Jane. Enough Said.

So, there was a major shoulder surgery. There were many weeks of recovery as well as a nice haze of pain pills. Through the haze I noticed that my youngest child had suddenly turned into a little creature I did not recognize. But through the misery that was my recovery, it was hard to pay too much attention to it. Then, as the haze of pain pills faded and I entered back into life, I discovered what I had suspected...MY BABY HAS AN OPINION AND IT NEVER COINCIDES WITH MINE!!!!

Help me. I beg of you.

Now this is not my first time around on this motherhood thing. I've done this twice before. Once, with THE most opinionated and hard headed child in existence. Well, at least until Jane took his spot. Whoops...did I give away who I was talking about?? I thought nothing could possible compare with Jay. Right. Well, I'm throwing in the towel and admitting defeat. I AM IN FOR IT WITH THIS ONE!!!

She is a climber. She reminds me a bit of a cat. You know how they always like to be at the highest point in the room? So they can stare down and survey their kingdom? Jane is much like that. I have a mattress in front of my stairs because I finally got sick of pulling her off them every 3.5 seconds. A mattress. IN. FRONT. OF. MY. STAIRS. Very nice. Oh, and the trash can? Big piece of duck tape on that. Except that she has learned to pull off the duck tape. SO SHE CAN EAT THE TRASH. She worked for a good thirty minutes the other day to get that stupid duck tape off, then she found a piece of moldy bread. I had to pry it from her tiny, baby death grip as she screamed as if I were torturing her. Clearly, I was.

Speaking of eating, she DOESN'T. Unless it is a healthy portion of dog food, that I also have to pry out of said death grip. But put REAL food in front of her and she will look at you and SHAKE HER HEAD NO. Then she feeds it to the dog just to show me she's serious.

I have to put training pants over her diaper if there is the remote possibility that she can remove her diaper. I have walked into her bedroom twice to find no diaper and poop EVERYWHERE. Another instance where duck tape would come in handy, except that I'm afraid that someone might call the authorities on me.

And on that note of duck tape coming in handy, there is no longer a safe place that I can put this baby. I had her in her high chair, eating (or not) breakfast the other day as I got things ready to go to our playgroup. I turned around and she was SITTING ON THE HIGH CHAIR TRAY. I caught her as she fell backwards. She gave me a small heart attack. So I held her tightly, thanked God for the freebie, promised that I would learn a lesson from it and then got on the internet to order a new high chair in which she could not extract her person. For now anyway. But then, as my back is turned again for three second, I realize that I have forgotten to put up the dog food. I run into the kitchen and sure enough, she is eating it. BECAUSE DOG FOOD FOR BREAKFAST IS BETTER THAN PANCAKES. THAT'S WHY. I pry the dog food out of her hands, put both the dog food and water out of her reach, turn around again and she is STANDING on the rocking chair in the hearth room. I pull her off of that, put the cushions back on the chair, go to find her again and she is pulling the dirt out of my houseplants. At this point, I decided that if we WANTED to go to playgroup (please, please, please, Mommy needs to talk to an adult today!!) that I was going to have to resort to drastic measures. Having used up all the duck tape on the TRASH CAN, I strapped her in her carseat. In the car. I hummed to myself and got things ready as she screamed. Totally worth it.

Why does my baby want to kill me?? No, really. Why?

And just in case you've forgotten, Christmas is right around the corner. You know, with Christmas TREES. And shiny balls and lights? And presents wrapped in PAPER? With BOWS? The possibilities of destruction are just ENDLESS.

Jane says, "Happy Thanksgiving! Do you need me to clean out any of your cabinets? I'm very good at it."