We go to the dentist office, and she’s asked who her favorite princess is.

At a visit to the pediatrician, the doctor looks in her ear and asks if Cinderella is in there.

At another appointment, a doctor tells her that all of the stickers left are “boy stickers” and that she’ll go get “some princess and Barbie stickers.” (Both of these doctors were women.)

She’s asked if her favorite color is pink, they are sure she must love pink.  (“No, blue. Blue is my favorite!” she says.)

It’s not that I think princesses or pink are bad, and I know that plenty of little girls love them – there’s a good chance she will one of these days, too.

It’s just that my daughter is so much more.

She loves being read to – Madeline, Harold & the Purple Crayon, The Snowy Day,  Pete the Cat, Olivia, Lowly Worm.

She loves painting and drawing and building tall towers out of blocks and Legos.

She loves playing with her dolls, taking care of her “teeny tiny babies”  and “cooking” in her play kitchen.

She loves dancing, throwing balls, playing train, helping me bake, telling stories, and dancing.

But not many people ask her about what she likes. (And believe me, she’d tell them. She has so much to talk about.) They just take a guess -and that guess usually has to do with princesses or Barbie.  What message is she hearing?

I know that it can be hard and weird to make conversation with a toddler.

But I think we can all ask the children around us better questions, boys and girls. When you do, you’ll hear all kinds of awesome things come out of their mouths.

Ask them what books they like.

What do they like to play with at home? What do they play with at school?

What do they like to do in the snow?

Have they drawn any pictures lately? What colors did they use?

Our children are people, and they all like different things. They have stories to tell, things to share. I would never assume I know what an adult likes just because of their gender – our kids deserve the same respect.

(And, for the record, she took a Spiderman sticker that day at the doctor’s office, and wouldn’t take it off all day. She thinks spider man catches spiders…)

It would be funny if I followed up that last post  – about enjoying the moment we’re in  – with a post about a big change coming to our family, wouldn’t it?

We’re expecting baby #2 in late July.

I thought a change like this would throw me into a spin about things we need and don’t have. But I’ve managed to stay firmly in this spot, this here and now. I’m happy to enjoy the time and place we’re in, to make space for a new member of our family within the home and life that we have. 

I know that, just like the first time around, things will change in ways we can’t anticipate- in hard ways and awesome ways.

And, while we wait, we get the pleasure of our almost-3-year-old’s commentary on the whole “baby in mommy’s belly” business. Some recent gems:

• “Is that lump right there the baby?” (pointing to my expanding midsection)
• “I can help with a lot of things, but I can’t help get that baby out of you.”
• “I’ll take care of the baby when mommy and daddy go out. I’ll give her a bottle and put her to bed.”

In a few weeks, I turn 33. It feels, well, mostly the same at this point. But also, it feels solid and settled (in a good way), most of the time.

My late 20s were marked by planning and looking ahead: moving, job changes, engagement, planning a wedding, starting a marriage, house hunting, buying a house, moving again, more new jobs, thinking about babies, pregnancy. From 27 to 28 to 29 it was one big step after another. I got used to that pace, to big changes and decisions.

So here I am, a couple weeks away from 33. And it’s so tempting to focus on the next thing. I try to resist searching Zillow for homes we could buy, and Pinterest for $20,000 kitchen renovation projects.

Instead, I want to plant my feet firmly and look around at where I am, where my family is, right now. Let’s just be here, together, a place we’ve worked hard to get to.

We’ve been making some changes to our home and living space so that it better suits our needs right now, and thinking creatively about the space. It feels good. It’s always been easy to find the flaws in our home, to think ahead to our next house, to put off making even small improvements because “how much longer will we be here?” But we’re going to be here awhile longer and it’s been satisfying to embrace our home, give it some love, and make it into the space we want. Financially, it’s comforting to not have a giant purchase looming, to take time to save and build up a little bit of a nest egg.

We have just these few short years of parenting young children. And there will be changes and transitions, sure, but it feels good to just make space for the magic of early childhood. If ever there is a time to just be here, now, this is it.

“Children think not of what is past, nor what is to come, but enjoy the present time, which few of us do.” – Jean de La Bruyère