things that make me laugh

today amelia returned to scaling large objects, such as cupboards & her highchair. i again caught her trying to hoist herself up onto the counter & in an attempt to mark the beginning of *the double a's coup against their mommy* i also caught her climbing the gate upstairs...that one was frightening. (however she seems to have good luck w/ stairs; she's only fallen the complete length of the stairs once, which is amazingly miraculous in my opinion). 

amelia just mystifies me with all of her orneriness though. she gets this sparkle in her eyes, gives me a wicked smile & off she runs to throw napkins. & if i don't respond quick enough, to tear the napkins up into tiny, toddler-sized pieces. or maybe she'll go through the trash or empty the paper shredder or dump out every toy basket/cupboard we have. but whatever she chooses to do, it seems she has a meticulous plan that involves doing 6 or 10 destructive things in a row, all within 4 minutes. i want to call it something like 'the trail of tears' but in comparison to the real trail of tears we are nowhere near the emptiness & such. really, the are two completely different things BUT for this reason i am claiming that name. hey, if women can call each other bitches & it's okay, i guess i'll call amelia's obsessive-destructive habit the gerbick trail of tears. 

b/c somedays i just follow her around wanting to throw my own tantrum & cry...i mean, this little, tiny ball of muscular toddler energy is destroying my house! throwing partially melted chocolate on my white cupboards! so this past week i've been enforcing that amelia starts to pick up her messes. she's nearly 18 months old--time to start crackin' the whip. (kidding, we don't whip them, just hour long time outs locked in a cupboard...okay, kidding again.). & today we were at a friend's house & i mentioned that it was time to clean up, totally not thinking that amelia would respond...but she did! she grabbed a few toys nearby that she had strewn about & put them in the toy basket. my heart melted in mama love. granted, those were the only 3 toys she put away during clean up...but it is the beginning of a very good thing.

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i have this habit of thinking to myself: 1 year ago, we were doing this, 3 years ago, this; in 2 years, amelia will be addy's age & addy will be 5 & maybe by then this will or will not be happening...etc etc etc.  so as amelia was crying last night, awake from a painful diaper rash (that wakes her up from sleeping nearly every time she pees) i thought this to myself: a year ago, we were getting up with her at least 2 to 4 times a night. we made it! we made it through the sleepless baby nights. then, i wondered if i should run & pick her up to comfort her. b/c you know, in 1 year she won't really want anything to do with me.

however. adeline has been in this severe mommy stage for about 6 months now. she wants to snuggle up to me so often. i really enjoy it, except when she takes to this hankering during dinner. & during lunch (or was it dinner) yesterday she told me as she was trying to rest her head on my shoulder: this is my favorite place, right here on mommy's shoulder. after that i couldn't resist letting her continue her snuggling while i ate. b/c i also have the word *sucker* written across my chest, apparently. but what parent isn't really a sucker for those things?

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& now a healing-coffee story 

i was telling adeline a story with her favorite characters: dora, boots, adeline, & griswold. the gist of the story is that they were all baking cookies for grandma great hazel & then were going to take them to her to make her happy. (there were so  many twists & turns in this story, don't let that short synopsis fool you. danger & swiper lurking at every turn!) so i told the story & adeline mentioned that grandma great hazel is sick & the cookies would help to make her feel better. i said that she's not actually sick but still cookies would make her feel happy & addy's eyes got really big & she added with her pointer finger up in the air: "coffee too! coffee make mommy feel better in the morning, take coffee to grandma great too!" i was like 'whaaattt?! coffee makes mommy feel better?' & she replies: "& gram mum too. when she comes to our house she needs coffee. it make her feel better"...

so now that adeline has learned her first lesson in theories of addiction, family addiction, & addiction patterns, she's well on her way to becoming a great therapist, psychiatrist, or an addict herself (hopefully just to coffee). really, i just laughed & laughed at her perception. 

& truly, she just said 'gay-gra' which is her term for *both* of her grandma's...so we could be talking about either coffee drinker. *wink*

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and addy's school has decided that the preschoolers need to start 10 minutes earlier & let out 5 minutes earlier in the late morning. *sigh* they're also changing up the drop off & pick up. grrr. the parents--all 13 cars--have to drive in circles around the school until the kids are let out of a side door. if we have our car idling in the parking lot or alley, we can get a traffic citation! what the hell? i mean, we're really supposed to just drive around, ever-so-slowly until they happen to get let out? it might be palatable if they were actually let out at the same time...somehow they get released within a 15 minute window anymore. 

last week they made us trudge through feet of snow (seriously, i had to jump over into a snowdrift to catch adeline before she leapt into it & i was up to my stomach in snow) & they didn't clear a path in general, so all the kids were going into school soaking wet. anyway, i don't know if asking the parents to drive around the block while waiting is the right solution.

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today is special b/c no one is sick (except amelia's terrible diaper rash & addy's ever-persistent eczema). it's blissfully normal.