Typecasting

One of the intriguing, and occasionally maddening, things about a toddler is that just when you think you have a handle on their habits or preferences, they change course. Countless times we have brought dinner leftovers to daycare, assuring the teachers that Edith gobbled up this dish the night before...only to hear at the end of the day that she wouldn't touch it for lunch.

One of the ironclad rules, we thought, was that if you put a hat on Edith's head, she would tear it off. Occasionally you could slip it on without her noticing, but once she felt it, off it went. If it had a chin strap that she couldn't foil, she'd tug at it and scream until you rushed in to prevent her choking herself. We figured that teaching Edith to wear a hat would be a long struggle, with gradual improvement as she grew older.

This past Sunday, I couldn't resist bringing Edith's big straw hat to church in the hope that she'd wear it long enough for an entrance. It was so cute, and Ms. Pam, who runs the nursery, loves dressed-up little people. So right before we opened the nursery door, I stuck the hat on Edith's head. Distracted by saying hello, she didn't yank it off right away. Tom and I departed for the service.

An hour later we came to get her and found her sitting at the table eating snack...with her hat on. Ms. Pam reported that she'd had it on the whole hour. There's no way she could have failed to notice it; it has a broad, floppy brim that circumscribes her peripheral vision.

The rest of the day, while we were out and about, she wore a hat. Yesterday morning, I put one on her head before setting out for school, and she patted it, said "hat," and smiled.

What happened in her sleep, that she went from loathing to liking overnight?

Some of us are truer to type. I completed and handed in a draft of my first dissertation chapter yesterday. To celebrate I took the afternoon off from working and relaxed instead. Thrill-seeking personality that I am, I read a botanist's natural history of marijuana. Amazing stuff...