Sometimes Veronica has a slightly different take on life than the rest of us. Case in point:

A stray tomcat has been hanging about our door, and we've fed him once. He's quite friendly and Veronica is absolutely beside herself when he arrives. So yesterday morning, I ask her what she'd like to name the kitty. And she said:

"I wanna call him Person, 'cas he doesn't know what he is!" And then giggled at the hilarity of such a thought.

Let that one roll around your head for a few minutes...pretty complex, isn't it? She did acknowledge a few minutes later that calling him Person "could be complicated." Like I said, a slightly different take on things than the rest of us, for sure. She wouldn't be my Veronica if she didn't.

One thing I never expected about parenthood is how those little milestones can sneak up on you...how your child uses a potty just once and then it seems she's been doing it for years...how one step so quickly turns into hundreds...

And now that I expect this slow, steady crawl towards maturity, it surprises me when it comes all at once.

Case in point:

Two nights ago, Veronica and I were at Target, buying her a couple new swimsuits. We ended up looking around for some more items and in doing so, wandered into housewares and decor.

We walked down the aisle with the items for children's bedrooms when Veronica suddenly said, "I want my bedroom to be all princess. I don't want it to look like a baby room anymore." She wanted a lot of items but we settled on a set of sheets; a frilly little lamp; a Disney Princess poster; and a wall hanging featuring Snow White.

Once we got home and dinner was eaten, we headed upstairs to remove the "baby items." The cross-stitch with baby footprints and her name and birthdate - gone. The little lamp by her bedside, a desk lamp once purchased because it was the only one her tiny fingers could flip the switch on - gone. Her Dora the Explorer sheets - gone. Her Winnie-the-Pooh framed prints - gone.

Then we came to the Winnie-the-Pooh lamp, decorated with a plush Pooh and a design of letter blocks.

"Let's take that stupid old thing down, Mommy," she said. And I did, remembering five years ago as I purchased that lamp, cooing over how sweet it was and how it would light up baby's room so nicely. How carefully those little prints had been hung on the walls in her first room. I almost cried.

Once the lamp was removed from the dresser, she stood up on her bed and put her two little flavored lip glosses in its place. And I sighed, looked around, and told her:

"Veronica, this looks like a kid's room. This doesn't look anything like a baby's room anymore."

She smiled proudly and I did too, blinking back tears as I did so.

There's a certain phrase that I believe all parents will utter at some point or another. I got my chance about a week ago.

Veronica heads upstairs to go potty. If it's just peeing, she doesn't need my help for any reason; she's big enough to handle the process on her own, thanks. So when she hollers for me, I can't understand why:

"Mommy! I need you!"

"What?"

"I need you! Come up here!"

"What for? Did you poop?"

"No, just pee! Come up here Mommy!"

So I head up the stairs.

At the top of my stairs is the bathroom. The door is open. Veronica is sitting inside on the toilet, pants around her ankles, her little legs dangling above the floor.

The toilet paper roller is empty...and there's about half a roll's worth of toilet paper piled beneath it on the floor.

So before I could even think, I uttered the phrase:

"Veronica - WHAT THE HELL?!"

And she so succicintly answered:

"HUH?"

So I rephrased.

"Veronica, what did you DO in here?"

"I took all de paper off."

Well, ask a stupid question....

I decided to look for the logic.

"OK, I see that." deep breath "WHY did you take all the paper off?"

And while looking confused yet perfectly justified at the same time, she answered:

"'Cas I wanted to see what was under there. I wanted to see the brown part."

*SIGH*

Every now and again, she reminds me that words have more than one definition (My explanation of the highway berm to her: "That's where you go if you're in an accident," to which she responded sagely, "Oh, like if someone pees in your car."), that life has more reasons behind it than you think, that minds don't necessarily work with the knowledge and logic of a jaded adult.

So the paper got folded up over the roller and used in that fashion until it was gone. And that was that. Just a little toilet paper strewn across a floor, and an adorable memory to last a lifetime.

Veronica strikes again.

First off, Veronica's favorite band right now is Shiny Toy Guns. While she was with Jason this weekend, he was not surprised to hear her singing along with their music as she sat in the backseat. However, he WAS surprised when he looked back and saw that she was sound asleep, eyes closed, slack-jawed, and singing along in her sleep. Told you she likes them!

