"MINE"

The brain of a 2 year old is fascinating to me. They're perpetual sponges, sopping up buckets of information and storing it away until one day, seemingly out of nowhere, they bust out a new verse from a random song or count to 13 in Spanish. These are the wonder years because by the time you get to be my age, you do inane things like stuff dirty clothes into the diaper genie and throw poopy diapers in the laundry hamper. (Yep, just did that this morning. All new record low). But I digress. Ella simply astounds me the rate in which she's learning new concepts every day.

One thing that has already been completely hard-wired into her little noggin, however, is the concept of "MINE." I'm not exactly sure where she learned this word and I doubt she heard it from me or Jake, nevertheless, she picked it up somewhere and immediately knew the context to use it in, just like any other toy-hoarding tot. To say that sharing is not second-nature to these creatures is an understatement. But is it for any of us? I distinctly remember taking my lunch to school when I was only 5 or 6 and not wanting to share any of my Farley's fruit snacks. I knew someone would ask. But they were mine and I wasn't about to give them up. So I did what any kid would do: I opened the bag and coughed all over them, ensuring that no one would want to touch them after that. (Real classy, eh? Truth be told, I miiight still do this with my dark chocolate). All around the lunch-table, my classmates and I were in bidding wars about who wanted to trade their Little Debbie for a fruit roll-up or something else, but I had a death grip on my lunch box. I didn't want to share, plain and simple.

But I grew out of that.

Okay, I lied. I haven't grown out of it. That would be nice. I try not to be selfish, but I fail. Sometimes I doubt I even try not to be selfish. And I could sit here and say, "it's just our human nature that we all come into this world hard-wired to look out for #1 and it's just the way it is..." to make myself feel better, but what that does feel like is a cop-out, even if there's a shred of truth in it. Over the last few weeks, I've realized that my selfishness comes in the form of a sense of entitlement, in feeling like I deserve certain things, acknowledgments, praise, even naps. My iPad got cracked a few weeks ago (I'm still so sad I can barely talk about it), and I tried to reason with myself that they (Apple) should replace it for me because it wasn't entirely my fault that it got knocked off the coffee table. (P.S. Apple products and toddlers are like oil and water). Or, our family should be able to move into that house because we called about it first and it really is perfect for us, so naturally, we should be able to get it. Hell, I even feel like I deserved that parking space at Target today because it was hot and I had two kids with me. Screw everyone else. That little old lady who can barely see above her steering wheel, driving a boat on wheels and who probably only walks at a brisque .325 mph? Nope. That's my parking space. I saw it first. I put my blinker on first, dammit!

On second thought, maybe I do know where Ella picked this up after all. If she can remember random lyrics to a song she's heard only a handful of times, why shouldn't she be intuitive enough to pick up on this idea of entitlement? This is a concept that isn't often spoken but acted out. And lately, I'm afraid I've been letting my actions speak louder than my words.

So there you have it. Another "aw, crap!" realization that hit me square between the eyes. Something to keep chipping away at. And while I'm at it, now might also be a good time to retire the Eminem CD from regular use in the car...