Even Hell-Spawn Have To Sleep Sometime

Well, my fantastic, peaceful "golden days" of bringing order out of the living room chaos are officially gone, flushed down the toilet like the shit and toothbrushes flushed by my youngest mini-me, or "Spawn" as I (lovingly) think of her. I know the "terrible twos" are supposed to be bad, but never, and I do mean NEVER has any of my offspring been this downright ... ornery. It all started a few weeks ago...

My youngest child, 2, figured out how to get over the gate in her room. I might have mentioned this, but it bears mentioning again - she made it over (and under) the gate, so we decided to take it down. Seriously, what's the purpose of having a gate if everyone (including the dog) can get over it? At that point, it becomes a "hurdle" not a gate, so why make a game of it? But ever since we took it down, the littlest...monster has been causing chaos. (Side note: she won't answer to her name, or turn to look when I call her, but if I say, "crazy," she comes running. It's because somewhere in her toddler brain, she knows that the word "crazy" now has her picture next to it in the dictionary. And her name in the thesaurus as a synonym.)

She has decided that since she can get into the living room, it's her room now - her TV (Get off the TV stand!) her couch (That's my chair child, move over!) her side table (Leave my phone alone!) her pillows (Get my pillows off the floor!) ... everything! "Daphne, blankets don't belong on the floor! And stop jumping on the couch!"

She's sly, too. One morning, I was sitting on the couch, and she was sitting in her dad's chair, staring at the remotes and other "do-not-touch" items sitting on the table beside the couch. I noticed that she was staring at my coffee cup specifically. I told her a resounding, firm, "No!" while pointing at the coffee cup, and went back to reading. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and she was leaning over my cup with her mouth on the rim, poised, like she was preparing to take a drink without picking up the cup. "No, Daphne!" and she leaned back, giggled, and sat/jumped down in the chair. I went back to my book.

A minute later, I saw movement again, jerk my head around, and there she is, poised for a drink again: "No, Daphne, Mommy's cup. Your cup is right here! Drink your own drink." And she sat back down, laughed loudly, and waited. Yes, I knew she was waiting, because I was waiting, too. I pretended to start reading again, and sure-as-shit, she moved closer to the coffee cup. I looked up just as she had her mouth open to take a drink... I was just starting my rant, (Get away from ...) when I saw a glob of baby spit fall in my coffee cup. Fuck! She caught a glimpse of my face and she laughed. At me! I'd like to believe she didn't do it on purpose, but that child is just plain ornery. And if that time wasn't on purpose, the six times since then that she's spit in my cup HAS been! Ornery, I tell you! And she just loves tormenting me.

I got home from work a few days ago, and found my charging cords (Blackberry, iPad, etc) in the living room stretched out toward the middle of the floor. Son of a bitch! She must have woken up early (Daylight savings time can bite my big red ass!) slipped out to the living room, and wreaked holy havoc on all forbidden items: throwing pillows and blankets on the floor, spilling leftover cups on the side table, and chewing on my cords. I looked at the iPad charger, didn't see anything bent, so I plugged it in. 'Not charging?!' WTF?

So, since Mommy is crafty (like her Hell-spawned daughter, where exactly do you think she got it from?) I pull out the spare charger that I had bought a few weeks ago when she first developed an interest in the cords and I charged my precious iPad. All was well, until I left the room to make lunch. Where did the little shit go? Straight to my charger and started chewing on the cord. Mother fucker! By the time I made it back through the other gate, she'd demolished that one too and ran to her room, laughing like a hyena on crack!

You know what? You are not going to win, child! You will not outsmart me! As God as my witness, I will never be iPad-less again! And I refuse to be out-maneuvered by a two-year-old! I ordered a spare charger on Amazon, and got the girls ready to go shopping. "Now, we're going to get Mommy a charger for her iPad, but if you're good in the store, Pumpkin, we'll stop at McDonald's on the way home, ok?" Maybe I could get some hairspray, and mittens for the girls while we're there...

I parked, walked up the door, and put the baby in the first available clean cart, where she immediately tried to stand up: "Sit down, Daphne!" and I sat her on her butt, took off her coat, and turned to take off Diana's coat...

And she stood up again. Well, I'll fix your little wagon! I buckled her in the cart. I love the seat belts for grocery carts. Greatest. Invention. Ever!

She immediately started screaming at the top of her lungs, squirming in her seat and trying to escape from the belted monster that held her to the cart seat, unable to make a single mess in a warehouse full of breakable items. Nothing I did made her stop, nothing I gave her appeased her, and I wasn't about to unbelt her - she's a runner, and with two girls to watch over, there's no way I'd catch her while towing a cart and another child. Fuck this noise! And fuck these seta belts! She'll just have to get used to the buckle. My other daughter (quietly standing with her hands over her ears) decided that now was the perfect time to pull out her "Captain Obvious" impersonation: "Mommy, the baby's crying!"

"I know, sweetie, I can hear her! C'mon, let's get you in the cart, too."

So I let let the baby scream. All the way through the grocery area (which might have been slightly enlarged) the clothing area (also magically six times the normal size) the seasonal areas (so many fucking seasons! Worse than Angry Birds!) while she's screaming bloody murder at the top of her lungs, banging herself around the cart like she's having a seizure, trying frantically to escape, while my preschooler is sitting in the storage area of the cart with her hands over her ears. Ah, thank you God, there's electronics! "Excuse me miss, where are the iPad accessories? The iPad accessories. The iPad accessories! I NEED A CHARGER FOR MY IPAD!"

She pointed me on my way, and ran for the hills, because evidently screaming babies clear out the immediate area quicker that the raunchiest fart. Ok, I found the charger, now where in the fuck did the cashier go? There!

We were rung up ("I'm sorry, do you have any tissues? Tissues! KLEENEX OR TISSUES?! There's some. RIGHT THERE! Thank you. THANK YOU!") I paid, and darted for the door like I'd shoplifted something and the fuzz was on my heels. Or like a screaming baby was following me. Seven minutes from entrance to exit, and it still was the longest fricken seven minutes of my life so far! And yes, that includes all my labors put together. In a quiet moment (she's still an air-breather, at least until she returns to the mother-ship at puberty) I heard one of the shoppers say that someone needed a nap. Abso-fucking-lutely! Can you watch them while I sleep? Although in retrospect, she might have meant the snot-nosed screamer that was currently river-dancing my last nerve.

So, I got my charger, the screaming alien fell asleep in the car, my preschooler got Mickey Dee's, and everyone was happy. For about a minute.

This morning I got home and found her asleep on the floor in the living room, covered with MY blanket, using MY pillow, with MY iPad cuddled underneath her ... with the screen protector crumpled in a ball at her feet. Well, shit! Now I have to go shopping again...