Over the past few months, Clio has gotten increasingly...how do I put this?...particular. First it was books, as I wrote about in this post, a few months back. Then, it started happening with sippy cups. We noticed that if we filled two different colored cups, Clio had strong preferences about which one she wanted: pink trumped all, and purple or orange were better than blue or green. Try to hand her the wrong color cup, and she'd push it away and say "no" until you offered her the other one.
Then, just when I thought I had her color preferences all figured out, she changed her game. She started consistently refusing the first cup I offered her, in favor of the second one, regardless of color. And then sometimes -- in a cunning and exasperating twist -- once she had that one, she'd whine until I swapped it for Elsa's cup. (Elsa, bless her heart, could care less.) So now I just hold up both cups and let her choose.
What's even stranger (or cuter or more exasperating, depending on my mood) is that she also has preferences when two items are EXACTLY THE SAME. Por ejemplo: we have two identical toothbrushes, which we use interchangeably on the girls. The same color, the same design, everything. But lately, Clio won't accept the first one I hand her. Or she will, after I try offering her the second one. Or maybe, if Jupiter is aligned with Mars and the date is a prime number and the Sox are playing at home, she'll take the first toothbrush the first time. Who can predict -- let alone understand -- the ways of the Clio?
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