A Miss Chevious Moment

About a month ago I decided to potty train Miss Chevious. I was so determined that I went out and bought the smallest little panties I could find, because I'd be damned if I were going to buy another box of diapers. My plan was to have her sit on the potty every thirty minutes for several days until she got the hang of it. She isn't afraid of the potty, so I thought for sure this was the route to go. Day 1 started with her telling me she needed to go potty. I thought to myself, "Heavenly Father must really know how much I just need Him to potty train this child and is obviously taking this burden from me. I am SO blessed!!!" I took her in and sat her down on the potty. She sat there for a minute or so with a cute little grin on her face as she talked about the potty. Once or twice it actually seemed like she was trying to go. Finally she just wanted to get down. I felt okay with that because she did give it a good try. I helped her down from the potty, but then she started whining because she wanted back ON the potty. I put her back on. She smiled, then wanted back down. We repeated this a couple of times. Finally, she walked into the hallway just in front of the bathroom and peed down her legs, all over her feet and the carpet. "Fine," I thought. "Not my will be done, but THY will." This is experience was, no doubt going to be part of the refiner's fire that I must pass through during this part of my life. ***I'm seriously being sarcastic here. Kind of.***

I decided that putting on the panties might help. She was thrilled with that. She wouldn't put her pants back on because she wanted to run around with her little pink panties. A few moments later I got distracted by something. I don't remember what now, but all it took was a moment. The "quiet storm" hit the house and I went into search mode. This is what I found:

 

 

This is the corner where the diaper genie is kept. She wedged herself here where she reached up on her changing table for the powder and lotion and went to work. Thank goodness I got to her before she had a shot at the lotion. I'm sure Dance Star Mickey is grateful too, because he was now an albino mouse.

This kid. She is like Animal from The Muppet Babies.

 

Her new trick is climbing up on her changing table (which is a re-purposed buffet table, so quite heavy and I'm not at all worried about it tipping over on her). Since she recently mastered climbing into her crib I suppose it was only a matter of time before she gave the other furniture a go. The first time it happened went something like this:

I was cooking dinner when the clouds of the quiet storm began to swirl. It storms quite often in our house. I took a moment to resign to the fact that I would soon be cleaning up another mess and I didn't know how significant the damage of that mess might be. My eyes quickly scanned the family room and living room and then my ears perked with alertness as I realized she must be in the back of the house, which means either she is playing quietly in big sister's room, or she is wreaking havoc somewhere back there. I knew in my heart the answer and as I rounded the corner in the hall the smell of baby powder filling my nostrils confirmed my intuition. But I didn't see her in her room, which is where the baby powder was kept. And I still didn't see any baby powder, only smelled it. I passed her room and searched Hope's room, Noah's room, the laundry room, passed her room again with a puff of powder stinging my nose and searched my room and my bathroom. Nowhere. Puzzled, I turned to go back down the hall when I caught a glimpse of a chubby, bare leg sitting atop the changing table in Eden's room. "No," I thought, "no way. She can't climb up there....can she?" Powder filled the air as I walked in to see her smiling at me.

"I did it myself!" She was proud. I was shocked. I'm always shocked that I am shocked when it comes to this child. Wouldn't you think that I would know by now that there is just no limit to her destruction? Her power is all encompassing.
She had taken off her diaper, which was soiled, and tossed it on the floor. Then she cleverly found the powder, which after the above incident I hid on the shelf above the changing table, doused herself and her changing pad with the white stuff and then strewn baby wipes all about. At the moment I walked in she was very delicately wiping a tiny spot (which was the one spotless place) on her forearm with one of the wipes. I knew I was standing there gaping at her because my mouth suddenly became parched from all the powder in the air. I came to and tried to clean her up, but the powder on top of her messy bottom made that next to impossible. I stripped off her clothes trying not to get any more powder on myself and once she was standing atop her changing table naked, she for some reason decided to give my breasts a high five. Not just one of them, but both of them now had tiny little white hand prints on them. If I had looked closely I am sure I would've found more than the powder in the hand prints, but I didn't need to see it to know it was there. I held her out as far from me as possible, stood her in the shower and turned it on. Thank goodness we have a shower hose. She wouldn't stand directly under it, so I had to follow her little fleeing body all around the tub. *Sigh* Reliving it is almost as exhausting as living it the first time. She'll be three in about six months. Then she'll be past this stage, right?