That thing she does

This has happened twice in the past week, so of course, it merits documenting here....

Jocie is reaching that precocious age of "two" (as she so proudly proclaims any time you ask her) and like a light switch, she has become a very challenging little girl to handle.

Aside from the now frequent arguments about simple things (and often times most illogical in terms of reasoning), her quest to seek more frustrating heights has climaxed (and I fear the summit of this problem has yet to be reached).  No longer is she just the cute little pouty thing that wants to be coddled when she gets frustrated.... oh no.  Now, the fall-down and lay on the floor bouts have been replaced by a fist yielding tyke bent on a physical representation of her anger.  Granted, her "pounding" on us as parents amounts to little more than what could be perceived as "love pats", but the severity of the action is not misunderstood on her now well educated parents (she is the third in her lineage after all).

Recently, her boundaries have grown even frustratingly farther as experienced by not only Jenny and I but also our good friend Brooke.

This all happened last week, but it recurred in my presence this past weekend.  

As Jenny was rushing out the door to head to an appoinment, she and Brooke heard some noise upstairs in Jocie's room.  Having put her down for her afternoon nap some time before, Brooke darted upstairs to see if something was wrong with the toddler's sleeping arrangements.  Jenny tells that she then heard a rather perplexed Brooke say "Amm.... Jenny, I kinda need your help up here."

Our beloved Jocie had decided she needed a diaper change and took it upon herself to perform the work.... yes, "cute", I know, but, it was the undertaking of this task that stupefied our parenting.

Brooke had walked in to see Jocie sitting on her changing table exclaiming "Finger stuck... finger stuck... help".  Her little fingers had gotten wedged in the container that holds the wipes we usually use to clean her and her little sister up during a change.  

To get to this stage, though, she had pulled out several drawers of her dressing table and used them to climb up to the changing pad (rather clever if I do say so myself).  Then she had pilfered through several dozen diapers belonging to both her and her sister before deciding that she needed an immediate dousing of baby powder, which covered the entire 6 foot tall expanse of not only her dressing table but also the shelves above it and a good portion of the floor below.  The image was that of a small explosion.

Now, at this point, I should add that she was indeed in dire need of a diaper change as her soiled diaper was filled with a substance that would have required several wipes to remove even by someone familiar with the transaction needing rectification, if you understand my non-descriptive imagery...  From the patterns on the floor, it would appear that her ascent onto the changing table in pursuit of a fresh diaper, several dozen wipes, and the better part of a 32oz bottle of baby powder that now lay evenly spread like fresh snow across a good portion of the room was not without reason.  The had planted her rear at several locations that dotted her bedroom floor and made a very interesting signature that effected more senses than just the visual.

So.. there she sat, on her changing table in the midst of a self-inflicted mess, fingers caught as she dug for another wipe asking for help.... you can't really be mad at her.  We all know that she was trying only to make her situation better and doing it in the only way she knows how, it's just that in the execution of her goal, she devastated her surroundings.

Needless to say, she did a fairly good job of cleaning herself up (a fact that stands in stark disproportion to the amount of mess generated in doing so).

Note that I said this happened not once but twice.  The second time, I got the blessing of encountering the mess after investigating some noise from that part of the house (I think JL is getting wise towards these incidents and lets someone else uncover them first....).

This time she'd emptied the other half of the baby powder and applied it on top of her clothes as she most likely encountered some difficulty in unbuttoning her jeans yet decided to proceed with the process of "changing" herself nonetheless.

At this point, I'm sure the story sounds more enamoring to her than anything else, and I'll back this up with another action.  This past weekend, my sisters (Aunt's Jenny and Jackie) came to visit and see new baby Julie.  While they were visiting, we told Jocie she needed to take a nap.  She took our suggestion and ran up to her room and grabbed her pillow, quilt, "blankie", and a varied assortment of smaller stuffed animals that she could easily carry with the already burgeoning armful that she'd created.  She brought all of this down to the living room where she setup her little spot and pretended to take a nap.

A very cute moment, right?  Yes... and in my exhaustion following the cleanup of the previous "room disaster - take 2", I laid down on her floor.  She immediately brought me a pillow and suggested that I put my head on it ("sleep, Daddy, sleep" she insisted) and ran and gathered up her quilt for me too and tucked me in on her floor and then "cuddled" up right next to me.

Ahh... these are the times... challenging ones... but wonderful memories from them...

jp