I Think Martha Stewart Used to Sleep with an Oven Mitt, Too

A few days ago, my morning started out bad. The downstairs toilet was clogged, all the clocks in the house were blinking announcing the precise time when the power gone off during the storm and my computer was refusing to boot. I was afraid that something had fried since I hadn't unplugged it. I was working on the computer when I noticed that Marin was being awfully quiet. That usually indicates that she’s busy. Busy is not a good thing when a toddler is quiet and busy. I discovered her in the kitchen already having figured out how to open a bottle of Italian dressing and chugging it like a low-budget drunk with a bottle of Night Train. Needless to say, both toddler and the kitchen floor were covered in dressing.

Everyone always comments on babies and one thing you hear over and over is that they will be into everything in no time at all. There is a reason for that. They are into everything and it’s a little shocking just how quickly they change from being helpless to “helpful” around the house.

Marin still prefers things neat and orderly. She recently made a trip to my bedroom and the only evidence that she had been there was that she tried to make my bed and she accidentally started the music on my clock radio. Oh, and she brought me the empty glass that I had left on my nightstand.

She likes to help out around the house as much as she can. She was helping me mop the bathroom recently and by helping I actually mean running off with the mop. That resulted in me slipping and falling on the wet floor since my main concern was catching her before she threw the mop down the stairs.

Marin found a bottle of Jet Dry yesterday by working around my pathetic kitchen child-proofing job. Once again, she was very quiet and I found her on the stairs applying it to her face as if it were lotion. Claire said that the baby just wanted to be shiny and clean. She has a reputation for that.

When Marin has wet pants or God forbid, poopy pants, she announces it right away with a disapproving look on her face. As if she’s the one put out, not me, by the terrible inconvenience of it all. Please refer to the picture above as exhibit A.

Marin likes to be clean and always wants to take a bath. The fact that someone else is already in the tub does not deter her. She walks in, evaluates the situation and starts stripping. She will come over to the side and say “Me bath! Bath! My bath!” and then start poking me in the ear.

If I don’t let her get in right away, she “helps” by throwing me bath toys, clothes, or towels. I try to bathe with a defensive posture just in case she throws something heavy when I’m not looking. Just today she threw “Seizure Elmo”* when I wasn’t expecting it. He has batteries in his feet and it felt like I had been punched in the gut. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn he was packing D cells in his feet.

I usually give in on the bath since she’s coming over the side anyway. The other day when she got in with me it was already her second bath of the day.

Me- “You know, you’re probably the cleanest kid on the block.”

Marin, in her ‘Rain Man' voice- “Yeah.”

Marin likes to be clean and organized. Toddler for organized means carrying a bunch of shit everywhere you go, including everything you can jam in a toy purse and then some. Then she has the nerve to complain, saying “heavy” and makes me help carry her stuff, as if I don’t have my own overstuffed and heavy purse to worry about.

One of the other constant battles is trying to keep Marin in the house. She loves to play outside and makes a mad dash anytime someone is going in or out. I used to have a cat that did that and after a while I just gave up and let him out. But I’m pretty sure you aren’t allowed to do that with toddlers.

When Marin isn’t trying to escape, she’s back at work around the house. Which translates into getting into stuff. Marin doesn’t just get into my stuff. She collects things from all over the house. The other day she found N’s wallet and proceeded to transfer all the contents to her little purse. We still haven’t found his social security card.

Sometimes Marin is lucky and has pants with pockets. She loves that since then she is more versatile as far as stashing her loot. She likes to stick an old cell phone in one pocket and a Barbie phone in the other. Dresses prove to be inconvenient for carrying stuff so Marin improvises. She refers to the front of her diaper as a ‘pocket”. One day I pulled three radishes and a penny out of there during a routine diaper change. Well, routine except for the radishes.

She recently brought me a bottle of dish soap that she had to climb to get. She thought it was something to drink and brought me the bottle crying and saying “Mouf. Mouf hurts!” What didn’t go in her mouth was all over her. Imagine a bottle of dish soap covering a toddler. She was back in the bath in no time and boy, did we have bubbles. Then we repeated the whole process a few days later with hand soap.

Despite the fact that Main is literally into everything, she is an absolute doll. She throws her arms around me proclaiming her love, saying “I yuv you!” She breaks out into song daily, singing “Happy burtday you” or “row, row, row butt”. She calls Katie “my Katie” and hugs her at bedtime saying “yuv you, Monkey.” Then we haul all of her crap upstairs to her bed. She must have a cell phone, whatever stuffed animals are currently required and various other things that she finds around the house. In the last week that has included her brother’s X-Box manual, some junk mail and an oven mitt. How could I not be crazy about this kid?





*It’s actually Hokey Pokey Elmo. When he puts something in and shakes it all about it does resemble a seizure. He’s been seizure free for a while now because I’m too lazy to replace the batteries. It practically requires a degree in mechanical engineering to get that battery door open. Not to mention the battery packaging which generally leads to me improvising on tools. I might start off with some nail clippers or something else equally inefficient for the task at hand, then move up to kitchen scissors and dynamite before finally getting the job done.

By the way, I’m not making fun of any people that have seizures. I’m only making fun of a Sesame Street character.