My Teensy Turns 5!

Well, my Teensy is now five years old. On one hand, it's hard to believe that my raven-haired, sweet-tempered baby girl is now a five year-old Malibu Barbie look-alike. On the other hand (if you know her personality at all, you might see where I'm coming from here), I feel like she should have turned five long ago. I used to say she's four going on seventeen. I guess now she's one year closer to her "real age."


Just this morning, Teensy asked me why I wanted to name her Marlee. Here's the scoop: I thought it was a cute name. That's it. Michael and I used to watch "The West Wing" on TV and Marlee Matlin was a frequent guest star. I read her name on my TV screen often enough that it really won me over. It's no secret that Michael was more smitten with the name "Mallory" when I was pregnant, but in the aftermath of her speedy delivery his pity and love for me were great enough to give me my first choice for her name. Teense's middle name is after my paternal grandmother's middle name (and she got it from an aunt). Oh, how I love that woman, as does Teensy.

Batman has Robin. Fred has Barney. The Lone Ranger has Tonto. Teensy has Selena.

Here's the thing about my Teense: she's beautiful. She has gorgeous corn silk hair and blue eyes (just like the great-grandmother she's named for) and adores both of those physical characteristics about herself. When she was a baby, strangers would stop me all the time to tell me how beautiful my baby was.

But she's more than just a pretty face. She's delightful. She loves to cuddle; she loves to shake her hips. This girl is as smart as a whip! She loves to learn. I've never had a child give herself "homework" before and scold herself for not doing it perfectly. That said, she is quite a perfectionist. I have to remind her constantly that everyone makes mistakes when she is learning something new. She watched me tie one of her shoes about a month ago and hasn't allowed me to tie her shoes for her since. She catches on to things very quickly.


She's very daring about trying new things, but if someone new tries to talk to her she will hide between my legs whispering her fears to me. Showing her wild side at the pool, her favorite activity this summer was having her daddy throw her over his head:


Teensy loves to sing and dance; she holds the family high score in bowling on the Wii. A lover of all things girlie, she can't get enough lip gloss or hair accessories. I never thought I'd get her out of the bathroom the morning I taught her how to use a second mirror to look at the back of her own hair. I don't know which she loved more, learning to use that mirror or her more recent discovery that stores actually let you try on clothes in a dressing room before you buy them. Like I said, it's like she's seventeen or something.

Of course, we are hoping that she still doesn't suck her thumb when she's seventeen. When she was a baby I did some research and it indicated that 95% of thumb-suckers stop before they turn five. My Teense is more on the extra-ordinary side of that statistic, I guess. And I really don't mind. If my little girl is going to be so grown up in so many ways, I'll let her be shy when she feels like it and I'll let her suck her thumbie when she needs it. Of course, I'm willing to accept donations for her orthodontia fund...