Turn, Turn, Turn...

Turning your back on a toddler, I'm learning, is risky business. And funny business. Most days, it's a little bit of both, with this girl of ours "Hope Yell-ye-on-a-on-a Martins." Go ahead, ask for her name. She'll likely tell you the same thing. :)

And that's not all she'll tell you. Take for instance just the other night when Joe got home from work. Hope bombarded him with requests for, "MILK?!" Some days this growing girl could drink her weight in milk, so Joe told her he needed to ask Mommy first. As he rounded the corner to yell upstairs to me he heard her mumble under her breath, "Ask Hope!" Or the other morning when I went to pick her up out of the crib with my tie-dyed t-shirt on and she kept exclaiming, "Mess, Mommy! Get it off!" Or all the nights at dinner when we can't eat two bites before she's stopping us with, "pray again" so she can say thanks for the fork in her hand or the table or Mommy's hair or Daddy's glasses.

In the same hilarious spirit of spunkiness we've learned to beware any access she may gain to the mudroom or closets. In two seconds flat, she'll find one of her Daddy's pairs of shoes and off she'll go clunk-clunking through the house. At least we made it out of the chewing-on-Daddy's-shoes-phase. We did make it out, right? With these looks, it's best not to assume anything just yet.

We also beware any access she may gain to diapers, wipes, or anything that is actually for a real baby. After being such a big helper with Maddie she can spot a phony substitute from a mile away. Which is why, one morning when I was doing laundry down the hall, she discovered a stash in the closet and gave me a subtle hint that her sister needed to be changed.
But best of all, are the times you stop to scratch your head in pure and utter amazement. Like when she manages to fall and mid-somersault bonk her head on the only microscopic piece of exposed fireplace or stair railing. When you try to do some dishes and turn around to find all the little pieces of her wooden dress up bears stuffed into the heating vent. Or, as a toddler classic, she unrolls an entire roll of toilet paper and insists that the "POTTY!" made her do it. A favorite one here lately was dressing her up in a cute, little number to go over to Auntie Becki's for some enchilada cooking-101. Yes, sirree, she was a cutie pie. Innocent, little cutie pie. (Notice that Miss Innocence has in her hand my fingernail polish from the bathroom. Now the bathroom is a whole other post in and of itself).
Moments after snapping this picture, I turned my back to strap Maddie into her carseat. Hope managed to find the quart of kitchen paint we had mixed up special at the Home Depot. I am telling you, it was way back on the shelf and I just know I had that lid on tight. Anyway, I digress, because mid-strapping I heard a loud ker-plunk and a louder, "Oh! Hope!" (An expression she's obviously picked up from me in times just like these).
You guessed it. All. Over. The. Floor. And her. And me, come to think of it. Maddie was the only one who made it out without a faint yellow tint to her skin for the rest of the day.

That Hope Yell-ye-on-a-on-a... wouldn't trade her for the world! Need to learn not to turn my back on her for it either. :)

ps-- Your fun girl and all the rest of us wish you, PopPop and Nana, a happy TWENTY-FIFTH wedding anniversary today! We love you!