Know Your Audience.

I'm an organizer. To a fault. Being in our "new" house (I still can't believe it's almost been a year) I find myself not being able to simply relax and watch a movie. Whilst watching, I have to be sorting through bills, or finding new places for old things to go, or trying to get rid of old things altogether. A place for everything and everything in its place. Easier said than done with a little girl who's knocking on 2's door. 

The girl knows how to push my buttons and she loves to do it. 

For the THIRD time in as many days, I found each of the labels on my magazine holders carefully removed and scattered. The horror.

I know kids tend to make messes (that was one of the few things I actually knew about kids before having one) but this was pre-meditated and malicious. In the name of developing fine motor skills, I'm not going to retaliate, but should she gets into my Post-Its, segmented coupon clutch or colour co-ordinated file folders, I cannot be held responsible for my actions. I know she knows it gets under my skin, because she's making an effort to put books away once she's finished reading them. Brandon and I sat and watched her go back and forth between her bookshelf and the rocking chair in her room: grabbing a book, climbing up onto the chair, scooting forward so her feet were hanging off the edge, reading the book aloud and hopping off to put the book back in its place...or somewhere close to it. I wouldn't have thought twice about it if they weren't the Sesame Street alphabet books that fit together like a puzzle.

In the interest of becoming a better parent, I didn't put them back in their proper order...in front of her. What? I was developing a twitch in my eye!

It's a good thing she knows how to make hilarious faces that render me mush. She doesn't seem quite so vicious when she's making one of her many silly faces. And she knows she can make me laugh with any one of them in spite of the anarchy. There's a chance I've underestimated who I'm dealing with.