For some reason my daughter soaks up the information spewed out of the mouths of presenters hired to hawk goofy products in sixty second infomercials. It’s like a disease. If Billy Mays (RIP) touted it the Monkey knows all about it. That’s not all though. She doesn’t just catalog and store the information in her random trivia file, she treats it as gospel and behaves accordingly. The behavior consisting of immediately running to Mom or Dad and insisting that we absolutely need and must immediately own Debbie Meyers’ Green Bags, the Perfect Slice Brownie Pan or the Aqua Globes to water our non-existent plants.

For Christmas my mother bought me a silicone mold for baking a giant cupcake. Before I even know what it was the Monkey was excitedly spouting the virtues of the mold and explaining to me exactly how it works and why being able to bake cake size cupcakes was so awesome. A while ago I came home from the store with a Ped Egg that I picked up at Walgreens while waiting for a prescription to be readied at the pharmacy. The Monkey wanted to show me how to work it.

When PK was little I explained to her that advertisements were just companies’ way of trying to sell us things we didn’t want by making us think we needed them. She took those words to heart and has never been swayed to beg for something just because it danced on tv. I tried giving the same spiel to the Monkey to no effect. She’s an out of control addict.

The problem is that the cable channel with the programming I find most appropriate for her (QUBO) is also not the most popular so many, and at times most, of the commercials are for As Seen On TV products. I could take away television altogether if I really wanted to destroy my sanity by giving up that tiny window of time I have to do things like go to the bathroom, cook dinner, take a shower and other assorted life necessities. I could switch to a channel that offers less in the way of values and life lessons if I didn’t mind her mimicking Hannah Montana, Alex Russo, Carly Shaye and Tru Jackson. Or I can come up with a way to help her understand that commercials are a vast wasteland of junk that isn’t worth the money spent producing it. Anyone know how to accomplish that?

Thus, I will not let Monkey watch TV tonight. Nor did I allow her to plant her posterior in front of it last night. The kid is six but is reading chapter books above her grade level independently yet she’s so lazy she’d rather watch an episode of Wonder Pets that she’s already seen ten times. Oy.

Honestly, if the zombies come calling I may let them nosh on her gray matter regardless of whether it’s past its freshness date or not since she seems determined not to use it anyway.

Last week the girls stayed with my middlest sister on Monday then we all crammed into the little Cavvy that could and puttered up to Wausau, WI (by way of Oconto, WI which isn’t exactly an as-the-crow-flies sort of route if you know what I mean) to visit my sister-in-law and nieces for a few days. We got home late Thursday then spent Friday taking care of overdue business. The girls got their hair cut (SB’s first cut during which I restrained myself and held back my tears) and SB had a physical and got some shots. Good times.

Saturday PK took a make-up kah-rah-tay class then when to her dad’s. SB stayed with my parentals while I took a much needed afternoon off at the movies. After the movie my middlest sister and her daughter came back home with me again so they could stay with SB on Monday when I went to work. On Sunday we attempted to go to church but SB was too overwrought and only lasted about five minutes.

On the way home from church we stopped at the shelter to look at the doggies although SB really wanted to look at the kitties. As many of you know I don’t do kitties so she was sorely disappointed. We did find a sweet little puppy that didn’t make her shake in fear though. It’s a little 10 month old male Maltese with the unfortunate name of Fluffy Wuffy. Even more unfortunate was the car accident that cost him one of his front legs. Poor puppy. With my love of strays (animals and men, one and the same really) don’t be surprised if I’m adopting soon.

Anyway, Monday SB stayed with the middlest sister and then the littlest sister came to take over as the relief handler for my small spy. So far the week has been going well and today we only had one minor skirmish that ended in a time out that didn’t include screaming, thrashing or punching. I love progress.

