How Can You Be Mad At This Face?

Hard to believe my youngest child could get any cuter. And yet, her little red curls are now long enough to put up in pigtails, or "pony hairs" as Hannah refers to them. In her latest antics, Hannah, who is two going on sixteen, is doing her best to make me feel like Joan Crawford in "Mommie Dearest". This weekend, while Mike was outside working in the yard, I attempted to clean the house. While Mikie was content to entertain himself (aka play his Nintendo DS) and avoid being recruited into service, Hannah insisted on following me around like a puppy dog. No, on second thought, puppy dog is not the write phrase. . . whirling tornado of destruction is a more apt descriptor.

Our routine went something like this: I would start cleaning something. . . Hannah would start to make a mess. . . I would ask her to stop doing whatever she was doing. . . she would ignore me. . . I would ask her to stop AGAIN. . . no response. I would finally raise my voice and threaten time out if she didn't stop, at which point she would look up innocently and say, "OKAY, Mommy. No yell at Hannah!" With this tone of pure exasperation like, "Jeez, Mom, you don't need to overreact."

We repeated this process at least a dozen times before lunch. At one point, I was sooo frustrated with the implication that I was overreacting that I told her, "STOP SAYING THAT! I wouldn't need to yell if you would listen to me the first time."

At this point in my story, I know everyone is thinking, "How bad can she be? Look at her, she's so cute!" Look at all the seemingly cute things that can wreak havoc: Jerry Mouse from "Tom & Jerry". Small, innocent looking. And then, out comes the stick of dynamite, or the door slammed in Tom's face. I'm not saying Tom was innocent by any means, but Jerry could definitely hold his own. . .

Let's look at Hannah's headline's in the last few days:

Hannah received a peep on a stick at her cousin's birthday party this weekend. On the drive home, she and Mikie sat in the backseat, eating their peeps, watching cartoons. When we arrived home 45 minutes later, I open her door and realize that Hannah bit the ears off her peep and proceeded to smear moist marshmallow goo all over the door of my car.

I turned my back on her to clean up food she spit on the floor, only to find that she poured milk all over herself and her chair.

I think she is playing nicely in one room, only to find that she has removed her diaper and is running around naked. I turn to grab a diaper, only to find that she has peed a thimble size of pee in the toilet, has used four Huggies wipes to clean herself, and has now clogged the toilet because she insisted on flushing the wipes, not realizing that the box clearly states "do not flush".

On the upside, she can't write yet, so I can at least document my side of the story before she attempts to publish a tell all book about me.

Love, The Trahans