Eleanor Doesn’t Like Her Mama
(When Daddy is Around)!

I’m sure I’ve mentioned in the past that Eleanor is a Daddy’s girl. I used to think it was because she spent most of her time with me. I was home almost full time with her until she was about 18 months old and then she was in daycare just part time 3-5 days a week half days. So we were together a lot. I got her up in the morning and ready for school, I picked her up after lunch and took her home and put her down for a nap, and then spent the afternoons with her after she woke up. It was a lot of time with just the two of us. And if I were her I’d probably get sick of hanging out with me so much too!

But now, Josh and I are both working full time, and she’s in preschool full time. Josh leaves early in the morning, so I’m still the one that gets her up and ready in the morning, but aside from that she spends about the same amount of time with each of us.

And yet she still greatly prefers her Daddy to me! In fact, she has even been worse about it lately for some reason.  She will actually cry sometimes when I get home from Pilates class. And when I got home from my weekend trip for my grandfather’s funeral she refused to give me a hug and pretty much ignored me.

I don’t write this to complain. It doesn’t really bother me or hurt my feelings, I actually think it’s pretty cute and it gets me out of a lot of the child care work on the weekends (if Daddy is around, she insists that he do everything for her). I just think that it is so strange and funny that I have to write it down to make her feel guilty about it later.

What’s most funny about it is that, when it’s just Eleanor and me, she is perfectly delightful to me. She’s sweet and loving with hugs and kisses and wanting me to pick her up and sit in my lap and help her do things. It must be that she knows how sensitive her Daddy is, so she wants him to be sure that he’s her favorite and to think that she’s doesn’t even really like me at all. Well, I know the truth! She loves her Mama! Nobody tell Josh!