Toddlerized!

It has been awhile since I have had a two year old around, and although I have been a parent for 11 years and was and accomplished babysitter, it is easy to forget the AMAZING amount of work generated by a precocious toddler. Here are just a few gems from the past few weeks:

A metal cookie cutter in the toaster. Naomi came to me and said her fingers hurt. They were burning her. I asked her to show me what happened. She went to the toaster and told me that she put her fingers in there…she must have seen horror in my face as I quickly unplugged everything and fished out the cookie cutter, because she started to cry and say she was “so sorry.” My heart was beating a million times per minute as I thought of all the awful things that could have happened.

Calling out her elders. During a recent visit to Chicago, Naomi was promised a special waffle breakfast. After about a half an hour she came to me with a very dramatic pout on her face and said “Grandma lied me–where are my waffles?”

Making use of what’s on hand. A friend came to visit overnight and forgot her liquid face soap in the bathroom when she went home. Naomi found the soap and in a cleaning frenzy used all of it to clean the bathroom.

Fun with chemistry. Andy and I were sitting in the living room with both of the girls. While we were chatting, they started giggling, hilariously, around the corner in the hallway to the kitchen. Upon investigating the source of the giggles, we found Naomi squirting Windex from point blank range at her sister Gwenna, who was licking the nozzle of the bottle. Oy Vey! We really do watch them…but they can move so fast, and can think of the most creative uses for things.

And in case you think we have not been toddlerized before…

Helping with the dishes. When he was two, Charles flooded our entire kitchen. The water had even started to form a waterfall down the basement stairs.

Keeping daddy busy. When Alex and Joseph turned three I made a cake with a Busy Town theme. It had roads made out of black frosting and buildings made out of cookies, the whole neighborhood on a sheet cake. But the very best part was the die cut toy cars that were on the city roads. In a moment of sheer delight the boys climbed up on my buffet and drove the cars all over the cake. Let’s just say there were more than a few potholes created in the time it took my husband to bring a basket of laundry up from the dryer in the basement…. (Andy was the parent in charge at the time, since I was part of a search committee at our church.) In addition to calling into the meeting to tell me that there was an emergency at home, he must have really yelled because when I got home the boys said they were sorry and that they sang Amazing Grace with daddy several times. The boys probably thought that was why I put the cars on in the first place. To drive on the cake, right? Our friends’ reaction: “Those kids must have had such fun!”

I am sure that Gwenna will have her own surprises for us. She seems happy enough scooting around on her hands and knees, but she’s already blowing raspberries and climbing stairs…