The Nice, Nice Niece

This is Alexa, age 2. My niece. Chatterbox. Tank. Budding musical prodigy. And a whole lot more besides.

I haven't had a great deal of exposure to children in my life. It's supposedly the only reason Family and Children's Services decided we weren't fit to adopt them. And while it's true that babies befuddle the hell out of me, from about Alexa's age on kids and I get on just fine. It helps that for some reason they all love me. 

Alexa does, too. I can't see how a kid her age could possibly remember me:  before this past weekend, I last saw her over a quarter of her life ago. (Then again, if any kid could, it'd be her: the stuff this girl knew how to do before she turned two had me slack-jawed with amazement. She was speaking actual words. Quite a few of them, and she knew exactly what they meant. More: she knew several ASL signs, and the English equivalents. At her age I was--

My mom compiled scrapbooks covering my life from birth to age 6 or so. They are exhaustive: the first rock I ever picked up is taped to one page; a lock of hair from my first haircut is taped to another; my first straw is in there, every birthday and Christmas card I got in those years is in there...it's all in there. Such a treasure, and I only bring it up to assure you I have a primary source to back up what I'm about to tell you. 

At 21 months I had next to no vocabulary. "See Teddy"--except that almost always came out without the 'Ted' syllable, my first teddy bear was "E". I counted to five...we lived in a backsplit semi and there were five steps between the main floor and the second, and I'd only recently managed to get up and down those steps on my own. (I actually remember counting them when I was three. It was a ritual.) My big achievement in locution was "nice, nice", accompanied by a vigorous hand-rub of whatever was "nice, nice". A rug. E. Mommy's face....

Assorted other words, very few of them in real English, Hell, I was barely beginning to understand concepts like bedtime and car ride. Tux is quite possibly smarter than I was at that age. Alexa's a freakin' genius in comparison.

She's also indestructible...just like her dad. She got her first black eye yesterday when a playground swing nailed her. Her dad, Eva's brother, beat that by about nine months. I bet beyond the first blat, neither of them noticed or cared overmuch. Actually, her mom tells me that despite being told to stop playing, little Alexa decided one black eye was nothing, and it wasn't until she'd bopped herself on the other cheek with a teeter-totter swing that she'd had enough. For one day. The teeter-totter apparently bopped her a pretty good one...and barely scratched her. That whole family is made out of Timex watches (link for my younger readers, who, it just occurred to me, might not know the Timex slogan).  If the rest of her clan is any indication, she's going to grow up into someone you won't want to pick a fight with.

But she's also loving. Very much so. As I say, there's probably no way she could have known "uncle Ken" from a hole in the ground last weekend, but after my presence was declared,  she announced to the house at large, "Come see Uncle Ken!" The heart just melts. And I got to play with all her toys. I drew on her little etch-a-sketchy type thing (probably no better than anything she could have produced) and she actually pretended to study it for a while before erasing it and handing it to me to try again. Utterly adorable.

And musical. Her mom put a video up on Facebook of her playing her toy piano. She's a regular Jerry Lee Lewis: at first she's playing with her feet. Then she settles down and starts pounding out power chords with both hands. I can't wait to get her on a real piano and teach her to play. Something tells me she'll be like a sponge. 

She's got a sister on the way, named Lilly-Anne Elizabeth. Alexa knows who that is and where she is: "in belly", pointing at her Mommy. Incredible. Jim, Ally, just wait until her and Lilly-Anne start playing off each other. Your life will be a laugh riot. Or sometimes just a riot. You've got quite the little girl there. I'm looking forward to being part of her life.