Red Alert! Red Alert!

First, I�ll throw this out there. I�m thinking about changing my template but I am as dumb as a bag of hammers when it comes to things like that. I can html my way to bold something or italicizeit but when it comes to the heavy stuff, forget it. So, anyone out there wanna help me out? If not, that�s cool. You�re the one that�s gonna have to look at this dead end template for another two years, that�s all.

So, have I mentioned that Red is insane? That I am living with a 3 foot tall junior Godzilla freak? One who needs only glance at a picture of Spiderman and she�s running and screaming �Nooooo!� from one end of the house to the other for, like, an hour? I haven�t? Well, it�s all true. She is�.I don�t even know how to describe this sudden burst of crazy-insane energy. I really wish I had a camcorder thingy so I could show you what I live with because you would be greatly amused.

And she doesn�t eat sugar, so I can�t blame these bursts on diet, unless she�s got some secret cache of Snickers bars hidden in her sock drawer. Except, two-year-olds aren�t really big on secrets. Theirs or anyone else�s. Plus, if there were candy bars in the house, I�d know. Because I would have sniffed them out and eaten them. Trust me on that.

So, Red. I don�t think I�ve written much about her lately. Why, I don�t know because she�s surely kept us all entertained. Monday night, during her bath, she began to splash and swished her legs in and out, faster and faster, until she�d created a monsoon and huges waves of water were slopping over the sides of the tub. And I couldn�t stop her. I tried�and I got soaked. She started giggling. She found it hilarious to get splashed in the face. She worked herself into such a frenzy that I couldn�t make her stop. At one point she slipped on her own butt and went down in the bath, completely submerged, and I had to rescue her from drowning. And STILL she was laughing.

Have you ever had to bathe a rabid weasel? Or a badger caught in a pillow case? Or calm down a cat that had not only a piece of tape stuck to its nose but also a rat chewing on the tip of its tail? Well, I�ve done something even more difficult: tried to wash Red, dry her off and dress her while she flailed around, laughing hysterically. I actually had to have my husband come in and hold her down so I could get a diaper on her. Because she was spinning herself around in circles, on her back, using her feet to push herself around the crib while I stood helplessly holding an open and waiting diaper in my hand and finding a head where a butt should be. Seriously.

And the thing about Red is, the more you try to calm her down, the funnier she thinks it is and the crazier she acts. Once the diaper was finally on (about an hour later), she was up and running from one end of the crib to the other. I couldn�t grab her fast enough to put her pajamas on. Which meant that she had an opportunity to remove the diaper it had taken two grown people three hours to put on her.

Eventually, I got her dressed and released her. And she ran through the house like her hair was on fire. Literally bouncing off walls. I�ve heard that expression before a million times but I�ve never actually seen it in action. We just stood back and watched the whirling dervish and shrugged: WTF?

And we�re officially out of diapers. No more will ever be purchased. Because she likes to strip and remove her diaper (and is not potty trained yet and likes to just pee all over creation as she sees fit), we�ve moved on to pull up trainer pants. I�m not a big fan of pull-ups because I think they make a potty trainer complacent � I mean, why look for a potty when you can just pee in the pseudo-diaper? Beloved Preschool did not allow pull-ups. Children came to school in real cotton trainer panties � those thick ones. With many extra pairs in their cubbies. The belief was that if they pee in their pants, it�s uncomfortable to be wet and they learn to use the potty, pick up on their body�s signals quicker, and are potty trained much faster. Which was the case with Dusty. Not to say she didn�t have accidents at first. We took home many a plastic bag with pee- and poo-covered panties.

But, Red clearly cannot be trusted to wear a diaper any longer. Clearly, she�s beyond diapers now and but not yet ready for cotton underwear. I�ve tried them on her before. And, taken them off when they�ve become saturated. Baby steps. Baby steps.

In summation: she�s nuts. And usually naked these days.

She�s also rediscovered books. For awhile there, she just wasn�t interested in sitting down and looking at books. Books were for throwing. Books were for eating. Now, she really likes to be read to (as long as there aren�t more than ten words on a page) and enjoys ABC books (a tune she sings to herself while she puts everyone in the doll house nite-nite) and books that label everyday things. She�s become a lot of fun.

When she isn�t terrorizing the populace with her Junior Godzilla stomping and destruction sprees.

This too shall pass. Right? RIGHT?

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