My four- (AND A HALF, just ask her) year old daughter has become quite the force of nature. I've heard this is common with youngest children, but it is hilarious and simultaneously scary to see it playing out before my eyes.

We took the kids out for chinese food last night. Rather than hit one of the nicer restaurants, we headed for the mostly take-out joint in a strip mall and sat around a round formica table. We were each given a glass of water and a menu to check out. We ordered, sipped our hot tea, and sat chatting calmly while the food was being prepared. As our waiter walked by, my youngest threw her arm in the air and said:

"Um, excuse me? Could you bring me some more water...with ice this time, okay?" I shot her raised eyebrows and a scowl. She straightened up in her chair and added a perky "Please, waiter?" She returned my look, eyebrows arched. Then she shrugged, and went back to dumping sugar packets into her teacup. When the ice water appeared, she nodded like a monarch and said "Thanks!" She didn't add "you are dismissed" but she was thinking it.

This is not to say that she's rude, per se. I mean, okay. Yes. Sometimes she is rude. But this recent rash of speaking her mind has been more assertive than anything. My baby is able to order for herself at a restaurant, determine where she would like to go, and what she would like to wear while going there. She doesn't like being overruled, either. Hoo-boy. No. She's NOT a baby, she WANTS what she wants, and I better just be on my way.

In fact, she has my outfits all picked out too, for that place that I can hurry up and go to. She hears it's hot. I should dress for eternal flames.

I had fantasies that my youngest child would be slow to grow up. She'd naturally rely on me longer than her independent siblings, and relish being my baby.

Ha! Bwahahahahaha.

Yeah. That gig is over. She's done with being my baby, and onto being my boss.