little miss Elisabeth is lucky to be alive

You know I like to share the stories of the crazy things my kids do. I do this because I am banking on these things actually being humorous someday. And also because writing them down gives me some distance from the experience and I can put it in better perspective. And when my kids have kids, I can go back and say, "yep, you were the same way! Serves you right!" And yes, sometimes I do just need a little commiseration.

Anyway - when I first started blogging 2 years ago (!) it was mostly Samuel that was giving me grief with his daily disasters. You may recall the time(s) he sprayed my entire kitchen with the sink sprayer, or when he painted his toys with shoe polish, or when he and Elisabeth tore the insulation out of the walls in the unfinished basement. Those were some of the most memorable incidents.

Well, thankfully, he has grown out of most of the destructiveness! WHEW!!
But what is not so nice - and came as somewhat of a surprise - is that miss Elisabeth has now stepped up to fill those naughty shoes. She's doing a pretty good job of it. I'm not sure if he just taught her so well by his example, or if it really just has something to do with being 3 (although the older kids did NOT do these things), or being the youngest, or having some "issues" we have yet to uncover, or what! I really don't know.

But let me tell you about some of her incidences from this week, just to illustrate what I mean:

First, she dug out the halloween make-up from the Halloween bucket that we haven't put away yet. And of course she decorated herself quite thoroughly, her arms, legs, face, etc. And she got it all over the carpet, too, of course. So I spent an afternoon scrubbing that out.

And then she found some play-doh and played with it in her room, unbeknownst to me. And she tore it into tiny tiny pieces and spread it all over her carpet. So amongst all her toys and stuff on her floor, there was orange play-doh sprinklings all over that I had to clean up.

Then I left Isaac with the 2 little ones for just 2 minutes while I drove Abigail to her violin lesson down the street. I returned to find Isaac standing on the garage door step waiting for me, and screaming hysterically at the top of his lungs. Because apparently in the 2 min that I thought they could stay alone and happily watch TV, Elisabeth climbed up onto the kitchen counter and tried to get up onto the fridge to try to get down the halloween candy that we had put up there. And she had slipped and fallen from the counter to the floor and Isaac was freaked out not knowing what to do. Lessons learned: Isaac is apparently not old enough to babysit for 2 min. And Elisabeth cannot be trusted to behave by herself for 2 min.

I learned that again the next day when I asked her if she could be good for a minute and play in her room so I could take a shower, to which she replied "yes, mommy." Oh she can seem so sweet and compliant.
I should know better.
But I went and got in the shower.
A few seconds later, I heard a huge rumbling and crash and then Elisabeth screaming. So of course, I grabbed my towel, jumped from the shower dripping wet and went out to find that she had tipped over my entire 6-drawer chest of drawers onto herself. LUCKILY, only her one foot was pinned by one of the drawers (and is fine) and she was otherwise unharmed. Unbelievable, really, considering the stacks of books on top of the dresser, and a lamp, alarm clock, and several drawers emptied onto the floor.
I am not entirely sure what happened. But I do know she has tried to climb up the dresser front using the handles as footholds in the past.
And I could tell from putting the drawers back together that she had been doing some rearranging of my jewelry in the top drawer. ARRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!
I think I was still shaking several hours later (after I finished my shower). Because that could have been a lot worse than it was. I don't even like to think about what COULD have happened.

So, you see, little miss Elisabeth is lucky to be alive (literally) because she seems bound and determined to hurt herself one way or another.
And if it doesn't come to that, sometimes I think I might just kill her (figuratively, of course).
If we both survive her childhood, it will be a miracle.