The mind is a tortuous thing

You might remember long, long time ago when I wrote a post about my beloved little Emma. My then shiny, new twenty-four-month-old who’s now a wizened 26-month-old cutting class and smoking two packs a day.... She is obviously making me a wee bit on the senseless side of crazy. I look into those beautiful eyes that are so brown and glossy they resemble something that should be on display behind locked glass in a very expensive jewelry shop, and I see the future. Allan would probably refer to my visions as worst-case-scenario premonitions AT BEST. My drama-creating, knee-jerk anxious imagination, at worst. Maybe. Scratch that. HOPEFULLY! Because if not, it’s worse than what any Armageddon-come-hither prophet fledgling can tell me about my future. Here’s why: I foresee a girl who knows how to pick a lock and hot-wire a car. A girl who can flirt her way into any club or bar and weasel her way out of a flunking grade/speeding ticket/or reprimand of any sort by flashing a hard-practiced smile and, quite possibly, a bodacious set of ta-tas. In other words, I see the person I always wanted to be but whom I was too afraid to become for fear of losing my (probably imaginary) status as Favorite Child. She’s daring. Fearless. Cunning. And CHARMING!! And yes, she’s two. And I think I might have warned you already that I’m losing it. But there IS a case (or two) to point at. So for a moment, forget the fact that I’ve been driven slightly loony because everyone has been deliriously ill. (And by everyone, I mean three people) And forget the fact that it happened while my wonderful husband was AWAY, leaving me to fret and toil and WHINE about it to the internet.

Here. THIS is just one example of Emma’s craftiness:

She waddles into the room wearing sandals that are AT LEAST two sizes two small.

“Emma’s?” she whispers as she points to the sandals.

“No. Kyra’s,” I whisper back.

Unsatisfied with that answer, she asks again, this time a little louder. “EMMA’S?”

“No, KYYYRA’S,” I say and then proceed to undue the Velcro that’s barely doing its job of keeping her younger sister’s new shoes on those fat little feet of hers. I hand them back and say, “Now put these back in the closet.”

She gives me a crooked grin as she walks away with the shoes dangling from each hand, and I know. Oh, do I KNOW. So I follow her to the closet and watch as she puts them down, still smiling her delightful crooked smile. And I STILL know. So I stand at the closet until she walks away. But I can’t stand guard over the closet all day long. She knows, too. And so she smiles once more, her cherubic cheeks all aglow with cunning.

Half an hour later, her feet are shoved back into the white little sandals that she wants to hug and squeeze and call her very own.

Yes, I can (and probably should) move the shoes out of her reach. But MUST I? At what age do you convey the brilliant idea that no means NO? She’s my THIRD child and, still, I don’t have the answer of WHEN, exactly.

I won’t even get into how Baby Houdini now flees the confines of her harder-than-usual-t0-escape crib and scares the bejeezus out of me by sneaking into the unlocked bathroom where I am showering and, coincidentally, mentally translating random thoughts into a future post about, whaddya know, Emma! Ay-ya-yay...

SO. In closing, everyone is feeling MUCH better since my last post. Emma especially. Thank you guys for the well wishes. And I feel SURE that my rising insanity will wane eventually….you’re coming back soon, Allan, aren’t you??