Cutest Terror on the Block

My brothers and I grew up listening to stories of adventure, trouble and pranks from my dad over the dinner table. We waited anxiously for him to tell a new story we'd never heard before of his boyhood adventures and then we'd beg him to retell the ones we already knew by heart. Any ounce of a funny story where Dad had caused trouble or set out on an adventure as a child was sweet ear candy to us. The same for my mom, but looking back, it seems like most of them belonged to my dad.




(Dad, far left, 1960. Doesn't he just look like trouble, but too cute to stay in it for long? Hmm, I wonder where Addison gets it...)




Poor, poor Grandma Bird. My heart goes out to her. Never once, in the midst of all that story-telling, did I ever take into account what Grandma must have gone through raising SEVEN rambunctious children.

This week I think I've gained a glimpse of what it must've been like raising my dad and his six brothers and sisters. My sweet, precious, hilarious 2-year-old is starting to live up to all the promises of her age. "Trouble-maker" is a gross understatement. "Simple curiosity" is a compliment.

These last 3 weeks I have earned a whole row of stars under my Motherhood badge from my dear Addison alone. And just so you don't think I'm being melodramatic, a quick recount of my  Misadventures in Motherhood:

Scene 1: I'm taking a quick 5-minute-Mom-shower one morning last week when Addison walks up, pulls back the curtain and says, "Look Mommy. Me?" She has my nail polish unscrewed and is pointing to a no-longer-painted nail. I quickly tell her to put the lid back on and put it on my dresser. "We'll do it after I get done." 2 minutes later I turn off the water and step out and I see that the desirable nail polish bottle is gone...and so is my 2-year-old. I find her in her bedroom...painting her fingers.Yep, the nail alone is child's play. This one is going for the entire finger. I grab it, look under her pudgy hand and, to my horror, see that she's given her cream micro-fiber chair a makeover, as well as her hand. Now we have an accent piece for the nursery in none other than hot pink. I would've taken a picture to help me look back and smile one day, but smoke was billowing out of my nostrils and ears simultaneously...

Scene 2: This morning I walked into her room to find an entirely new box of tissues carefully taken out, one by one, and blanketed across her floor. Puppy dog eyes and shrugged shoulders greet me as I look down at her with hands on the hips. That little stinker...

Scene 3: A few months back I invested in a dentist-requested mouth guard because I grind my teeth at night like it's nobody's business. 4 days after I picked up the $200, specially made, clear mouth guard, Addison swiped it and hid it in the best hiding spot ever. We're still trying to find out where, exactly, that hiding spot may be. We're hoping it's not in a landfill somewhere in Northern Virginia. That Addison of ours...

Scene 4: Just returning from Costco this week, Makenna and I are unloading groceries and I'm talking with my mom on the phone. Within 15 seconds of tossing my purse and keys inside the door and returning to the trunk for another load, Addison has rushed in, shut the door to the garage and, wait for it...dead bolted it. Who knew such a shrimp could even reach the dead bolt? Not I, my friends.When she realized she was in a dark basement and couldn't reach the light, she screamed. When she realized she was alone and nobody was coming in to get her, she wailed. All efforts to open the door were useless. She was screaming too loud to even understand me. We went around to the front door: dead bolted. We went around to the sliding glass door: locked and the wood pole in the runner. All the windows are locked. I start to question my safety measures. Why, just this once, couldn't I have been a little more reckless with my precautionary measures? After 15 minutes of listening to my baby go berserk inside, I finally called 911 (this is the 2nd time I've called 911 for Addison in the past 7 months. I'm considering putting them on speed dial). Within 10 min. the fire department had arrived and was axing through our deadbolt. Kind of like this, but with a little less sneering...

  
Needless to say, we're taking a family outing tomorrow morning over to Home Depot to not only purchase a new deadbolt for our badly dented door, but also invest in a much-needed spare key. (BTW, I know you're probably saying, "What family of dummies doesn't even keep a spare key hidden somewhere?" I was actually saying that same thing before I remembered that we've never needed one because we have a keyless entry on our garage door. 'Nuf said.)

So that, my friends, is our darling 2-year-old. Makenna looks like Mother Theresa compared to this one. Thank heavens she really is too cute for words, otherwise she may have already been sold to the highest bidder. Lord have mercy on me...and her.