For dinner tonight my dear sister decided to treat us to Applebee’s. Yeah, not classy or anything but up here in the sticks we take what we can get. When we got home to eat (carside service, love it!) I grabbed the bottle of ranch dressing out of the fridge to pour on my fries. Sitting at the table I pried the top bun off of the cheese that was cementing it the chicken patty. Weird thing about Applebee’s. If you order a Zesty Ranch Chicken Sandwich but request that they hold the buffalo sause they also hold the ranch dressing. I’m really not sure why but they’ve done it every time I’ve ordered it from this particular restaurant. Digression done, I opened the bottle of ranch dressing to add it to my ranch-less Zesty Ranch Chicken Sandwich and as I was tipping it I felt something clunk in the bottle.

Bottles of dressing should not clunk and so I peered into the bottle and saw nothing but white dressing with little bits of green seasonings and one long thin piece of seasoning along the side. Except that was too long to be seasoning so I tilted the bottle at a different angle and gazed in again. As the dressing shifted in the bottle the mysterious object stayed put and I was able to make out a piece of metal with Gerber embossed in it.

Just as I was making that out it finally registered that SB was trying to tell me something and I focused on her voice just in time to catch her saying “my spoon”. Her spoon. I quickly pieced together the story. SB wanted to eat some ranch dressing so she grabbed a baby spoon from the drawer (she grabbed the baby spoon ostensibly because a regular one wouldn’t have fit through the mouth of the bottle) and tried to dig in. There wasn’t enough dressing in the bottle though and in the process of trying to reach the bottom of the bottle she dropped the spoon. Instead of alerting someone to this predicament she decided to just recap the bottle and put it back in the refrigerator.

It’s been a rough couple weeks with SB but I saw today as the turning point so I decided not to get upset. And I left the spoon in the bottle.

Soundgarden – Superunknown

I was making dinner. Real dinner, the kind that needs to be cooked and doesn’t involve peanut butter. I got off work early due to the impending holiday and we were home in time for me to thaw some pork chops, marinate them and toss them on the grill all while the sun still shone high above the neighboring houses. As I prepared the other white meat for the grill the girls were happily alternating between arguing, pestering and reading in the living room so I was able to move freely through the kitchen. Then I opened the balcony door.

See, I have this great townhouse that I really love. It has three floors. On the basement floor is the garage which leads out into the driveway that I share with 11 of my neighbors. Above the garage is the eat-in kitchen with the sliding glass door that leads to the balcony on which my grill lounges. When I first bought the grill I considered leaving it in the garage where there was more room and it could be brought inside out of the elements but then I thought about having to carry raw meat through my living room, down the stairs, through the family room and out to the grill and then a return trip. In the meantime if I was cooking anything in the kitchen at the same time I’d have to keep running back and forth. Just thinking of it exhausted me so the grill lives on the balcony.

When I opened the balcony door to toss the chops on the grill SB came running and tried to come outside with me but I slid the screen closed in her face. She makes me nervous on the balcony due to her insistence on attempting to dangle herself over the railing. I like to keep her inside. (To that end I recently installed an extra lock on the balcony door. It’s basically a spring-mechanism pin thing that attaches to the door. You drill a hole in the top of the frame and the pin slides into it effectively locking the door. And SB can’t reach it.) So I put the meat on the grill and went back inside. When I went out to flip it SB followed me again and was denied exit again. She seemed frustrated but I felt safer that way. To make it up to her I put on a cd and we danced in the kitchen while waiting for everything to cook.

Then it was time to take the chops off the grill. I grabbed my plate and my tongs and went outside one last time. For the third time SB attempted to come out with me and for the third time she was shot down. Apparently this frustrated her because she tried opening the screen even after being told to leave it alone. In my annoyance I snapped, “Leave the door closed!” after which she slid the screen shut. Satisfied I turned back to the grill and as I opened the lid I heard the sound of the glass door sliding on its track. I spun around and saw her sliding it shut and started yipping, “no, no, no NO” and clawing at the screen to try and stop her but as everyone knows there is no stopping SB once she gets going. The door was shut. And locked. At the top. Where SB can’t reach.

