Thursday, February 14, 2008

Tearing my hair out


Well, it has already started. Veeka got one Valentine in the mail today and I got NONE. I see a trend.
Miss Veeka seems determined to make sure I never forget she is a Terrible Two. The photo shows what she did when I took my eyes off her. We were upstairs but all of a sudden I noticed she'd disappeared. Not only had she slipped into the kitchen, she got on a chair and climbed onto the counter where she found a bowl and then found her favorite granola and poured the latter into the former as much as she could. This is the mess I found when I got downstairs. She was not repentant.
But that was nothing compared to tonight when she locked herself into the downstairs bathroom. I have these kiddie plastic knobs around my doors but I had looked at the downstairs bathroom door which didn't have a locking mechanism. Or so I thought. Tonight I found out how wrong I was when she shut the door, pushed the knob in, then CLICK. When I noticed she was not exiting the bathroom, I tried the door and - oh, no. I began to panic and pound on the door and screech her name. NOW what? I didn't have an electric saw with which to cut around the door knob. I pounded, prayed and shrieked at her for a few moments and she was shrieking back sooooo, I very reluctantly called 911, with visions of firemen kicking in the door and me having to buy a new one.
They were already on their way when I tried the door one more time and - it opened! Fortunately I was able to cancel the call. She had somehow crawled up on the counter and twisted the knob so it would open. Sigh.
Every day is full of such delights. Yesterday at the daycare while taking her nap, for fun she removed her diaper and ended up leaving poop all over herself, her clothes, the bed - oh, the daycare folks were in a great mood after that. She so loves to take off her diaper (yet she won't be potty trained - go figure) at night that I have to pin her pajamas shut.
Or there's her habit of pouring her glass of milk onto whatever I have served for dinner. So I give her nothing to drink until she's done. And she no sooner gets in her car seat than off comes her shoes and socks. Which sounds like nothing until you've put her shoes back on for the zillionth time. Or there is the throw-all-her-bedclothes-onto-the-floor trick. Or the how-much-bath-water-can-we-splash-outside-the-tub trick. She would pull the kitty by the tail more except my tabby has put the fear of God into Veeka (unlike me) and Veeka doesn't dare mess with her.
This week is an anniversary for us. Her adoption papers were signed Feb. 10 and on Feb. 17, we flew home. It's been one year! Amazing I still have any hair left.

1 comment:

Faith said...

Good morning, Julia. Your Veeka anecdotes are amusing but I am not living them, so my response is...whew! You're both in our prayers, and also, for good measure, I wish you luck, patience, endurance, fortitude, resolve and every other positive personality characteristic you might need for dealing with your agile toddler. Charlie, who is closest in age to Veeka (so he is the one I most compare her to) is a cautious child. Marcus at 20 months is more of a risk-taker. He loves step stools and paring knives! All the climbing Veeka does certainly adds an additional dimension of hazard! MORE then challenging. Whew! But they do grow up, understand more, and hopefully cooperate better. Three years old is coming soon.