Baby Powder and the Power of the 2 (year old)

As a baby, then later a toddler, and now a girl, Matilda is reasonable. You can reason with her, explain things to her, make her understand why she can't have the cookie right now, or that just because she can climb up onto the bookshelf from the side of the couch doesn't mean she should. Freya, on the other hand, simply does not respond to reason.

Example No. 1:

Freya climbs down off her chair, her bowl of cereal practically untouched.

Me: Where are you going?

Freya: I'm full.

Me: But you hardly ate anything.

Freya: (with a hard, pointed stare) I'm done and it's done.

She has this magic ability to make me back off and sort of put my hands up. It's like a Jedi trick or something, her special power.

Example No. 2:

The girls have the whole upstairs, the playroom and their bedroom are two connected rooms, which is great when I have work to do downstairs; I can just banish them and they are happy. But there are other times when this World of Girls Only backfires, usually in direct proportion to the level of supervision (or lack thereof).

Here's what happened to Steve while I was at school on Tuesday: He had work to do, so he was downstairs and the girls were playing quietly (but not too quietly - a sure sign of trouble) upstairs. Then Freya fell and started crying, so Steve went up to check it out.

As he started up, he heard the sound of Matilda running away - probably into the closet - and came up the stairs into an entire playroom covered in baby powder: all of the toys, the table, chairs, floor, the big cushions I found for them at the Goodwill, the cloth covered blocks that Tim and Andrea gave us, everything.

He comforted Freya - which was hard because he was so mad. There were places where it was at least half an inch thick on the floor - a powdery white blanket covering everything, as far as the eye could see.

I'm sure that Matilda was involved, but I also know, deep down in my gut, that it was Freya's idea. That girl is trouble.

By the time I got home at 10 that night, Steve and the playroom were mostly recovered. I went up to kiss the girls goodnight and the floor in the playroom still has a kind of velvety feel, but it smells great and I made Steve promise to take pictures the next time something like this happens when I'm not home. Pictures help I think. If I take pictures of the destruction caused by my children, I forget how mad I am and think forward to a time when I can share the destruction with others.