42 - Even though my daughter was a toddler, she deserved to be listened to and her feelings respected

 

    Nicole sat happily in the shopping cart which I had placed near a circular clothing rack at Ross Department Store. The cart was only a few feet away from me, so I talked to Nicole about the cute, colorful clothes I saw because I had read the more you speak to your child, the faster he/she will speak. Of course, that hadn’t happened so far because Kyle, her older brother, always felt like it was his job to speak for her, so Nicole didn’t talk much at 18 months. I rifled through the colorful dresses but didn’t find anything, so I walked across the aisle to rummage through some nearby racks of clothing.

     The room was dark, so it was difficult to see, but my eyes adjusted.  I looked above, and a few lights had burned out. Finally, I  found two darling rayon dresses with lace around the neck and arms, so I tossed them into the cart. I walked to the racks on the opposite side of the room for a few seconds and then glanced over at Nicole. Somehow she had crawled out of the child seat into the cart without hurting herself.  Nicole was such a clumsy little girl. She used to bump into walls, doors, and chairs because she moved so fast, something she probably learned from me. 

     “Nicole,” I said as I rushed to her. “How did you crawl out of the seat?”  Yes, shoot me, I’m guilty, I had not placed the little seat belt around her tummy. I was shocked she had crawled down from the seat into the cart because she had never tried it before nor had she once crawled out of her crib, something Kyle often did.

    One of my chosen frilly blue dresses lay on the ground. Nicole grabbed the other dress with a balled-up fist and tossed it over the edge. “No, no, no,” she punctuated each word, reprimanding me as if I was a naughty girl. 

    “Nicky…” I said, a little perturbed. I walked around to the other side of the cart and scooped the dresses up off the floor. Just as I stood up, I saw one of her chubby legs dangling over the edge of the shopping cart searching for a sturdy hold.  Oh, shit, I thought, she’s going to fall. I dashed to the other side of the cart and guided her to the ground. “So you don’t like the dresses mommy chose for you?” Her loose corkscrew ringlets swung back and forth a few times as she nodded no.  Holding up the light green rayon dress with the lace around the neck, arms, and bodice, I said, “Are you sure you don’t want to try this on? It’s awfully pretty.” I dragged out the last two words. My eyebrows rose as I smiled hoping to at least talk her into trying it on. "It would look so pretty on you."

      “No. No.” She emphasized the last ‘no’ just in case I didn’t understand English or maybe she possibly thought I was deaf. 

      I looked at one of my choices. It was so cute.  I'll buy just one of them, I thought. She'd look so cute in it.  No, I need to accept her choice even if she's a little girl. I took a deep breath.  “Okay, I guess no frilly stuff for you."

     “Okay, okay, I'll return them.” When I walked over to the rack, I noticed that the lace was rougher than what I remembered when I was a kid a billion years ago. Now the lace was probably made out of synthetic thread which is stiffer than the linen or cotton lace used in the 50's.  Wah….(That’s me crying.) I returned my choices. Maybe I’ll still buy her one of them, I thought. I took the green dress off the pole. She'd look so cute in this.

     She had walked over to the dresses and grabbed different ones in the balls of her hand, then let go and moved down the line. She must be feeling for texture. Can a little girl be that smart? Well, mine was. Once she found one she liked, she pulled at the dress a couple times trying to get it off the hanger.

     “Let mommy help, or you’re going to rip it.” Before I could toss it into the cart,  she had pulled it out of my hands and clutched it to her body tightly as if she thought it was going to grow a pair of legs and run off.  I laughed, realizing what she was doing.  She liked the soft material. Well, that just taught me something, she's a tactile girl. She held her arms up so I could place her back in the basket. She had chosen a warm raspberry dress with a medium-colored purple three-inch border around the hem, neckline, and long sleeves. Some type of cute design was on the front, but I can't remember what it was.
     The color and dress weren’t my choice, and I was tempted to try and talk her out of it but kept my mouth shut, which was hard for Tina. "You chose a beautiful dress all by yourself.” She bobbed her curly head up and down with a smug look on her face. I wondered how she grabbed the right size because I didn’t guide her to a specific rack.

     I scooped down and returned her to the cart. She hugged her dress even tighter, possibly afraid I was going to abscond with it. I told her that we needed one more dress so I asked if I could pick one out and she nodded yes, as she hugged her new acquisition. I reminded myself no stiff material, no lace around the neck. I chose a couple of dresses, and we finally agreed upon one. It was a black and white checkered dress made out of a stiff taffeta material for the skirt and puffy sleeves.  But black velveteen was used for the bodice, with absolutely no lace around the neck; just three small pink roses decorated the bodice, and long, intricate lace bordered the bottom of the bodice, simple but beautiful. (I loved that dress so much that I kept it in hopes that I’ll be a grandma someday. As for the raspberry one, she wore it so much that it was dead by the time she grew out of it.)

     I rolled the cart up to the checkout stand while thinking, my little girl’s growing up. “Okay, Nicky, we have to let the nice lady ring your dresses up so I can pay for them.” I reached over to take them out of her clutch, but she clenched her fists tighter onto her prizes. Luckily, they weren’t fruit, or they would have been pureed.

     Her fixed stare and her thin, penciled lips reinforced how she felt. “No, no, no.” I felt as if I was being reprimanded.

     The red-headed cashier laughed. “Why don’t you rip the tags off? Then I can ring them up,” she suggested.

      I agreed and explained to Nicole what I was going to do.  Calmly she bobbed her head in approval. 

     “Looks like she really likes those dresses,” a heavy-set freckled lady said from behind me.

     “Yea, I’d say,” and then I proceeded to tell her what had happened.  

     “I guess she knows what she likes,” the cashier said as I paid for the dresses and the few other things that I had picked up for the house.

      Once I parked in the garage, I pulled my sleepy girl out of her car seat with the dresses that lay on her torso like a blanket.  She woke up as I walked into Alan’s office and he looked up from his desk and spun his seat around to face us. “Did my two favorite girls have fun?” Alan asked.  Nicole ran to him, and he picked her up and placed her on his lap. I told Alan the dress story, and he laughed that rich laugh that he has. Nicole held her dresses up to show him her prized possessions.
      “We have a very independent girl, don’t we?” He asked.  

     “We sure do,” I replied with a snicker.  And Nicole nodded her head briskly in agreement as if she understood exactly what her father had said. 

     It would have been easy for stubborn Tina to not have listened to my daughter and honored her request because I had a preconception of what Nicole should be wearing.  (She never was one of those lacy, frilly types.) I'm glad my daughter was opinionated and stubborn. She taught me that even if she was a toddler,  she deserved to be listened to and her feelings respected.