Secondly, Jason thought he awoke before her on Sunday. It turns out she was awake, eyes wide open, just not moving. Jason asked what she was doing.

"Thinking," she said.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked.

"I was thinking that I wish to have superpowers like the Fantastic Four," she answered. "That would make life so much easier."

As Jason tried not to laugh, she continued, "I wish to have powers like the girl in Teen Titans."

"Raven or Starfire?"

"Starfire."

"Oh, so you want to fly and shoot lasers?"

"No," Veronica said, still deep in thought, "just shoot lasers."

I bring up this exchange during our drive to school and work this morning.

"So Veronica, Daddy said you wanna have superpowers?"

"No, Mommy. I was thinking about it."

*snicker* "OK, you were thinking about it. Why would you think about having superpowers? What would you do with them?"

*thoughtful silence*

"I'd fight bad guys. I'd shoot lasers at them."

Ah. Well, of course. Silly me.

The "wish," by the way, is also prominent in her lexicon. As in, if she sees something on a TV commercial that she'd like to have, she doesn't yell "I want that!" or "I wanna have that for Christmas!" or "Gimme!" No, she says,

"Mommy, look! LOOK! I wish to have that! I like that! I wish to have that too!"

*sigh*

Only my kid, I swear.

I have to record one of the games we play.

After Veronica's bath or shower, I wrap her up in a hooded towel and sit her on my lap. Most of the time, as I'm drying her off this way, she says something along the lines of "Let's play hide and you don't know!" She's usually so excited that the request never comes out right, but I know exactly what she means.

She covers her face by pulling both sides of the towel over her face. The hood is still positioned on her head. I continue to dry her and talk aloud about what Veronica's going to do, what jammies she'll wear, etc.

And then I hear, from beneath the towel:

"Oink, oink."

"Oh my gosh, I'm drying a pig!" I exclaim. "I'm drying a piggie! How did this happen? I thought I had Veronica in this towel! Now where's that little curly tail?" And I start tickling her lower back until she's laughing so hard that she can no longer keep her face covered. Then I say "Oh it's you, Veronica! You tricked me! I thought you were a piggie!" And she just continues to laugh with an ornery grin on her face.

This is almost every night. There's been a few other animals that have appeared in the towel, the most recent being a duck ("quack, quack"), but most of the time I hear a little voice plaintively saying "oink, oink." And I rue the day when I no longer hear any of them.

Jason picked up Veronica from my apartment yesterday morning. As I started to go back inside the apartment, Veronica gleefully shouted, in only the way a four-year-old can,

"Bye, Mommy! Have fun being alone all by yourself!"

*sigh*

I know, it's been forever since the last post. We've been busy.

Notes on Veronica:

She is a natural born storyteller. She makes up elaborate tales involving her toys, and her dreams, and what's happening in picture books that have not yet been read to her...and even the ones that have. If she doesn't know the reason for something, she tries to come up with one. It's amazing.

Veronica has resumed swim lessons and has now started dance lessons. She enjoys both immensely. I watch her at her dance lessons and can sometimes see the little girl who struggled to walk; just the way she moves, I can tell that her muscle tone is still low, that she's still a little too flexible and yet not as strong as the other children. But why would I point that out to her? She's having a wonderful time, she's learning, and she's doing well. And only as her mother do I notice it.

She is not shy and talks to anybody and everybody. She orders her own beverages at least in restaurants; sometimes she'll order her own meal as well. She's very good at repeating what has happened during her day or her weekend.

And then there's how sweet she can be. Last night I was washing her back in the tub and made some offhand comment about "be nice if someone gave ME a backrub!" Oh, how I forget that there is no such thing as an offhand comment around a four-year-old! Veronica instantly piped up, "I'll rub your back, Mommy!" While we forgot then, she remembered this morning, and even though we were running late, I had to stay seated on the floor while she ran her little hands up and down my back, gently, as if she were petting a kitty cat. She did this a few times and then said "Done! Mommy, was that a good back rub?" I told her it was the best I'd ever had. And it's true. She can be so loving and so sweet that I can't imagine the best masseuse in the world could've made me feel any better. :-)

Here's pictures of Veronica from the past few weeks, vogueing in her dance gear; posing in one of her special lil' self-picked compromise outfits for a school day; and shilling for Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, apparently. What a ham. What a doll. I don't know what I'd ever do without her.