I've read that all toddlers go through stages when they prefer one parent or the other.  I am the Chosen One right now for the little angel.

The other night, she woke up crying with The Poopy.  I sent my beloved in, since I had done night duty for the past several nights. 

The little angel, she was not having this strange blond man from whose loins sprang the seed that would become Somebody Little.  She ran away from him, or at least, she ran the five steps across her Very Small Bedroom.  She clung to the footstool at the base of the rocking chair, screaming for me to save her from the kindly stranger who offered to put her back in her bed.

"MOOOMMMMY!" she cried, as though the Elmo had been shot at point-blank range by an insomniac, trumpet-playing Ernie.

I gave in, as I do so many nights, because me?  I just want to sleep.  Tax season is wearing me down, friends.

In the purple light of morning, they are always friends again.  She usually only loves me best when it's dark out.  Perhaps she remembers the comfort of my womb.  Perhaps she just does it to make him feel like The Most Useless Piece of Shit Ever.  Which is how he feels.

Plus, there is this little, evil part of me that LOVES being the preferred one.  LOVES being the apple of her shiny blue eyes.  LOVES that, as they should, mommies sometimes win.

 

This afternoon, I left work a bit early, ran home to change, and jogged over to pick her up in the stroller.  We had a lovely time on our way back.  She wanted to play in the SandBacchus (the god of wine and sandiness).  As she stuck out all of her piggies, including the one that wanted to go wee-wee-wee all the way home, she allowed me to help her remove her Mary Jane tennis shoes.  My beloved, who I swear engineered the death of our twenty-five year-old, hand-me-down lawnmower, had gone to get more gas for it so that he could make that one last pathetic effort to start it that would convince me to let him buy some Cadillac of Lawns. 

As he pulled out of the driveway to go fetch more foreign oil, the little angel looked up from her digging in the pristine play sand. 

"Bye-bye, Daddy!"  she trilled cheerfully, waving her purple shovel.  "See you next weekend!"