The Gentry World: She is her Father's daughter!!

Before Anna was born, I heard countless stories from moms who had kids who seemed to get into everything. These stories included getting into toilets, trash cans, making huge mess after mess, jumping out of cribs, weaseling out of highchairs and car seats, marking on walls and furniture, climbing on tables, etc. I can remember seeing child-proof locks for EVERYTHING under the sun and wondering if people really NEED locks for ALL your kitchen/bathroom cabinets, toilet lids, trash cans, etc.

Annnnd then my second, blue-eyed baby girl was born and now I FULLY understand the needs to locks on EVERYTHING and can totally empathize with those other moms! I LOVE Anna (and Grace) more than anything in this world but when her feet hit the floor in the morning, it's GAME ON!!! I make it a point to get up, showered, and have at least one cup of caffeine (of whatever form is available) before she wakes up because I have to be on my toes at ALL times. She moves at the speed of light and can get into something you would never think she can reach within a split second. If she can't reach whatever she's after, that's no problem at all. She simple drags whatever she can find (chair, train, bowls, toilet paper, etc.) so that she CAN reach it. I swear she has go-go gadget arms! Anytime I leave her and come back, the first thing that comes out of the person's mouth is (without a doubt), "She never stops does she?" WAHAHAHA!!! Happens every time!

Let me now bring your attention to the 3 pictures below. This is just one example of what I'm referring to. Last Tuesday, I took my eyes off her for 2 seconds and this is what happened. Yep, that's BLUE food coloring and it just so happens to be all over her hands, arms, and face! AWESOME! I had one of those "what should I do first" moments and just stared at her wondering where to start first. She squirted the food coloring all over her outfit. So if I took her dress off over her head, it will get all over the rest of her head and hair, right?? So should I just cut it off of her? Or maybe I should just throw her in the bathtub and hope for the best! Luckily, I rolled her dress up and managed to get it off without getting any more on her head. I may have covered my hands with it but at least her hair wasn't blue!! I took what was left of the food coloring and buried it under her (now trashed) outfit in the trash can........or so I thought. I quickly cleaned up the blue dots all over the floor only to turn around and see Anna with the SAME bottle of food coloring in her hands!! Yep, she dug it out of the trash can and had it AGAIN!! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Now that I had the floor cleaned up and 3 chains including a lock wrapped around the trash can, I now had to somehow clean the blue dye off of us. The box said to "wash with soap and water water repeatedly" which did NOTHING. And that was after I washed us both at least 300 times. So I dumped bleach into the sink and in she went. Ok, surely you didn't believe that. Maaaaaybe I only considered that annnnnnd an SOS pad! WAHAHAHA!! I did forget to mention that Tuesdays are CRAZY around our house and we go non-stop until 7pm. So, needless to say, I didn't get to try many of the suggestions I received during the day.

Luckily, it faded fairly quickly over the next day or so and I didn't have a Christmas card photo shoot scheduled any time soon. :) I also forgot about this quicker than I thought since I also recently cleaned up red candle wax that ended up ALL over our kitchen! Ay yi yi!!!! Grandparents: don't be surprised if you find a package on your doorstep in the next few days. Just make sure you send her back after she's put through an intensive boot camp program!! :)