You probably remember that PK was also home at the time and you’re thinking that I’m now going to tell you that she came and rescued me and all was well. Of course if you remember that PK was home maybe you’ll also recall the cd that I turned on in the kitchen. Loudly. And the door has really well insulated double paned glass. It really keeps the driveway sounds out very nicely. I was stuck.

I pleaded with SB to go get her sister. She said “Mommy, open the door.” The she giggled. I begged her to go get PK. She chuckled. I pounded on the glass. She snorted.

Glancing over my shoulder I saw my neighbor working in his garage and hoped he didn’t notice my predicament. I also sent up a little prayer of gratitude because I knew that even though it would be horribly embarassing that Carl is a good guy who would come rescue me if necessary. Then I went back to cajoling a stubborn as sin 3 year-old into getting her sister to let mommy back into the house. It didn’t work.

One last time, “Please go get PK?”

She looked at me with that glint in her eye and stuck out her tongue. Not at me though, at the window. Then she licked the glass. My face must have contorted in all kinds of disgust and revoltion because her face immediately lit up and she did it again. And again. And again.

I got down on my knees on the balcony and focused my sternest cut-the-crap-before-mommy-goes-postal-on-your-tiny-butt look and yelled “PeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeKaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”.

PK came running into the kitchen only to skid to a stop laughing when she saw what happened. She finally grabbed a chair to stand on and was unlocking the door when Carl stepped into the middle of the driveway and called “Everything okay?” I’d forgotten wanting to avoid making a spectacle of myself when I hollered.

“Yeah, everything is fine now,” I said as I stepped through the now open door clutching my plate of pork chops. And everything was fine after SB’s time out for about 10 minutes. Then she got up in the middle of dinner to lick the door again.

Pete Townshend – The Best Of Pete Townshend: Coolwalkingsmoothtalkingstraightsmokingfirestoking

As exciting as my sleeping and waking patterns may be that is not what I was intending to ramble about this evening. I popped back onto the face of the planet for the express purpose of sharing a piece of the continuing saga of Spy Baby and her adventures in dysfunction. I know I haven’t been quite as forthcoming as of late in regards to the mischievous munchking but that does not indicate a lack of effort on her part. It’s mostly the afore-mentioned scheduling cram. If you’re upset about it you can blame my newest distraction.

Enough digression.

This morning I got up slightly after the sun which is still incredibly early these days, crawled out of my bed (quite literally since I am still lacking a bed frame which leaves the box spring and mattress on the floor and I find it to be much simpler to just roll out onto my knees some mornings rather than attempting to reach my full height before my balance has kicked in) and slunk into the bathroom for a shower. I’m sure I woke up at some point because my memory of the morning is all hazy, like in a movie flashback, until I stepped out of the shower. Everything after the shower is like an HD playback. So out of the shower, wrapped in a towel and thinking the house seemed strangely quiet I heard my phone beep in my bedroom. That’s odd because no one that I know is coherent enough to call me at that hour of the morning. Most people I know don’t wake up until I’m halfway to work. I’m jealous of those people.

Anyway, the phone beeped, I pondered the meaning of the beeping and then opened the door to the girls’ room to cheerfully sputter their wake up call. I’m not typically a cheerful morning person but my good spirits in the morning seem to really annoy the kids and so it’s worth it to me to make the extra effort. It’s passive agressive but I take what i can get. As I walked through the bathroom I tossed over my shoulder a suggestion that if SB hurried she could beat PK to the potty. Those two have a mini-war waging over who gets to relieve themselves first in the morning. Never mind the fact that we actually have two bathrooms and if they both really had to go someone could just run downstairs. No, they insist on racing each other to the toilet.

