Raising A Little Lady

For about a week now, I've noticed a new skill Georgia has acquired. Spitting. Nice, I know. Luckily most of the time she does it in the toilet, but sometimes she tries to do it on the ground. For the most part, nothing really comes out of her mouth, but every once in a while she does manage to actually spit. Usually, she does it after a little coughing fit. She's had a cough for a week and a half now, and it seems to be going away. However, sometimes when she does cough, she will walk over to the toilet and try to spit into it. I figure she learned this from Andy, who had a cough a couple weeks ago himself. He'll usually spit in the sink or toilet at the end of his own coughing jag, like I'm sure all of us do when we're sick. At some point she must have observed this and took note. When I catch her doing it I try to discourage her, but at least if it's in the toilet it's a little better. Plus she was only doing it at home. Then she coughed when we were out in PUBLIC. Yay.

Monday was a beautiful day here in Los Angeles. You know, 60's, sunny, breezy, clear. Just fantastic. (Sorry to all of you still buried under a mound of snow, braving the below freezing temperatures. If it makes you feel any better it's cloudy and rainy today.) I felt like we needed to take advantage of such a inspiring day, because all too soon it'll be 90 and smoggy, or smokey, or both. So off we went to the zoo. We have a family pass which is good, because we can go for an hour if we want to. Although with that zoo it takes you an hour just to get all the way in and out of it. This was one of those days we weren't there for very long, because we got there late in the day. No big deal. We saw the giraffes, so they were satisfied.

We were walking out of the zoo, and they were all running ahead of me. Usually, Georgia sits in the stroller and sometimes Lana. That day I decided I'd let them both run around to get as much energy out as possible. Georgia has only been walking a couple months so she still looks like drunk midget, I'm sorry-little person-when she tries to walk too fast or run. She's still very likely to take a spill or two if her little legs won't keep up with her, but she looks so damn cute! Luckily the zoo wasn't crowded at all, so it was no problem letting them all run around while keeping them in my sight.

A few people were smiling at Georgia and how adorable she looked trying hard to catch up with her sisters. Then, she started to cough. I didn't think anything of it at first until the cough ended, she stopped walking, placed her hands on the ground in front of her and spit directly on the pavement. Then she stood up looked at me and said,

"Mommy! I SIT!"

The people who had been watching her, started to laugh now and looked over at me. I was a bit embarrassed, but what could I do? So I just said,

"Well, that's not very ladylike Georgia. No spitting."

She didn't really care, and continued her out of control run to catch up with her sisters. I just smiled at the observers and shrugged my shoulders. Oh well, at least I'll never see them again, and they now have a story about the 19 month old with bad manners. Then again, maybe she's just practicing to be a famous baseball player too.