Sometimes when I’m home with Button, I take her into the bathroom with me because she is at that stage where when left unsupervised, she throws herself enthusiastically at anything with a potentially deadly outcome…staircase, electrical outlets, carving knives…And yes, for my own sanity, I’m going to call it a STAGE.

So I’m sitting on the pot and she’s putzing around on the floor and I let out a fart.  Not a momentous earth-shattering fart, mind you.  Just a regular, glad-I-didn’t-do-that-in-public-but-otherwise-forgetable fart.

And she immediately stops poking at the tile and turns around to look at me with this expression of pure elatedness, like “THAT WAS THE COOLEST THING YOU HAVE EVER DONE.  WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME YOU COULD DO TRICKS LIKE THAT???”  And then the expectant look of “Do it again, PLEEEEEEASE!”

If only she were always this easy to please. 

On the other hand, perhaps I should be concerned that my daughter thinks the best thing about me is what comes out of my butt.

Today, the house…tomorrow, the WORLD!!! (more…)

So when my daughter learns how to climb the stairs and makes a bee-line toward them like a moth to a flame every waking minute of the day, I ALREADY HAVE A GATE to block them off with.

“If we have to choose between the two…I think we should do the painting, it would make the house look a lot nicer.  It needs to be painted.  And it would make the bigger difference.”

“Ok.”

“Ok?  But you said you would rather do the flooring.”

(Shrug)

“But I was going to fight you for it.”

“If you want to do the painting, we can do the painting instead.  I don’t really feel like fighting about it.”

“…Oh.  Well, we could do the flooring if you want to.”

Can you hear that?  No?  Perfect.  It’s called silence.

I’m in my house and I’m the only one home.  I don’t think that’s happened since Button was born.  J took her to church while I stayed behind to catch up on some sleep. 

I’m in my own home and I have no parenting responsibilities.  That never seems to be the case.  I just took a shower and there weren’t any little hands on the shower door, blocking my exit.  I didn’t even have to be on the lookout for little feet disappearing in a hobble-crawl around the corner.

The only times I escape from parenting are when I’m at work (not my definition of escape) or when my parents take her and J & I go out and about. 

But this…this is quite a novelty.  Right now it’s just me and the (napping) pets and a very. quiet. house.

Ahh…