Hail to the Queen

Lexie is nothing if not an original.

Last Saturday, she spent a splendid morning romping around the park with her little neighborhood friends. Grace, Parker and Payton were all well turned out, adorable as can be in their coordinated summer outfits and shoes.

Then there was Lexie. She did her climbing, running and sliding clad in a most unusual getup:

1) pajamas (the typically loud baby kind, this particular incarnation consisting of white pants dotted with multicolored hearts and a blue shirt that spells out “LOVE” in colored letters),

2) hot-pink sandals, and (of course)

3) her crown.

OK, so the first two selections say more about me than they do about her (why change her from her pajamas just to walk down to the farmer’s market – our original plan – and why buy a second pair of summer shoes when she loves the sandals so and will grow out of them soon enough?). But the crown is all Lexie.

The child literally spends days at a time with the plastic, yellow tiara perched precariously atop her tiny head. It often comprises her vision (or at least, seems like it should) but always looks impossibly cute (if a bit eccentric).

And, by the way, she insists on wearing it upside down. If you try to turn it the “right” way, she’ll quickly (and unamusedly, I might add) correct the error.

I may have posted a photo of her wearing the crown on here before, but I’m not sure I got into how hilariously attached she is to these things. She unearthed them (there are actually two, Lord have mercy) from the seemingly endless cache of toys at Laurie and Jeff’s and has been besotted ever since.

Some more-disciplined (but less-fun) parents might let not heir be-crowned daughter wander anywhere and everywhere, limiting such a toy to playtime, but Andy and I adore it. It’s such an obvious expression of her blossoming personality – fiercely attached to her favorite fixation of the moment; unabashed silly; determinedly defiant; and unselfconscious as only a 1-year-old can be. And lest we forget the obvious, an inherent need to accessorize (gleaned from her female genes if not, sadly, from her mother directly).

What a pistol that girl is.