Quiet Chaos

I sense something is amiss.

The house has fallen into a silence, which usually means only one thing: my 2 year old is causing havoc somewhere, quietly yet no less destructive.

I try to give her a little bit of independence, time to herself so that I might get some laundry done, care for the baby, take a shower. Isn’t that how toddlers develop their self-sufficiency skills? If only I had a video monitor to duct tape to her, and see all. Or better yet, removable, floating eyeballs that could float around above her, aware of her every move.

Today she got into the bathroom. Thankfully, there are child locks on the cabinets under the sink.

I'm not sure how much toothpaste she ate - maybe I was out of the room a minute? The tube didn’t look much different from the night before, so probably no more than a teaspoon or so. And then she ran out of the room we were all in, and came back a few moments later waving a toilet bowl brush in the air, like a magic wand. Did I miss something? Is the bathroom the new hot-spot?

I caught her putting deodorant on like lipstick a couple weeks ago. Where does she even come up with something like that? Maybe watching me apply lipstick? But deodorant. Couldn’t it have been something a little less harmful if ingested? 

The silence can be a wonderful thing when you hear 'mommy! mommy!' all day. But usually it leads into the discovery of some humorous but completely inappropriate behavior - running around completely naked, the defacing of important papers with a crayon, putting several pairs of my underwear found out of the hamper around her neck as if they are bibs (or dresses, or shirts? who knows what goes on in that little head). And what might happen if left alone with her sister for more than a minute or two – would she feed her cat food? Take a Sharpie to her face? I don’t even want to imagine the outcome of that.

But there are those instances that the two of them alone is inevitable - checking the food on the stove, trying to go to the bathroom, running out to the car for something. And at those times, the silences break with a cry - the baby's cry to be more specific. Maybe I am going to the bathroom, and have left the girls together in front of an Elmo video. It is quiet a few moments, then the wail of distress - I run back into the room as quickly as I can get done pulling my pants back up, and find Lucy on top of Storey - ON TOP OF HER. As if Storey is a miniature horse of some sort. Or a tricycle. She is probably just trying to have fun, and got out of hand. Other times, as Storey naps peacefully and Lucy and I hang out in the family room or kitchen, Lucy disappears (for only a matter of seconds, at most!), and again the cries begin - Lucy has climbed into the crib with her sister, and startled her awake by stealing her pacifier and laying next to but a little on top of her. Again, a floating eyeball would be such a smart invention, and all these people making baby products these days, how come they can’t come up with that?

On the other hand, it is the silences that are followed with the discovery of my daughter’s evidence of development that I will cherish forever. When I find Lucy pushing her doll around in the baby stroller, all wrapped in a blanket. Or when Storey starts to cry and Lucy disappears, only to return with her misplaced bottle.

Children's minds, at this tender age of preschool, but no longer a baby, are exceptional things. What they understand and process is unbelievable! Could Lucy be mimicking me talking on the phone when she holds a block up to her head, vaguely resembling the size and shape of my cell phone? Or when she holds her finger to her nose to say 'SHH!" As she grows, I feel myself grow, too. I grow weary, I grow irritated, I grow quicker to respond, but I also grow proud. Proud to see such advancement of character in someone I've brought into the world. Whom I held in my arms only 2 years ago, a helpless, dependent, shut-eyed newborn. Who would’ve thought she would grow up to terrorize and amaze all in the same sitting?

There's that silence again. She was just in here with me...now what is she into?