Taking Over the World One Toddler at a Time

Peek-a-boo… aha! It’s daybreak and I’m awake. These fools can’t make me sleep a moment longer. Don’t they know that it’s not this silly pink blanket with fuzzy brown trimming, or this strangely shaped plastic nipple thingy they shove in my mouth every night that makes me sleep? It’s the sheer will power and brilliant planning of my highly developed 15 month old brain. You see, I know that without at least an 8 hour stretch of rested neuron activity I will not have the appropriate amount of energy or sugar levels in my blood to sustain the kind of activity I have planned for the day ahead. And boy do I have plans.

The Tall One seems completely clueless to my powers. She sings and swoons and pats my back in patronizing little circles, tip-toeing out of the room as through I’m not laying here, WIDE AWAKE, in full knowledge of the fact that she is traipsing off back into well-lit rooms to drink wine and gobble chocolate and God knows what else they do when they lock me away in here.

But, aha! I’m awake now and there is not a minute to lose. First, I must find that pesky three-year old who sounds like he’s got a legion of marbles in his mouth and chase him down when he’s getting off the toilet, scaring the bee-jeebies out of his plump little hiney because he thinks I’m gonna yank on his thing—which I do sometimes-- but only because it’s so tiny and he screams like a girl, and I’m the girl and I don’t even scream like that.

Then the Tall One comes running in again. She scoops me up and usually attempts some sort of serious sounding reprimand, squeezing my hands as though that will somehow deter me from wanting to make the little squealer run again. I mean, maybe if you cut my hands OFF, maybe then I’d think twice, but squeeze them? C’mon lady, read any decent parenting books lately? Probably too many modern ones that talk about “understanding” and “respect” and a whole bunch of other stuff I won’t respond to cause I’m not even two yet.

Anyway, then there’s breakfast. They give me this cold, creamy white stuff that I get to suck out of a long tube just like one of those old Indian guys who smokes—which is what I pretend to do and I love the cold brain freeze I get at the end. Think there’s stuff like that for when you’re as big as the Tall One? Then she (the Tall One-- she’s kind of around all the time, pulling me off of stuff, shoving things in my face, squeezing my hands, rubbing my back, stuffing me into seats and strollers and on and on- so you’ll just have to get used to her) is there again with toast and squishy bananas which are my favorite because you squeeze them super tight and they metamorph into a completely different substance, oozing out between your fingers and up your sleeves. I’ve discovered they work really great in your hair too- and it smells so good. I don’t know why the Tall One doesn’t use it; her hair always looks a wreck.

But on to the rest of the day. I have so many plans: there are the kitchen drawers to empty and dispense with into the garbage bin (so far, I have successfully smuggled one foreign imported pastry cutter, one bread knife, and one highly coveted blender apparatus into the hidden depths of the plastic bag abyss without the Tall One or her accomplices ever noticing until it was far too late), bunk beds to scale and sky-dive off of, plungers to inspect with my teeth, windows to escape out of (the Tall One flails about so with hysterical gestures and dances that it makes the event rather addicting), cleaning supplies to guzzle, computers to rewire, and always the little Squealer to yank on. I’m so delighted just thinking about the prospects of my day that I think I’ll stop pooping in my pants right now and save a little for later. It’s time to roll.