It's a Good Thing That She is Cute...

Mike and I very often look at each other, the same run-down, exhausted look on our faces and ask in unison, “Where did Elyse come from?” I’m just going to lay it out there…the girl is t-r-o-u-b-l-e. I am completely convinced that never has there been a child on God’s good Earth who has ever tested her parent’s limits quite like she does. Ornery describes her on a mellow day. Mad scientist, evil genius, creator of all things rotten and destructive describes her on every other day.

For example…

Yesterday she got into a craft box that is Aaron’s and is filled with all kinds of tiny, highly illegal, massive mess potential supplies that are completely off limits to the Destroyer. However, sometimes as a parent, when your child is getting into something that he or she should not, but it is keeping them occupied, you choose to ignore what is happening in a vain attempt to grab a few minutes to complete a task. Things seemed ok until she found the glitter. Now when you are dealing with Elyse, you must remember one very important thing…Never, ever overreact. As soon as you get flustered and yell something like, “No, no, for the love of God, stop, stop, stop,” her little hands go into overdrive and she can hotwire your car and be half way to Mexico in the time that it takes you to move across the room. If you can compose yourself enough to very gently, and very quietly ask her to give you back whatever weapon of mass destruction she has in her possession, she will, most or the time, comply with little or no incident.

When I saw glitter, I panicked, and that is why my area rug in the family room is all gold and sparkly right now.

The cat food and water are also items of which she has much interest. She is constantly dumping more food into their bowls, or mixing their water with a handful of food. Do you know how many times that I have had to fish something out of the litter box?

I don’t even allow crayons upstairs because the one time…one time, that she got a hold of one, she autographed her bedroom wall, princess sheets, and just about anything else that didn’t move fast enough. Luckily crayon doesn’t transfer to kitty fur, but trust me, she was trying.

Her newest trick is to ninja her way into Aaron’s bedroom before they go to sleep to dump his cup of water all over the floor as a sweet little parting gift for the night. She also enjoys dumping his morning cup of water out onto his waffle plate if I didn’t get it picked up before she comes out of her room. If there is an open container anywhere in the house, she will find it, dump it, and be gone before you even know what hit you.

She knows when she is up to no good because she comes running from wherever the crime took place to announce, “Come on Mommy. Look at what I did.” When you tell her that she shouldn’t have done something, the first word out of her mouth is, “Why?”

I keep trying to tell myself that her third birthday will be here before you know it and hopefully with that will come a little bit more maturity and a little less chaos. I’m not holding my breath, but I’m at least keeping my fingers crossed. In the meantime, I guess our best bet is to Elyse proof as much as possible and keep her super busy with things that don’t end with me using the vacuum cleaner, or a whole roll of paper towels, or an industrial sized solvent of some sort.