Delilah will be two on Sunday. In a way, it has crept up on us and I really can't believe where the years have gone, as cliched as that sounds. But in another way, it is hard to believe she is only just now turning two as since she was born she has been under the impression she is at least 25 and has gone some of the way to convincing the rest of us.
Delilah, or Lady Delilah as she has become known is independent, resilient, a drama queen, clever, cheeky, spirited, stubborn and somehow overwhelmingly cute and charming. Leo was and has always been a thinker, taking in everything, pondering and internalising it and then coming up with a reaction all in a very calculated and logical manner. Delilah isn't like that.
Delilah dives in before wasting any time thinking about whether it is a good idea. She speaks extremely well and therefore talks a lot. She has an opinion, and a very strong one, on almost everything. She refuses to accept, as she always has, that she is little and may require assistance with some tasks. She doesn't have time for getting dressed, getting clean and certainly not for having her hair done. She does have time for dirt, cuddles, food, her brother and her Grandma and Grandpa (not necessarily in that order). And really, what else does a girl need in life? Ok, so clothes would be preferable.
When you have a second child, of course you wonder whether they will be like their sibling, will they be different? Will they get along together? Will they suffer from never knowing the experience of being an only child with undivided parental attention?
Delilah answered all those questions in her first few months of life and has held true to them all. In a nutshell, she is as different from Leo as possible, but loves him to bits and idolises the ground he walks on and tries her hardest every day to be just like him. So, mostly, they get along so very well together and when they run around giggling at each other's jokes and worry over the welfare of the other and ask for two biscuits so they can share, it all seems a bit silly that we had those earlier worries.
Delilah is a girl of course, and in her two years has perfected the art of using that fact to her advantage. She is a rough-and-tumble sort of kid, but when she has had enough, she suddenly becomes a princess with looks that could kill and in desperate need of a cuddle before she expires in the next five minutes.
She loves dirt, and has been known to even taste quite a bit. She doesn't see the need to constantly have her face wiped or clean hands and always protests the process. She does however adore a bath in all its bubbly glory. Delilah is fast, she never stops, in her world everything needs to be inspected and handled and discovered and there is simply no time to waste. A slide is never to high and a playground never too challenging. She has a habit of never looking where she is walking, always looking around and behind her, making sure she isn't missing anything. Therefore she quite frequently walks into things and falls over and always has a war wound or two gain some sympathy points when required.
Delilah hates being still, detests the pram, the carseat, sleep, nappy changes, getting dressed or anything else that requires one to be still. She has devised a way of getting out of five point harnesses and has been known to push her brother back from the shops in her pram. She hates shoes and anything designed to keep her hair out of her eyes.
Delilah is yet to sleep through the night since she became mobile. She will wander into our bedroom sometime in the depths of the night with a "Daddy? Cuddles?" and the most gorgeously heart-warming smile ever on her face in the dull light of the alarm clock and snuggle down, tell Daddy off once or twice for his cuddle skills and then fall blissfully back to sleep in his arms. She is a cute one and makes it very hard for anyone to be upset with her. The charm on this girl has oozed since day one. A walk down to the shops takes ever so long by the time she stops to have a conversation with every single person who inevitably stops.
She also also perfected "the look", slamming doors, batting eyelids, whipping out the killer dimples, "NO!", cuddles, getting her brother into trouble and pointing out anything "pretty". All that I am told, are trademark signs of a girl.
She prefers to do everything herself. For instance, a trip in the car means Delilah putting on her own coat and hat, gathering up several inanimate friends, opening the front door herself, closing the front door herself, holding the car keys, checking the mail herself on the way to the car, opening her own car door, getting in her own carseat and doing up her own harness and then somehow closing her own door and then telling me which way we need to go and what we need at the shops. Any attempt to intervene and assist with any of the above will result in yells of "HEEEEELLLLP, OOOOOOUCH" all the way down the street and have concerned neighbours coming to see what abuse Delilah is being subjected to.
We reckon, from what we have seen in these first two years, Delilah is a girl who is going to hold her own, she'll be a match for anyone who bothers to challenge her and will be a hard one to pin down. She will have few cares in life and always look for the fun element in everything to make it worthwhile doing. She will be unruly by appearance but her stunning blue eyes, long eyelashes, dimples and blonde hair will render that unruly appearance invisible. She will have the world at her feet and choose to explore most of it for her own enjoyment, she will go after what she wants and while sometimes might fail, she'll get up, dust herself off and try again with a lesson learnt.
We fear there may be a B&S ute in her future also, and combined with that insatiable thirst for fun and adventure, that is where we choose to finish speculating.
Who knows, she is a clever one and knows how to work the system but also has a large dash of compassion and empathy for others and sooooooo much love to give. I can't wait to hand this to her in twenty years and see where my predictions came through, if at all. But in the meantime, we'll just sit back and enjoy the Delilah ride because one thing is for sure, its an unpredictable but incredibly entertaining one.
Happy second birthday Delilah Rose xxxxxx
