I Have a Mini-Me
Jul 17th, 2008 by susan
I have a mini-me, and her name is Keilani! It starts at 5:45AM when I am awakened by my mini-me wanting to “sleep in Mommy’s bed, yes?”. (My mini-me is also working on some Jedi-mind tricks that she must have learned from her Star Wars-loving Daddy — she phrases each of her questions as statements that tell you exactly what she wants you to do for her, as in, “Mommy, sit right here, yes?” or “Mommy, give me a special treat, yes?”)
After waking the absolute bare-minimum required to let her out of her room I fall back into bed (it’s 5:45AM!) and my mini-me follows me. “Sleep in Mommy’s bed, yes?” she “asks”. “OK, yes, fine, but you have to SLEEP, Keilani! And don’t wake up your sister!” I mumble, trying not to wake up anymore than I already have.
Seconds later my mini-me has wedged as much of herself as is humanly possible against my body, despite the vastness of our queen-size bed, and begins to thrash around. “Get up, Mommy? PEAS, Mommy, get up! Peas?” she asks. I pretend to sleep, praying for just a few more minutes of blissful rest and hope that she doesn’t wake up her sister. As Malia stirs, however, I realize the day has dawned and I must get up.
My mini-me follows me to the bathroom where we get ready for the day, “Mommy wash her face, yes?” she asks and has me lift her into her special seat on the counter to watch. “Mommy needs to make her coffee, honey”, I reply groggily, but do wash my face and dust a little powder onto her cheek as I put some on my own.
My mini-me knows that we need to turn the baby monitor on for Malia, “Need the monitor, Mommy, Kani do it?” and follows me down to the kitchen. As I make my coffee my mini-me opens our beverage refrigerator and peruses the selection, finally settling on a 100% apple juice box and pouring it into a cup before drinking it (she has just recently mastered pouring and still manages to splash quite a bit of juice onto the floor as well as into her cup).
The rest of the day progresses in much the same manner — when Malia cries Keilani shouts, “It’s OK Baby, Mommy’s coming! Don’t cry Baby!” and rushes to beat me upstairs to get to Malia first (she loves her sister very much!). When I go to sit down on our couch to nurse Malia my mini-me arrives there just ahead of me and I end up sitting on top of her, trying not to squish her but laughing loudly — she loves this game, and nurses her baby “Tina” right beside me as I nurse Malia.
My mini-me next wants to “work on something, Mommy, yes?” at Daddy’s computer while I work on mine alongside her, and she then calls Daddy or Grandma as I do and talks on the phone to them, hardly needing my help and cradling the phone between her ear and shoulder as she’s seen me do a thousand times.
My mini-me is the best and worst of me, giving loving care to her beautiful baby sister but also lecturing and yelling at her, “No, Baby, No! Don’t spill Baby! That’s not NICE, Baby!” as I’ve said (OK shouted) to Keilani many times before, and when I hear her I am looking in a mirror in which my parenting is perfectly reflected back in all its “glory” (and gory!).
I hope that I am fostering more of the loving warmth and less of the “No, Baby, NO!” in her, but only time will tell. In the meantime, I love my little mini-me with all of my heart, and her baby sister, too! Malia already looks at Keilani with such rapt adoration; it is only a matter of time before Keilani has a little mini-me of her own.
