Wipe Carnage and Other Tales of Toddler Mayhem

Oh, the days of motherhood. Sweet kisses, cute faces, and sheer exasperation. Sugar, my 1 and 1/2 year old daughter, is sweet, just like her name, but she also has a good dose of spunk and adventure. Enough spunk to cause her mother to sigh and take a moment to breathe deeply and calmly on a fairly regular basis.

Yesterday, I seemed to need to pause and take those calming, deep breaths a few more times than usual. At the risk of encouraging some of this carnage as "cute", I took a couple pictures for your viewing pleasure.

First, we have the "wipe carnage". Apparently, she learned from Daddy that she could remove the sticker seals from a new box of wipes and stick them on her belly. Not only is it great fun to have stickers on your belly...but it also fun to take the wipes out and spread them all over the house. Mom (that would be me) was ignorant of this new skill and left an entire box of Costco wipe packages within easy reach. Needless to say, I came upon the battlefield, shrewn with the carcasses of helpless wipes, with much dismay. Deep breath, calm voice, don't laugh.

If only this were the first such incident of the day. Earlier in the afternoon, I had walked outside to smell something peculiar. Something "poopy" smelling. After some investigation, I discovered that Sparkle (4) and her visiting friend had thought it would be interesting to use the Tonka excavator to scoop a fresh pile of doggy dung into the back of the waiting Tonka school bus. This little feat was attempted by preschoolers, mind you, and not particularly neatly done. After washing up, changing some "damaged" pants, and discussing the greater ills of playing with dog excrement, we moved on with our day.

Shortly thereafter, Sugar woke up from her nap. I sat her on a stool at the counter to have a piece of bread for snack. Apparently, I did not remove the bread bag from her general vicinity. Big mistake. I came back from attending to something else to find she had reached over, grabbed the bread bag and preceded to remove every piece of bread, taking at least one bite out of each slice. One lone slice of bread survived. Good thing that is all I need to make a sandwich for Slugger's lunch.

That was yesterday.

Today, Sugar decided to have lunch sitting ON the counter.

Deep breath, calm voice, don't laugh.