It takes several years to be able to look back and laugh

A while back my daughter's four-year old grandson decided to do a little remodeling in his room. Apparently there was a nice little chalkboard on his wall that he wanted to take into his sister's room so they could play together. The kid's scrawny, but strong, and ripped the board off the wall leaving a few large holes where it had been bolted on. My daughter told me about it and wasn't too happy. I, of course, thought it was a hoot! She and her twin brother certainly pulled enough of that stuff when they were little.

First of all, no comments about the hair.....

One of the thing you quickly realize when you're a young mother is that those kids can do things you would never imagine. And often so quickly that you can never be prepared. My son (doesn't he look adorable in that picture?) has always been a bit of a night owl. Often when he was very little he would wake during the night, not really bother us, but play in his crib or youth bed for awhile and then go back to sleep. But one night we heard this noise coming from their room that sounded like ripping paper. We tip-toed in to their room just in case they were still sleeping, and there was my adorable little son - standing up in his crib - smiling and looking very proud of h imself- peeling the wall paper off the wall! He figured out how to pick at the seam with his stubby little fingers until enough of it came lose and then - RRRIIIIPPPPP. So we had to buy a bunch of those strips that were used for paneling and nail one over each seam. Luckily he never figured out how to pry the nails out.

Their room had another strange configuration - the bookshelves were 12 inches from the ceiling. Sort of like a border on the wallpaper. This was due to the fact that they would both climb on various pieces of furniture and pull the books down on themselves. So we had to put them high enough that the little darlings couldn't reach them.

And my sweet little blonde daughter? Looks so innocent in the photo holding her little cup. Awwwww. She would climb on the top of the crib, lean over to the dresser, and eat the dirt out of the plant that was in her cute little Raggedy Ann planter! At first I couldn't figure out why there was always dirt in her crib. Then one day I caught her! There she stood with a wad of dirt on the corner of her mouth, looking like the cat that swallowed the canary. I decided not to call Poison Control (like I did the day she decided to eat some of her diaper rash cream), but I did move the plant out of her reach.

Actually, Jenni learned how to climb out of the crib not by climbing over the side bars. Oh, no - any kid can do that. She would climb over the front panel and do a header on the carpet. After several times of doing this she finally figured out it was painful and followed her brother's example by climbing over the bars.

Then there was the time I was downstairs and heard this loud crash, followed by silence, followed by my son crying. I bolted up the stairs to find him UNDER his dresser. I think he wanted to follow in his sister's footsteps of eating dirt out of plants and in order to get to the top of the dresser, he cleverly decided to pull out the drawers and climb up. Managed to pull the whole thing down on top of him. Except for a scratch on his leg and deflated ego, he was fine. But from that day forward his dresser had to be bolted to the wall.

They both tried that little trick with the drawers in the kitchen, too. So we had to devise a security devise which I think was a hanger pushed through all the drawer handles and clamped somehow so they couldn't open them. Of course, neither could I! We wound up with four of our kitchen drawers only good for things we didn't need very often.

And these things all happened before they turned three! So, when I hear my daughter's frustrations, I just smile. And whisper the word "Karma" to myself.