First attempt with a utensil. Sure why not.
Unlike a lot of the titles I dream up for my posts, this one is right to the point. Scissors – Point, get it. Ha, I’m here all week folks, tip your servers and try the veal.
But seriously, a friend asked me today if Anne Marie was easier to deal with than Frank. I really had to think about that. After careful thought I’m thinking there might be a minuscule window where Anne Marie will be easier to deal with than Frank. I’m also guessing that window lies somewhere between when she potty trains and learns to dress herself, and the millisecond after she potty trains and learns to dress herself.
Mind you I’m not a scientist and I have not frequented any Holiday Inns lately, this is just pure gut instinct.
I get some foul looks when I say what I’m about to say. The looks coming from Mrs Frank’s Place, mother of Frank and Anne Marie of course. But I’m gonna say it anyway.
My four year old Frank is a smart kid. He can add and subtract without using his fingers or counting out loud. His old nemesis, the alphabet, is even starting to bow to his mental acuity. Having said that, Anne Marie is smarter than Frank by quite a bit. It’s starting to boarder on freakish.
You’ve seen the ladder she was building to jump the safety gate on the stairs. That was 5 months ago. That was a small step. Yesterday she took a giant leap. Here’s a refresher picture of the “Gate Box incident of 2013”.
Yeah no problem, I won’t touch the gate. I’ll jump over it.
Monday, 25 November, she realized she was tall enough to reach the kitchen cabinet drawers. Ten minutes later I realized it too.
I come around the corner into the kitchen to find my micro preemie jamming a pair of scissors like a crow bar between the refrigerator doors in an attempt to pry them open. She would have made it too if I was a few minutes later. The freezer door was about to give way. When I asked her what she was doing, two things happened. I got a look that basically said, “Really Stevie Wonder, what does it look like I’m doing?” And then realizing the scissors were her only chance to get the fridge open, she pulled them out from between the doors and attempted to flee. Thankfully she’s no where near as fast as her brother and I managed to grab her up after a few steps.
She had a strange look on her face. Sort of like this:
Don’t underestimate my power!
I’m not sure if that look is saying, “In a few months I’ll be so fast you won’t be able to catch me,” or “In a few months I’ll be smarter than you and speed won’t matter.” I’ll get back to you on that.
I still have no idea what she was after, but I do know there was something specific in that fridge. She expends no effort unless she has a goal. That much I have figured out about her.
Not one to rest on her laurels, while we stopped in to see Pastor Dave at Frank’s school, she quietly wandered over to his guitar case and had it open in about 2 minutes. I was half wondering if she was going to throw down a riff or two or whatever a cool word for playing guitar is.
After we got home she showed me how she could turn on my iPhone and open the twitter app. Of course she learned that little skill from Frank.
And for the record, any one who got some weird garbled tweets from me today, it was Anne Marie’s fault and had nothing to do with me accidentally OD-ing on Sudafed. I mean it wasn’t a meth head amount of Sudafed, but it was enough. My sinuses have never been more free breathing.
Anyway, the conclusion is Anne Marie will be much harder because as my friend Chris would say, “She’s wicked smart.” Plus what she’s not figuring out on her own Frank is teaching her. Add to that I’m 3yrs slower and dumber.
That my friends is not a good combination.
Second child easier, not by a long shot.
Frank's Place 
Both kids are smart in their own special ways from what I read. Anne Marie sounds like she enjoys a good challenge and that can make life very interesting. Two beautiful and smart children… you and Mrs Frank’s Place are blessed. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you 🙂
Happy Thanksgiving Chief. Yeah they are both smart, but watching a girl who should not be alive use her brain the way she does is amazing.
Fran – she’s a girl. ‘Nuff said. You don’t stand a chance.
Yes, that seems to be the consensus.
…or “wikkid smaht” to be phonetically precise…
You go AM…:)
In 20 years I’ll be sending her to your old age home to build whatever furniture you got tricked into buying from Home Shopping Network.
God, she’s cute. I only have daughters, so I know relatively nothing about boys or raising them. But I’ve heard 100% that boys are way easier to raise than girls. My friend, who happens to be the mother of my son in law, has had eye opening experiences since my daughter married in to their four son family. It’s been quite an experience for her. The teen and college and post college years are the worst. Lots of drama. You have to hate all the evil girlfriends and the bad boyfriends to stay on their good side. Then, it gets a little better. I love my son in law because he’s overjoyed when I cook for him. No one else does. It’s just so different! Just enjoy these years, but I think you are!
Yep I am enjoying them immensely. Thanks Chef.
Welcome to having a problem solver! My eldest son is the same way, and we’re just damned lucky he seems to have a good dose of common sense. He figured out the baby gates between 18 months and 2 yrs, and it wasn’t until he left what he must have thought was a pretty pattern of sweet potatoes on the floor of my office that we realized he was getting out of his room in the early morning, going downstairs to play and eat, and then going back to his room before we got up. Fortunately, he’s never been one to stick inanimate objects in his mouth (as least, not since teething), and he’s never found his way to the knife block or anything else catastrophic.
My only advice is to learn to rely on things that can’t be out thought–only outgrown. My son’s room now has a doorknob cover on the inside that can really only be opened if you’re hands are big enough to get around the whole thing–which his aren’t. Fortunately, he hasn’t realized that it comes apart…yet.
Thanks for the visit Sean. I can’t imagine my 4 year old son doing that, but this little spitfire, I have no problem believing her capable of it.
To be honest as a surviving twin micro premie born 4 months early at 1lb 12oz I enjoy seeing her outthink the situation. We never thought she would live let alone be able to do what she does. The experts said it would take a few years for her to “catch” her peers as far as development goes. The bottom line is they have their timeline and Anne Marie has hers. I like her timeline much better.
Reblogged this on Daddy Grab Bag.
Thanks man. Appreciate it.
Not a problem. I am immersing myself in this dad blogging culture by sharing out tips & quips from posts I admire, of which. yours is certainly one. I am writing a bit on the sly and will soon start sharing some originals.
I swear, every time I ask my brother’s youngest (3.5 year old girl) something, she gives me this look like she’s thinking, “…Don’t talk, Aunt Kathryn. Just….no. Every time you talk, you lower the IQ of the entire street.”
Yeah, I’ve been getting those looks from AM for a while now.
I wonder if we’re born with a fixed amount of brains, and if every additional child gets some portion of them. I only have one kid, and I’m already a moron. I don’t know if I have any more brains to spare . . .
Ha. Don’t know about that. I have 7 brothers and sisters and my parents seemed to get smarter as I got older. Maybe it skips a generation.
…Fran, is your blog…snowing?
Yes, Katherine, yes it is. WordPress turns it on in December and then off again sometime in February I think. There is a way to turn it off. I just forgot to do it this year.
Cool! 😀
Thank God! I thought my 99% disfunctional computer was finally biting the dust.
Hagitha