I went into my bedroom and was dressing when PK asked me where SB was. “In her bed?” I replied. PK said that she wasn’t there. I think most parents would freak out when told that their child was missing from her bed but at this point I am innured to the shock. Ever since adding the alarm to the front door and the extra lock to the top of the balcony I haven’t been frightened when SB disappears. There is certainly plenty that she could be doing to harm herself but since she’s been locked in she usually doesn’t do much more than turn on the television.

I walked into the hallway and called down the stairs for her but she didn’t answer so I listened for a moment but heard nothing but silence. It sounded heavy and a little foreboding. There should have been cartoons blaring on the tv or the telltale signs of cereal being spilled across the kitchen floor yet I heard nothing. “SB,” I called again, “What are you doing?” Finally a little voice piped up from the living room. My little Spy Baby may be a master of espionage but she still has the high pitched squeak of a three year old girl, all full of innocence and excitement. It’s unnerving sometimes and was particularly bizarre when she answered me with, “I just checking my email!”

Just to make this perfectly clear, I did not give my three year-old and email account. There are those who would accuse me of lacking certain obvious parenting skills but in this area I have not failed to exercise restraint and common sense so when she said she was checking her email my stomach clenched at the thought of of what she was doing. I then heard music fill the air followed by tiny footsteps clumsily running up the stairs. At the top SB informed me that she was just turning some music on before she went running into the bathroom to berate PK into getting off the can so she could make some pee pee.

A moment later I stopped laughing as the music abruptly cut off downstairs. Sensing a disturbance in the force I went downstairs and slowly approached my laptop which was facing the couch away from me. I walked around the ottoman, lifted the screen of my laptop and was confronted with the BSOD informing me that it was time for a memory dump. I growled and restarted the laptop and went on with my day.

It actually wasn’t until I spoke with Cheri later in the day relating this story to her that the true import of the morning events became clear. Cheri simply suggested that perhaps SB was checking her email. I have obviously let my guard down too much which has allowed SB and her organization to further infiltrate my household. Furthermore it is clear that she has begun training again but this time she has moved from weapons to technology. I thought we had moved past this when I stopped taking her to Rachelle and Frank’s (could their aliases be more obvious?) but apparently her handlers have found new ways to make contact. I’ll simply have to be more diligent. Can you password protect a microwave?

On Friday we were driving to her sitter’s house, the sitter who has no ties to the KGB and who is in fact quite hippy-ish in a very warm and welcoming way, when SB planted a bead up her nose. I’m not sure what the point was. She may have been expecting that it would cause us to divert to the nearest critical care center so that she could do some reconnaissance or perhaps the bead really contained top secret information that she was attempting to pass on to a contact posing as a nurse.

That’s possible now that I think about it. The necklace that the bead was taken from did come from a little girl in Poland. Perhaps there is a greater network than I thought?

Whatever her goal was she was much less oriented on it and very much in need of kisses and cuddles to make it through the ordeal. In fact, it was very similiar to her behavior tonight after she crashed over the wall of her crib. She has taken to vacationing from her bed in the evening when she’s feeling a bit peckish about sleep but tonight her agility failed her and instead of lighting dropping to the carpeted floor she landed with a thud. I went running and administered the necessary first aid for all her boo boos then pulled the mattress from the crib and laid it on the floor next to PK’s bed so there would be no more incidents.

Now that I ponder that split second decision of mine I wonder if it was truly the best idea. In fact, I’m beginning to think that this was part of her plan all along. Now she won’t wake PK when she decides to sneak out of her room to plant listening devices around the house or put trackers on my car.

I know it seems silly to think that she would be monitoring me so closely but it really does make sense. She knows that something is amiss and she needs to find out if she really has been cut off from her Polish contact. I think it will be a devastating blow to her end game when she realizes that line of communication has been cut. Someday when she’s foresworn her spy games she’ll thank me for the intervention.

