract, at least).
She’s even asked me several times if she could drive the van, one time breaking down into a pretty big tantrum when I wouldn’t allow her to take the wheel and put me on the Worst Parents of the Year list (getting her Disney princess keys and having her “assist” me — think Maggie in the opening credits of “The Simpsons” — helped us avert a complete meltdown).
As much as I encourage her to do things “all by my-SELF,” though, I can’t help but be amused by how much she vacillates on the issue. For every time she wants to feed herself a bite of cereal (or, more accurately, adorn herself in it), she’ll insist that I spoon the next bite into her mouth (Rigby, for his part, enjoys both putting the food into his mouth by himself and taking it back out by himself to feed to the dog).
So by no means is she an independent woman (sorry, Beyonce). But she’s getting closer pretty much every day, which I would suppose means plenty more shirts put on backward, impromptu doggie meals on the living room rug and hour-long bedtime battles in our future.
And yes. I am still happy.
