Depending on what guide you read, at Kaia’s age, she is either considered a baby or a toddler – a young toddler, at that. She’s obviously still wearing diapers. She needs us to survive and thrive and exist, but she wants to assert her authority and wants as much as possible the way any growing toddler hopes to. She isn’t quite communicating fully, though her vocabulary and sense of self expression is growing by leaps and bounds every single day. And so every now and then, she throws a little fit when she doesn’t get what she wants.

Yesterday while at the DeKalb Food Hall in Brooklyn, Chris bought a passion fruit slushie, and as he sipped it, Kaia gestured that she wanted it. I’m not allowing her to drink anything other than milk, water, or soup; she has her entire life to develop diabetes, so I’m not in a rush to get her closer to there. So sugary drinks do little to nothing for her now and should be avoided. So Chris moved the drink away, and I told her “no.” She got the message right away and started throwing a tantrum, crying, screaming, fat tears streaming down her face. She maneuvered all over the place to try to get out of the high chair, and she even had Chris almost twist and hurt his arm while trying to get a handle of her. She did it again when she saw the drink and we wouldn’t let her have it. And the same thing happened once again. Granted, it’s hard to get too mad at her given she’s been pretty good during our outings to date, but it was just annoying because we aren’t used to this behavior. These are her moments when she’s trying to convey that she’s no longer a baby, but a wannabe tiny human / toddler.

Then, you have the moments when she just wants to be held and cuddled. This is when she wants you to sing songs and read books to her, usually the same one over and over, and when you tell her that the doggie in the book says “woof woof,” she repeats after you and says “woof woof” while smiling, realizing what she just said. And you get googly eyed and think, she’s so damn adorable that I just cannot stand it. I just want to squeeze and hug her and cover her entire face with my smooches. And these moments tend to cancel out the toddler tantrum moments.

At least, they do for now. We shall see how she evolves.