All iiiissss well! Or is it?

When you have a kid who plays for hours together with a steering wheel, a pretend one at that life is rosy! It is easy to sit and pass judgement on parents who let little itty bitty babies watch tv while your kid plays with his round object! It is easy to lazily wonder about ADD and TV watching while you surf through your tv shows and the little boy keeps himself busy! But let me tell you when you have had a day like I have, letting your kid focus on an hour of sesame street is sheer bliss!
You get cocky enough to whip out your iPad and blog! It has been all of 2 minutes and you are being climbed over while the trails along the couch are being explored!

Sigh! You think and get geared up for hours and hours of toddle-fief-Dom! If you are calling me unmentionable names for being a bad mom you need to hear the story!

I have spent a day washing little hands, legs, faces and the rest of everything from sidewalk chalk, grease, grime and other undisclosable explorations! I have had to remove wads and wads of toilet paper from the bowl where a certain minx thought it would be fun to dump contents of a whole new toilet paper roll! I have erased surfaces including magnetic boards and floors of pencil and crayon stains! Hidden pens and markers before the unthinkable happens! Gone hunting for the little pixie behind trash cans and in cardboard boxes! Run after her in the backyard while she picked on dirt, tried to destroy plants and trees, rearranged mulch and pebbles! And of course tried to feed her some healthy food while she insisted "mommy stop it" and snacked on junk!

But besides the daily madness and fearful anticipation of "terrible twos"! Really is it going to get worse than this? And besides the fact that my home always boasts the fact that a little tornado hit it and lives right in it, all is definitely well!

Tootsie has a more than healthy curiosity, an exuberant personality, bossy behavior and an immense love for dogs! The last fact is emphasized time and again as we stop neighbors from walking their dogs! Recently one of them offered to let Tootsie pet her dog, we just stopped short of bringing it home! After being hugged and licking Tootsie all over her face, the doggy had to feign sleep to be left alone!

We also try to bamboozle other babies and kids (who we call "baby" uniformly) and relieve them of their toys by telling them "giiiimmeee"! "Tootsie what do you say" asks mommy! "peaasee" coos the little imp and that apparently gives her the right to grab it now!
If mommy gets out of hand with the admonishments all that is needed is to shush her "Mommy ssshhhh...stop it!"

The little tyrant is walking on furniture again! Time to sign off and act alert! Bye bye!