It’s Her Job…

Occasionally I find it amusing to look at our home from the perspective of each child and come up with a humorous job description for each of them.  Some would be to incite rebellion, others to restore peace, some to serve others, others to create obstacle courses for us to navigate around the house, some to surprise us, others to keep the pressure on patience levels at all times.

My 17 month old’s job could be loosely termed as keeping us on our toes.  She’s also programmed to leave a trail wherever she goes by opening cupboards, emptying drawers, taking trash out of the trash can, filling the toilet with toilet paper or simply emptying a new roll of toilet paper on the floor.   It’s like she’s playing Hansel and Gretel except there’s no need to retrace her steps.  She only wants to press forward to climb another ladder and see what she can find up top.  Her first successful climb to the counter top was while I was taking a shower.  Gratefully Dad was nearby.   Now she visits her crib while I shower.


I snapped a few pictures of her doing her job with a smile on her face.  In fact she was so excited about it that every picture is somewhat blurry.  She couldn’t stop bouncing up and down with pride.


Her newest trick is this:  she reaches up over her head to feel around on the kitchen table for a dish the big kids might have left behind.   She then slides it to the edge and with one hand pulls it down to a chair.  Doesn’t matter how large or heavy it is.  If it turns out that there’s food on it, she helps herself.  Occasionally she carries it to another room in the house before digging in.  The other day I found her in the middle of the family room with a bowl of oatmeal.  She’s amazingly quiet about the whole process.  She’s pulled it off once or twice when I was just a few feet away doing something and I didn’t hear a thing.  Gratefully she has yet to break a dish or hurt herself, and slowly the kids are figuring out that I’m serious about clearing the table.


Really I love this stage.  I don’t mind having my clean dishes strewn across the floor.  I keep them down there for a reason.  At least she can’t hurt herself with the contents of the drawer, and it helps her do her job.

This morning she chose to add “alarm clock” to her list of family duties.  She woke up screaming at 3:30.  That was, of course, after her brother was up crying at 2:30, who was up after his sister woke up at 12:30…

I got her, changed her diaper, and lay her in our bed between us.  For the next hour she lay, wide awake, pulling the covers up to her chin and saying “bankie”, then kicking them off herself while saying it again about every 45 seconds.  By 4:30 we declared the night worthless and got up.  I got her dressed, fed her breakfast, and watched her run around the house celebrating as if she’d just pulled of the smoothest coup in history.

Maybe she did.

The thing is, I really don’t mind being up at 4:30.  If I’m alone.  Up at 4:30 with a baby is no good.  All the things you plan to do at 4:30 don’t work with a toddler as company.

So here we are in a mostly quiet house with a 17 month old partying like it’s New Year’s Eve.

Like I said, her job is to keep us on our toes.  And, apparently, to keep us awake.

I wonder how long it will be until nap time.

I hope you slept last night, and also hope your day is great!
Hopeful Homemaker edited to add:  By 5 am the three year old was up as well, followed by my ten year old son at 5:15.  Extended hours parenting today seems to be the trend.  They don’t even have school today!  Grrrr.