For months now SB has been hiding before she does fills up her diaper. Not when she’s just wet, but when she doing her doodie if you know what I mean. She’ll crawl behind a chair, sit in her little turtle tent or sneak into a closet for a little privacy. Then when she comes back out she announces “Ewww” and gets a new diaper. She actually has become so ingrained in this pattern that whenever she had to go over at boy’s she would go into his closet, sit on a box in the corner and close the door.

Well, I figured that since she obviously knows when it’s time to go that it was time for the training potty to come out. SB loves the potty. She loves the training potty, she loves the big toilet and she even adores the toilet paper. She just never goes. She sits then stand then sits again. She plays with her toes. She rips little pieces of toilet paper up and drops them into the water. Then she says “All done” and runs off with her pants around her ankles. But there’s nothing to show for it.

Until today. Today she got undressed at bathtime and sat on her potty. She sat for about 30 seconds then decided she was finished and ran out of the bathroom. By the time I caught her she was halfway down the stairs and adamant that she had to get her cuppie. Being the pushover that I am I let her continue down the stairs.

She found her cuppie and her pencils and started playing so nicely that I thought I could just get dinner started really fast before getting her back upstairs into her bath. I didn’t notice when she went into the bathroom. When I walked back into the living room I saw that an instant messenger window was flashing on my laptop to I sat on the couch to quickly check it when she walked back out of the bathroom. She looked at me and announced “Ewww”.

I was confused and asked what she was talking about and she pointed into the bathroom and said “Ewww”. I went to investigate and much to my surprise I found that my little Spy had gone into the bathroom to drop a load. I was terribly impressed and proud that she’d done it all by herself with no prompting from mommy. I just hope next time she uses the potty instead of the floor.

SB is sick. She woke up yesterday with a fever and was extremely lethargic. She wanted nothing more than to sit on my lap and be held. So intense was her desire to be held that if I took my hand off of her for a moment to do something as frivolous as brushing hair from my eyes or even as serious as reaching for the cuppie that she was whining for, she would snatch my arm and firmly place my hand back on her leg or stomach or head or wherever it had wandered off from. She did not feel well. I gave her medicine and I hugged her and loved her hoping that she would improve. She didn’t.

Until today. The sick eyes (glazed over and watery from fever and slightly panicked at the discomfort of illness) looked a little healthier and her whole demeanor seemed improved. She still had a slight fever and was cranky and tired but I figured a good nap would solve that. Unfortunately 45 minutes does not qualify as a good nap for her or me.

I got her from her crib at 1:00, wrestled her into a hold to take her temperature (which was 99.8º or something like that in case you’re curious), changed her diaper and got her some lunch. With instructions to PK no to leave the dining room, I strapped SB into her high chair and gave her lunch then ran upstairs to grab a quick shower. When I returned downstairs I got her down from her chair and she proceeded to play in the living room. The thermometer was sitting on the ottoman where I’d carelessly left it after our tussle before lunch. Ah yes, I said carelessly. You all know where this is going now.

At 2:30 I wanted to check her temperature again and the thermometer was gone. Mysteriously yet completely gone. I started looking in the logical places. I checked the floor around and under the ottoman, the couch and the chair. I looked amongst the toys scattered on the floor and double checked in the kitchen to make sure I hadn’t left it on the counter in there. I hadn’t.

I began to second guess my memory. I thought it was possible that I had left it upstairs in my room but it wasn’t there. Slightly frustrated I returned downstairs and asked, in my most patient mommy voice, “Spy Baby, do you know where the thermometer is?” With guileless eyes she gazed up at me then turned and walked around the ottoman one time. After finishing her circle she returned to stand before me and lifted her wide blue eyes to mine as if she’d just explained the origin of the earth to me and I simply didn’t understand.

To make a long story short I spent the next several hours tearing my house apart in search of the missing thermometer. I checked upstairs and down, inside and out. I looked under couch cushions, pillows, blankets, chairs and tables. I checked inside cabinets, drawers and toy boxes. I emptied out bags and boxes in vain. The more odd locations I attempted were the dishwasher, stove and refrigerator in the kitchen, the toilets, bath, shower and sinks in the bathrooms, the washer and dryer, the diaper pail and I even considered checking my car even though there was no feasible way that it could have gotten out there. Still, there was no thermometer.

During this time SB got into the diaper pail and pulled out a poopy diaper which she smeared all over herself and my carpet. While I was in the play room checking the toy box we unearthed and ancient cuppie of apple juice that contained a floating science experiment and SB drank it while my back was turned. I lost it then. I called Boy for backup or encouragement or something. As I cried he informed me that maybe I should be more careful about where I leave things. Unbolstered by this comment I then found SB in my closet eating a candle. She acquiesced quietly to my command to spit it out. The damage to my psyche had been done though. I was undone.

Then my mother called. With a fresh burst of energy I began the search anew with suggestions from a woman who has lost everything she owns twice including her mind. We looked in vents and window sills, garbage cans and VCR’s. With her aid I turned the house over again with no luck. She finally stopped me and said that we should pray that God would help me find the thermometer. So I did and she did and PK did too. My mother said that I should just let it go and it would turn up but I couldn’t. I was in a maddened frenzy. Completely obsessed with finding the thermometer I continued digging through the mess that I had already examined twice before. I knew it had to be here somewhere.

Finally the children’s cries for dinner still my compulsive quest. I made dinner and we ate. I still wondered silently where the thermometer had gone too. I considered the possibility that PK had hidden it from me as revenge for not letting her watch television all day. I thought that maybe SB was finding and relocating the thermometer every time I came close to discovering it. I pondered more micro-conspiracies than The Smoking Gun. I was simply going insane.

After dinner is bath time. I grabbed my little sickie, still in her footie pj’s but now covered in tomato sauce and took her straight to the tub. She began pulling at her snaps while I turned the water on. We pulled her arms free and, since I was sitting on the edge of the tub, I put my foot on the pajama’s that pooled at her feet and lifted her up out of them. The legs stuck on her for just a second but that second was long enough for the right foot to lift and shift enough to fall on my foot, not with a light whisper, but with a small bump. Reaching my hand into the foot I discovered, of course, the elusive thermometer.

Quickly I took her temperature (98.9º) before placing her into her bath, grabbing my phone and calling my mother. I sat watching my precious youngest daughter as she laughed up at me from her watery playground and realized for the umpteenth time that I have spawned a holy terror with a halo. My mother and I laughed at the ridiculosity of the situation and agreed that SB is indeed a secret agent.

Still, for all the trouble she is my little spy and she’s feeling well enough (98.4º at bedtime) to go play tomorrow with her friends. That’s good enough for me.

It’s Friday. Friday is pizza and a movie night in this estrogen overloaded house. A nice cheese slice to go with our cheesey “family” oriented flick and we’re a bunch of happy chicks. Tonight is an abberation though. Tonight we have a boy in the hizz-ouse. Yup. Male. Testosterone. I should have known there would be havoc but he’s such a nice well-mannered little boy (he is for me at least) that I really thought we’d be fine.

The movie was fine, so was the pizza and the ice cream. We were doing great until I mentioned showers. No kid likes to take a shower, especially when playing with a friend is an alternative. Still, it needed to be done so I argued Ellie into the bathroom, put Risa to bed and sat down to play video games with Casey (I told you I was addicted). I heard the water turn on and the baby fussed as she settled in. At the start of the third race I heard a high-pitched scream from the back of the house. I dropped my controller and raced for the bedroom thinking Risa had managed to get to something she shouldn’t have but she was simply standing in her crib letting loose with some glass shattering wails. Scooping her up I turned and saw that Ellie’s towel was on the floor. Knowing she would need it momentarily I grabbed it and took it into the bathroom. Opening the door and walking into the bathroom I noted that my bedroom light was on and that I needed to turn it off even though I couldn’t recall turning it on and I also realized that the carpet was damp under my feet. As I hung her towel on the rack for her I asked her why everything was wet but she ignored me. I pulled back the curtain to ask her again and to my amazement there was no one in the shower. I flipped off the water and spun around to scream for my missing child but instead paused and stormed into my bedroom. There I found my errant daughter dripping wet on my floor while trying to struggle into a flannel nightgown. I was annoyed.

After ordering her to dry herself off with the towel I flung in her direction I returned to the living room where I unceremoniously dumped Risa and plopped down in front of the computer to whine about my children to anyone who would listen. Ellie came out fully clothed and mostly dry so I let the kids play a couple rounds of Mario Karts before shuffling Casey off for a shower.

Princess Know-It-All gave him the grand tour of the bathroom. She showed him where the towels were and the shampoo then proceded to give him a tutorial on the art of taking a shower which included instructions on exactly how much shampoo was required as well as a step-by-step discourse on how to apply said shampoo. Still sitting at the computer wailing to the world in true Drama Queen fashion I finally butted in when Risa toddled in to join them and they all started yelling.

Storming back towards the bathroom I yelled, “Ellie get out! Risa come here! Casey take a shower!” Snatching Risa from the floor where she was attempting to completely unroll and entire roll of toilet paper I nudged Ellie out the door and told Casey to go ahead and hop in. With the door closed I heard the water turn on and ordered Ellie to the living room where she was to plant her butt on the couch and not speak. Rocking Risa a bit I eased into the dark bedroom to lay her down. Again. She immediately stood back up and shrieked at me and as I was trying to give her that fake hug that’s really a smokescreen for laying her down again I heard a thump from the bathroom and a small yelp. Listening closely all I could hear was the blubbering from the over-tired baby and Princess Know-It-All shouting to find out what was happening.

Abandoning Risa I went back to the bathroom door and knocked while asking, “Case, you okay?” Hearing no response I slowly cracked the door open and started to ask again when I noticed that I couldn’t see the shower curtain that should have been reflected in the mirror. Opening the door a little wider I was able to locate the missing shower curtain where it was laying half in and half out of the shower, which, just in case you were wondering, was still running. Rushing in I slammed the faucet shut, grabbed a towel and wrapped the soggy boy up before asking if he was hurt. Two seconds later Princess came running in to find out what was going on and I had to kick her out. I checked his head quickly for cuts, bruises and bumps and fortunately didn’t find any. Princess poked her head around the corner again. I fought the urge to throttle her and again ordered her back to the couch. One more time I asked if the curtain rod had hit him and when he indicated that it had caught him on the chest I looked but found more nothing. Relieved that no damage was done I calmed him and told him that he could call it quits with the shower and just get ready for bed.

I scooted the curtain out of his way and left the bathroom, closing the door behind me, ignoring the whimpers emanating from the bedroom and shooshing Princess (whose curiousity is apparently insatiable) toward the living room. Casey arrived in his pj’s and I began settling them down for sleep. While they discussed who would sleep on the couch and who would sleep on the floor (interesting side note: Casey was granted rights to the couch but both kids ended up sleeping on the floor anyway) I asked what Risa was doing in the bathroom before I came back there.

Three guesses. Yes folks, my baby is a spy. I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again. She’s got mischief in her blood and deviance on her mind. And now she’s apparently targeting guests in our home. Watch out for her booby traps if you come to visit. That so subtly misplaced toy in the middle of the floor is probably about as innocent as my little secret agent.

Once I’d removed her to begin the process of cleaning her toys and the tub her real trickery came to light. See, she’d rigged the shower curtain. As soon as I leaned over to collect her pouring cups the rod came loose and crashed down on top of me. I stood up abruptly, cups in hand, and was so shocked it took me a second to realize that the cups had just emptied themselves onto my floor.

She’s tricky that one is. I’m going to have to keep better tabs on her. Quite the little bugger. Excuse me while I go refold the laundry that she has just methodically dumped on the floor.